I was afraid he was going to forget
my name.
Wouldn't be unusual.
I'm the fellow who says I want you
to meet my wife.
What's her name?
She doesn't think that's particularly nice.
Names do cause a problem.
I was in a Bible conference up in
Muskoka Lakes in Canada some years ago, and
one of the brethren asked for the privilege
of introducing me, and he went at great
lengths.
And finally, when he finished with his long
list of things, he said, I now want
to present my brother Paris Green.
And I don't think anybody knew the difference.
Let's bow in prayer.
Father, we thank and praise Thee for what
we've heard tonight, for the truth that centers
our minds and our hearts, and what we've
seen and felt.
We would ask Thee that this may be
nourished by us, and that what thou we
experience in these next minutes together are going
to tie into and be and build upon
that which we've seen.
We do rejoice that Thou art here, that
Thou art the Teacher, that the very Holy
Spirit that inspired the Word is here with
us and in us to illumine our minds
and hearts, and to enable us to appropriate
that Word.
So bless each of us according to our
needs.
No two of us are in the same
place in our relationship with Thee.
No two of us have quite the same
needs.
Many years ago, during the time when the
Second World War was raging in Europe and
our nation was so involved in it, I
was talking to a university student, and he
raised this question, you know, we had the
bombing of Pearl Harbor, we discovered about the
killing of the Jews by Hitler and his
people, and the whole scene was one of
grave sadness and sickness and heartache.
The world was on fire.
And this young university student said, why did
God ever make man in the first place,
if he had any idea that man could
be capable of doing what we see him
doing now?
Well, we talked about it, I gave him
the best answer I was able to give
that he was prepared to receive, and yet
it was one that stayed with me, and
it forced me to do a lot of
thinking, a lot of study, a lot of
praying, waiting on the Lord.
Why did God make man?
What's the purpose that he has in this
being we call man?
Why are we here?
Well, we have to find out something about
the nature of God to answer the question.
We have some statements that are made about
God, and we put them in order, not
in terms of where they occur in the
Scripture, but just so that we can see
them in perspective.
First, the Bible tells us that God is
love.
Now, we know a little bit about love,
don't we?
We know that love is incomplete without an
object.
God has always been love.
There never was a time when he began
to be love.
It's the essence of his being.
It's as eternal as he is.
God is love.
This means that God the Father is love,
and God the Son is love, and so
is God the Holy Spirit.
And that tells us something about God, tells
us something about the Trinity.
None of us really understand the Trinity, but
it helps a bit at this point to
know, bring into focus some of the things
we do know.
For instance, we know that the Father is
God.
But God is not God only as Father.
He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And the Son is God.
But God is not God only as Son.
He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit is God.
But God is not God only as Holy
Spirit.
He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Now, wherever the Father is revealed, there the
Son and the Spirit are.
And wherever God is revealed as Son, there
the Father and the Spirit are.
And wherever God is revealed as Holy Spirit,
there the Son and the Father are.
Now, try unity.
God as Father from eternity past has yearned
and longed for children.
Children, some of us ourselves, flesh of our
flesh, bone of our bone, nature of our
nature.
And always in the part of the Father,
there's the hope and the yearning and the
aspiration that something that the Father has become
or acquired or done will be respected and
appreciated and enjoyed by the children.
God as Son yearned from eternity past for
brethren, elder brother, longing for brethren.
And He also is called the Bridegroom.
And you know that the Bridegroom is incomplete
without the Bride.
Love, therefore, demands an object.
Oh, we know the Father loved the Son
and the Spirit.
But we're talking now about a love from
the triune God for someone outside of himself.
For God being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
is no less one God than three Gods.
And so, God whose love in the fullness
of time purposed to bring to himself and
for himself a being made in his image
and made in his likeness for the express
purpose of being the object of God's love.
God as Father wanted children.
God as Son wanted brethren.
God is eternal Bridegroom.
He yearned for a Bride.
Why?
That the Father could reveal to the children
all the Father is and the elder brother
could reveal to the brethren all the elder
brother is.
And the Bridegroom could reveal to the Bride
all of his plans and purposes and intentions
that they might be enjoyed and appreciated and
understood by the Bride.
And so, in the fullness of time, God
began this process of preparing a place for
his beloved.
In the beginning we are told God created
the heaven and the earth.
We're not quite sure when, but we do
know that it is in connection with this
love story.
And then in verse 2 we are told
that the earth became without form and void.
That's not the way it was created.
My personal metaphysics, with which you needn't agree
as any test of fellowship, I won't hold
you to it.
My own personal metaphysics tells me that there
could be a vast time span between Genesis
1-1 and Genesis 1-2.
It could be long enough for all the
eons of time that the archaeologists have found
and the paleontologists have asked for.
I don't know.
The only thing I know is that something
happened and so that the earth, which was
created by God, made out of nothing, became
without form and void.
Now, I got a little bit of metaphysics
I'll put into this.
When did it become?
In Isaiah we are told by the prophet,
speaking by inspiration, that Lord Jesus could say,
for it was of him the prophet spoke,
I saw Lucifer, Satan, fall as lightning from
heaven.
Where do you think he fell to?
Well, he was put on an island in
space, like Devil's Island was a penitentiary prison
for the French government.
There was a little speck of matter in
space and God apparently decided that he would
turn that speck of island, that speck in
space, into a penitentiary.
Apparently, Lucifer and those who rebelled with him
were cast out of heaven and sent to
this little island we call earth.
That's what could have happened in Genesis 1
-2 when the earth became without form and
void.
Why?
Well, let's go back to what caused the
problem.
Remember?
Here's an intelligent being that's been created apparently
because God in his wisdom and in his
love anticipated that this beloved was going to
need some help.
And so he created some messengers.
We call them angels, seraphim, cherubim, whatever.
He created them to be servants.
And in one of these he invested more
of intelligence and beauty and power because there
was an administrative task to be performed.
And so he gave to this one son
of the morning he was called the superior
endowment so that he could serve as a
prime minister over the angels, over these beings.
And we find that he had certain powers
given to him and he used those powers.
He thought, imagined, and he obviously felt.
He had emotion and desire and he had
choice.
He began by ruminating, saying, if I were
God, I'd do so and so.
And that quickly moved into the next step.
I will set my throne above the throne
of the most high.
Now, as an intelligent being, he had to
have weapons and tools, armaments.
If he was to succeed in this, don't
you think, he knew that God is love.
How's he going to get God on the
throne?
Is he going to out-love God?
No.
You see, as an intelligent being, Lucifer understood
that every thesis has its antithesis.
Or, if you will, every positive has its
negative.
Or still again, every front has its back.
If you see what looks like the front
of the hand and you quickly run around
behind it and go back, you didn't see
a hand.
Because if there's a front, there has to
be a back.
And if there's a positive, the negative could
be somewhere.
And if there's a thesis, the antithesis exists
or could exist.
Now, we've already seen one of the attributes
of God, God's love.
But the Lord Jesus said, I am the
way, and then he said, I am the
truth.
I am the truth.
This is an attribute.
God is truth.
And then he said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life.
God is life.
And so, the enemy, who's now decided to
put his throne above the throne of the
Most High, has decided that the only way
he can do that is to take the
antithesis, the negative, the back.
And so, this one who is life and
truth and love, and then he said, I
am the light of the world.
So, we'll take those four, light and life
and truth and love.
These are attributes of God.
Now, look what is happening.
The enemy is saying, against light, I will
take the antithesis, darkness.
And against truth, I'll take the negative, the
lie.
And against love, I'll take the very opposite,
hate.
And against life, I'll take the more powerful
thing, death.
So, now here's one who's going to set
his throne above the throne of the Most
High, armed with powerful weapons, darkness, the lie,
hate, and death.
Now, notice the problem.
God, who is love and light and life
and truth, cannot say, I hate this rebel,
and take hate to overcome hate.
For if he did, he's destroyed himself.
So, there had to be a battle in
which love and light and life and truth
met in conflict, and Christ said, I saw
Satan fall as lightning from heaven, and I
sink to earth, and earth became without form
and void.
And darkness covered the face of the deep.
Death and darkness, every living thing died.
Now, when the time comes when God is
going to make this beloved, he has a
whole universe from which he can pick the
seed.
He's created it all.
He could have gone anywhere.
Where did he choose to come?
Well, he picked out that little grain of
sand in the great universe called earth, and
he came here, to this penitentiary, this penal
colony.
And he started to work on it.
And six days he labored.
First, he brooded over it the way God
the Holy Ghost broods over sinner souls, and
the first thing that happened is God said,
let me.
And likewise, just as God first awakened sinners
from their sleep of death, and then God
recreated and prepared.
And when it was fit and ready and
everything was there, he formed man from the
dust of the ground, and he breathed into
him the breath of life, and man became
a living soul.
And he looked at the being that he
had created.
In his image, in his likeness.
I do not know where and how cherubim
and seraphim differ from the image and likeness
of God.
Only thing I know is the only being
described as made in his image and likeness
is man.
He doesn't say it about the cherubim.
I don't know where the difference is.
He didn't tell us.
Anything I do from that would be just
speculation.
And I don't know why it is that
he loved man, but the only being that
God ever made that he said was in
his image and likeness is the one that
he said that he loved with an everlasting
love.
I don't know how he feels about cherubim
or seraphim.
Doesn't tell us, but it tells us he
loved man.
And so, what we have then is a
being made in the image and likeness of
God in this recreated environment.
And what does he have as he stands
there before God?
What are the attributes he has?
What are the characteristics of man?
First, he has certain appetites, or urges, or
drives, or propensities.
Follow what you will.
Desires.
Let's look at them.
Number one, he has an appetite for food
because man is to be nourished by the
frequent intake of food.
Some of us apparently got carried away a
little bit.
But when I see the way that some
people are who don't seem to have a
problem, I clinker up just looking through a
magazine.
Some people can clear off the buffet table
twice, three times a day and never gain
an ounce.
I weigh three ounces more when I put
good housekeeping down.
I have been.
Anyway, he made man so the man has
to have frequent intake of food.
He gave him what some may call an
appetite, call it hunger.
And then we learn in sequence.
And so he gave us a thirst for
knowledge, an appetite to learn.
And then he gave us an appetite for
status because he was going to have man
rule over everything he created.
So he had to put something into man
to stand erect and to exercise authority.
And then he put into man an appetite
for sex because he had created one and
then the wife.
And from that pair would come this whole
family of his children.
And so he put in an appetite, a
drive, a propensity, an urge for sex.
And then he put into man an appetite
for pleasure because he'd done such a marvelous
job in recreating this world.
He took the whole spectrum of colors to
paint the sky at night and in the
morning.
So that man could enjoy it.
And he put blue sky in the day
and green flowers and watermelon.
Have you ever thought about it?
Watermelon.
Why?
You don't paint it.
It's not considered the greatest source of vitamins
in the world.
You get more vitamins eating parsley than you
do watermelon.
But I never seen anybody sit down to
a plate of parsley and chuck it away.
So we have a little watermelon.
It's pretty to look at.
It's fragrant.
It tastes good.
Why?
Just a little extra thing God threw in
so he'd enjoy it.
He gave us an appetite for pleasure.
And what did he say when he looked
at this being that stood there with this
drive or urge or appetite for food and
for knowledge and for status, for security, for
sex and for pleasure?
What did he say?
It's bad.
He said it is good.
He looked at all that he had made
and he said it is good.
Now what happens?
In about 48 hours from this time, God
is going to have one of the angels
of heaven come down and guard the entrance
into the garden.
Now why didn't he send that angel there
48 hours earlier to keep Lucifer out of
it?
Well why didn't he pick another spot somewhere
where he couldn't go?
He was in penitentiary.
He wasn't free to roam the universe.
Why did God stand by and let this
ancient foe come in to the garden and
get to this beloved one?
Well you see God had put Adam under
moral government.
He said everything I've made is yours.
But this one thing, if you eat of
it, you'll surely die.
God placed law, responsibility and obligation
upon man and he
permitted his ancient foe to come.
Now you see God might have put his
man somewhere else or he might have kept
him out.
But what would he have done?
He just postponed the day of encounter?
What would happen?
What would happen to you parents if the
only way you could make sure that your
children were going to continue to love you
was that you built about a 50 foot
high wall around your yard and cut the
television wire so they could not see anybody
or hear anybody?
No one could get in and no one
could get out.
And you were there because you wanted their
love so badly that you wouldn't let any
attempting influence touch them.
What would their love mean to you if
you'd gone to those lengths to preserve anything
less?
Well what if parent father who works in
the factory all day comes home at night
and has to set his little 4, 5,
6 year old child on a chair and
take out his pocket watch and get it
going and hypnotize his child?
So that when his will controls the will
of the child he can say to the
little one, get down from your chair and
walk across to me.
Crawl up on my lap.
Put your arms around my neck.
Put your lips on my cheek and say,
I love you father.
Do you think that would give any gratification
to a father's heart?
No.
So he permitted his ancient foe to come
with lies because that's his nature.
He's a father of lies.
He's a liar.
That's his weapon.
To come with darkness, that's his weapon.
To come with hatred, that's his weapon.
To come with death, that's his weapon.
That's his tool.
And so he comes with all that he
is to Mother Eve and he lies to
her.
Did God say you will not die?
That's a lie.
She wasn't going to fall over stiff, instantaneous
poison as though she were bitten by a
cobra.
She died as a result of it.
He lied to her.
He brought darkness to her.
He claimed to bring enlightenment but he brought
her into bondage, brought her into death, brought
her into hatred.
And then she left and went to her
husband and said, now you've got a choice
to make, old friend.
God comes every afternoon at 5 o'clock
and I'm with you 24 hours a day.
Who's it going to be?
You going to go with him for a
few minutes in the afternoon or with me?
All 24 hours.
And he'd gotten addicted to her in a
couple of days and so he said, well,
I guess I'll hang around with you.
And so he deliberately, deliberately, she might have
been deceived but he made a sovereign choice,
as she had, no excuse for her.
Made a choice.
Isn't it interesting?
He cringes, hides in the bushes.
Adam, where art thou?
And finally Adam is drawn out and he
hears the first words from Adam's lips was,
I was afraid for I was naked.
I was afraid.
Now I want to ask you, why did
Mother Eve sin?
What did she have that made her?
Anything in her nature that made her sin?
Anything that she had.
Well, let's go back, what did she have?
She had an appetite for food, a presence
to look at, and for knowledge, make you
wise.
And for faith, and for status, you shall
be as God.
She had appetites and urges.
Now what did Lucifer do?
What did the enemy do?
What he did was to appeal to her
appetites and to stimulate her imagination.
All she had was appetites and urges and
imagination.
And she was tempted.
Now let me give you a definition of
temptation.
Temptation is a proposition presented to the intellect
to satisfy a good appetite in a bad
way.
I'll repeat that.
Temptation is a proposition presented to the intellect
to satisfy a good appetite in a bad
way.
Now let me give you a definition of
sin.
Sin is the decision of the will to
satisfy a good appetite in a bad way,
a forbidden way.
There's no guilt in temptation.
Our Lord Jesus was tempted in all points
like as we are, yet without sin.
There is no guilt associated with temptation.
Guilt is from the decision, not the execution,
the decision of the will to gratify a
good appetite in a bad way, a forbidden
way.
Now, all that Mother Eve had was appetites
with intelligence.
Right?
Any teachers here in the front row?
Who's a teacher?
Who can write in the blackboard?
All of us.
You just talked yourself into it.
Would you come and draw a triangle there
for us?
About 18 inches on each side.
Equilateral triangle.
There you go.
Not quite equilateral, but we'll accept it.
Now, on the left-hand side, going up,
put mental.
Big enough to be seen by Connie Baxter
on the table.
Down the right-hand side, put emotional.
And across the bottom, put volitional.
Now, I have a privilege most of you
don't have.
There's a pitcher of water there.
Oh, I got a beautiful pitcher of water
right here.
Look at it.
Now, you can see that.
And you may be thirsty as all get
up, but you don't have a glass of
water.
Now, you know how to pour it into
a glass.
And you know how to lift the glass
to your lips.
And you know how to swallow it.
And you know how good it feels and
how nice it is to have a glass
of water.
But because you know all about it doesn't
mean you've had a glass of water.
Doesn't mean it.
The mental aspect does not give you a
completed act.
Now, you may want a glass of water.
You may be ever so thirsty for it.
Your tongue may be feeling like cotton in
your mouth.
But because you're sitting there in your place,
you're not going to get up and take
these out of my hand.
Your emotions are not overcoming your volition.
Now, when you get to the point that
you've got to have a glass of water,
you've made up your mind, if you won't
give me the one in your hand, I'm
going out and get one from the pump.
Now, that's the decision of the will.
You can't have a drink of water without
having the mental, emotional, and the volitional aspects.
You can't get married or go to work.
You can't do anything in life and have
a totality experience unless all three elements are
involved.
I talked myself into it.
Years ago, I was the first church I
ever passed.
We had the Armstrong Air Conditioner.
You know what that is.
They're the fans from the local mortuary.
They put them in the church pew.
It was a July day, very warm, flowers
outside, smell a little after, you know, the
breeze is carrying the odor.
And me would buzz in and buzz out
and fly out of this little country church
up to the head of Lake Osakis.
You could see Lake Osakis and Little Osakis
through the windows and the people never looked
at me.
And, well, the Armstrong Air Conditioners were just
a pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh,
pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh, pshh,
pshh.
Back and forth with these fans.
Well, I said, how much of this is
just social conformity and how much is need
for air?
So I had an illustration that I hadn't
used but I could make it seem as
though it were appropriate.
And I told them about this boy that
had been skating on the river and the
wolves came to chase him out of the
forest and he would skate and get around
them and he went a little too far
and an ice flow broke off and he
was in the running river.
And it was falls and it was cold
and the snow was blowing and the colder
the boy got, the slower the pain was.
And just before the boy froze stiff, there
wasn't a fan moving.
They were all right with me.
You see, what I'd done, I didn't say,
stop fanning, what good would that have done?
I said, you're not really hot.
I didn't do that.
I just worked on their mind.
I worked on their mind and I got
through that, I got the other.
Now, that what happened to Mother Eve, presented
to the Italy and she thought about it
and she felt that she made a choice.
She thought and she felt and she made
a choice.
What did he do?
He thought about it and he felt something
and he made a choice.
What did you do?
What did I do?
We all did the same thing.
We chose to satisfy good appetites in a
bad way.
Scripture said, all have sinned.
One hundred percent of all the people alive
in the whole world sin without having a
fallen sinful nature.
Now, the fact that we're only two doesn't
change anything.
No, it's still a hundred percent.
But it proves conclusively to me that the
issue is one of choice, not of compulsion.
God dealt with man as a morally responsible
being who recognized the intrinsic rightness of the
law that God imposed.
The foundation of moral government is in the
nature of God and in the nature of
man and God is as he is because
he must be.
It isn't right because God said it.
God said it because it is right.
Man has an instinctive illumination within himself that
enables him to test the rightness of the
law.
I went into a tribe of people in
the Sudan years ago.
The year would have been 1946.
They had never seen a missionary, nor heard
the name of Jesus, nor had seen an
idol, but I was told by them.
But I learned that they knew the name
for God.
And they knew that God had made the
world.
And they knew that God was holy.
And they knew that God's enemy, for whom
they had a name as distinctive as they
had for God, was evil.
And they knew that this evil person whose
name they gave had not made the world,
but that he was in charge of certain
parts of it.
He was in charge of how many of
your goats stayed alive and how much grain
you got from the seed you planted.
And he demanded chickens and he demanded goats
to be brought to the witch doctor and
sacrificed to keep the spirits that controlled the
goats and the chickens satisfied.
They knew that certain things were wrong.
And I said, what's wrong?
And without my coaching them, they said, it
is wrong to lie.
It is wrong to steal.
It is wrong to commit murder.
It is wrong not to care for your
ancient parents.
It is wrong.
And they went right through the list.
Who taught them?
I said, who taught you?
They said, what do you mean, taught us?
Our stomachs taught us.
We know it in here.
Has anybody talked to your ears about these
things?
They said, why should they talk through our
ears when our stomachs yell at us?
Because they had the seat of personality, not
in the heart, but in the stomach.
We had one tribe when we did the
translation, be not afraid of desire.
The only way we could put it in
the parlance they'd understand was, don't get a
shiver in your liver, it's only me.
Who was going to punish them when they
died?
Horse!
So I invited them into the prayer room,
which was over under the next tree.
And they came over and sat down there.
And I taught them a nice little prayer.
And they prayed it after me.
And I went right back to my tent
and wrote a letter to send home as
soon as I got there, because I wanted
the church at home to know what a
great missionary they had.
I didn't know why these fellas took so
long.
I made one visit, and I had seven
converts.
It was a lucky thing I did.
If I had to do it while they
were out, it would have never been.
At any rate, I got my letter off
and got all the publicity value from the
decisions, but three and a half months later,
I was back there.
And I asked where the Jesus boys were,
because that's what they decided they called themselves,
and they came to see me.
They were still going to the Tina dance.
They were still sacrificing to the evil spirits.
They were still going to all the evil
beer feasts.
But you see, I fixed them up with
a neat, clever, tricky little health insurance policy
so they could have more risk of having
food.
And all of a sudden, I decided that
I didn't know anything in this world, even
though I'd been a pastor at home and
had graduated from Bible school.
I didn't know anything in this world about
getting people prepared for grace.
But God, in His sovereignty, that afternoon there
in the garden, brought Adam and he brought
Eve out, and they stood before Him.
And the first blood that was shed on
the recreated earth came from the hand of
God, because it says that the Lord God
made coats of skin.
Now, friend, you can make coats of wool
and not hurt the goat or the sheep,
but when you make a coat of skin,
somebody dies.
And He slew the lamb and took the
skin and made aprons for them, and by
it He pointed a finger down across the
century when someone would say of Him, The
Lord God in the garden that day is
the one of whom John will one day
say, You are the Lamb of God, that
made the way for the sin of the
world.
So the whole thing begins right there with
who God is, and the kind of a
being He is, and the kind of responsibility
He expects, and the kind of justice that
He requires, and the vindication of His holiness,
and the upholding of His law, the whole
thing in microcosm is right there before us.
And it moves us to understand the kind
of beings we are, the kind of being
God is, what God expects and what God
requires.
No, I've never gone back.
Oh, how I'd like to go back, and
if any of those men that were there
that listened to my childish, puerile, incomplete, inadequate
misrepresentation of God's grace were still around me,
how I'd like to remind them to flee
from the rapture call, and call upon Him
whom to know as life eternal.
Shall we bow in prayer?
Father, we lift our hearts to Thee tonight,
thanking Thee with all of our great wisdom
and love, paying for the good of the
entire universe, throughout eternity.
Thou wouldst have a people who would praise
Thee, glorify Thee, and honor Thee.
As Father, Thou wouldst have children.
As eternal pride grew, Thou wouldst have a
bride.
And so Thou wouldst hazard all that the
world has seen, that this good might come
into the universe, and that Thou wouldst fulfill
all that Thou art as the God with
love and light and life and truth.
And tonight our hearts go out to Thee
for some who, perhaps like these whom I
so immaturely and presumptuously misrepresented the gospel to.
Maybe there are some even here who've had
others just as genuine and sincere as I
was, and just as mistaken, who've led them
to make a presumption without ever knowing Him
or to know His life eternal.
And so, if that be the case, Father,
we're now leaving Thy presence when we leave
each other, and we'll be alone with Thee
throughout the night hours, and speak to our
hearts concerning our needs.
And bring us back on Memorial, Father, prepared
to think further and go on with Thee
in our understanding of who Thou art and
what Thou dost ask of us, and Thy
plan and purpose for us.
We ask with thanksgiving in Jesus' name.
Amen.