to the first chapter of the book
of Genesis. Genesis chapter 1. Let me read verses 27 and 28. Chapter 1 verse 27 and 28. So God created man in his own
image. In the image of God created he
him. Male and female created he them. And God blessed them. God said unto them, Be fruitful
and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. have dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living
thing that moveth upon the earth." Well, according to these two verses, God made man
in His own image, after His own likeness, and set Him at the
head of His visible creation. Now, in that eighth psalm that
I read, we have a wonderful beautiful
reference to this dominion that God gave to Adam, the first
of his creation. In Psalm 8, let me read a couple
of passages of this psalm again. David evidently had spent some
time out in the open at night on a very starry night when the
stars were shining almost as bright as little suns. A very enlightening night. and scene of this visible creation
that David was introduced to at that particular time. And
when he looked up at the stars, the vastness, the brightness
of space is overcome with admiration and exaltation of the magnificence
of the work of God. He said, When I consider thy
heavens, the work of thy fingers, and
the moon, and the stars, which thou wast ordained, He is overcome by the magnificence
of the work of God. No stars, vast suns. And he was also overcome with
the insignificance of man who he had placed in control of this
lower, invisible, creation here on earth. He had set him at the head of
this lower visible creation. Just to kind of halfway understand
it is an amazing thing to me that God, over all and above
all, God Almighty would place the whole of His creation, this
lower creation, under the dominion of a man, and have this man to know that
he was stronger than any of the objects that surrounded
him, that he was in strength mightier than all of them, God
gave this great and glorious honor to man. He stood at the
head of God's visible creation in all the strength of his innocence
and could say, If not out loud, he said unto
himself, There is none on earth stronger than me. All the inhabitants
of this earth, all the fish of the sea and everything
that moves and wiggles and crawls, comes under my dominion. But
this happy and glorious state The condition of man didn't last
very long. The Bible tells us that sin and
all of its ugliness entered in, and death by sin, and so death
passed upon all men in that all have sinned. What a change did
this introduce! into this lower creation that
God had given man dominion over. This creation was marred and
defaced by the ugliness of sin. Man introduced it. His rebellious nature is indicated and described throughout
the length of the Bible. The mess that we're in all had its beginning here. What awful ruin! Sin did work. Instead of man being the strongest of all creation, he became the
weakest and the worst. Sin stripped him of his strength.
Sin stripped him of his innocence. Sin marred and defaced the image
of God in which he was created. And the word that God uses to
describe his state and our state by nature is the word enemies. We are described now by God as
enemies. Enemies of whom? I say. Enemies of whom? We are by nature enemies of God. several years back having conversation
with a very religious man. And the conversation finally
directed itself towards his partner in business. And he told me that
his partner in business had retired, and I knew his partner very well.
And I said, well, I'm glad that God enabled him to live this
long and to retire and enjoy the latter part of his life and
so forth. And the fellow said, yeah, he
said, he was glad of that, but he said, you know, he said, as
nice as this fellow is, he said, he's not a Christian. But he
said, he's an awful good man. He's not a Christian, but he's
an awful good man," he said. And I said, well, what do you
mean by that? And he said, well, I mean he's
a good citizen, and he's likable, and he doesn't speak ill of his
neighbor, and he's easy to get along with and all that. And
I said, well, there's just one thing of matter with him, then,
as far as I can see. And he said, well, what do you
think is the matter with my retired friend? I said, well, from what
you've said thus far, I said his problem is that he hates
God. Oh, no, he said. And he immediately become offended
with me for making that accusation. And I said, well, if he's not
a lover of God, he's got to be a hater of God. And I said, you've
already told me that he wasn't a lover of God. And I said, knowing
him as intimately as I do, I said, he's never given me any indication
that he loved God. I said, he never went to worship
God, did he? He said, no, as far as I know.
I said, well, aren't you a member of a of a religious organization,
and you meet every Sunday and Wednesday?" He said, Yes. And
I said, Haven't you done that the biggest part of your life?
He said, Yes. And I said, Is not your partner
here been with you for twenty-five or thirty years? And I said,
Has he ever come and worshipped with you? And he said, No. I
said, Do you know of any place that he ever went and worshipped
the true and the living God? He said, No. I said, Well then,
By your own testimony, I said, he hates God. Oh, no, he said,
he couldn't hate God. No, no. And he got real upset. He said, he can't hate God. He's
not like that. He doesn't hate God. Well, the
word that is used to describe our state, there was a time,
there was a time When man, in his innocence and in his strength,
ruled and reigned in the lower visible creation of God, and
God came down and walked with him and talked with him, and
they communed together, and they had fellowship together, but
that happy state did not last long. Man fell. and rebelled against God, and
God describes his state and his nature and his condition as of
that time and right now as an enemy of God. There is not a word in the Bible
that I know of that is a worse word than the word enemy. And I looked up that word enemy
just to see what the dictionary, the definition of the dictionary
gave for the word enemy. And the first definition was,
one that hates another. One that hates another. We are
enemies of whom? Enemies of God. Now, I know that
that is a hard pill to swallow. For anyone who does not know
God, that's a hard pill to swallow if you don't know God or don't
know who God is. You will not admit that you are
a hater of God. But the Bible describes that. Enemies to whom? Enemies to the
great and glorious ever-living God in whom we live and move
and have our being, to whom the God of heaven and the God of
earth, the God that has called us into existence, the God upon
whom we depend for every breath that we take in to this body. It's to Him that we are enemies
and haters. What an awful state must we be
in. to be enemies of God. Our brother,
Wayne, when he prayed, he prayed, Lord, bless us this morning here
with Thy Word, and Thy Word is truth. Bless us, he said. And Lord, he said, if there be
those here under the sound of this Word who are yet alienated
from the life of God by the wicked works of their own mind. May
they be reconciled unto God. May they see their need, see
their need. And for a man to see his need,
this will be part of it. He'll have to come to this truth
and bow to it. that he's an enemy of God, an enemy. What an awful state
must you and I be in to be, by nature, enemies of such a glorious
and merciful and wonderful God as Jehovah God. Now, unless we
know who God is, unless we have some spiritual apprehension of
his great glory and his great majesty, unless we have some
experience of his greatness and power and tremble before him,
we really can't enter into the meaning of the word in a vase,
seems to me. that the Bible itself could not
have used a more dreadful word than that word in a man, a person that hates another person. I have a neighbor who's an awful
nice fellow, an old fellow, and he stopped by the other day with
some new potatoes. And we talked a little bit, and
I asked him, I said, Well, Mr. Coy, I said, Is either one of
your sons coming in to visit you this week? And he said, No. He said, They'll not be in. He
said, Now, David, or I mean Bob, my youngest son, said, His daughter's mother and dad is visiting this
week, so they won't be able to come in. He said, it's my granddaughter's
father-in-law and his wife, they're in. And I said, well, where are
they from? He said, they're from Arizona.
And he said, uh, my granddaughter's, my granddaughter's
husband's stepfather. So it's not his real father,
it's his stepfather that's visiting Bob's people now. And I said,
stepfather. And he said, yeah. He said, he
said, Susan's grandmother was married twice. and said, her
husband's father, real father, he said, he's from West Virginia.
And I said, is that right? He said, yeah, he's from West
Virginia. He said, he's a hate monger. Now, this was strange
coming from Mr. Coy, whom I've known for 30-some
years, to talk about somebody being a hate monger. And that
was interesting to me when he said, he's a hate monger, because
I never heard him talk like that before. I never heard him say
anything about anybody. And he called this man a hate
monger. And I said, well, do you know him? No, I never laid
eyes on him. But he said, he's a hate monger.
He said, Susan's husband's real dad is a hate monger, and he
lives here in West Virginia. And the only person that I could
think of being a hate monger, in the sense that he's talking
about it, was a fella that I'd read about who lives down in
Greenbrier County, I believe. And he's some sort of a preacher.
But he is against black people. and he's against the government,
and he wrote a book on how to build a bomb to blow up big buildings. And when they had the big blast
out in Oklahoma that destroyed that building and killed so many,
the first thing they come up with when they got these two
boys and accused them of being part of it was that they got
their information on how to make a bomb from this guy that lives
in West Virginia. So when he said this hate-monger,
I said, well, that's the only one I know that you could classify
as a hate-monger, although I know every man, every woman, every
boy and every girl outside of the Lord Jesus Christ hates God.
But he's talking about this hate-monger. Hate-monger. That's what we are,
hate-mongers. Maybe not in the sense that that
fellow down there in Greenbrook County is that wrote in a book
how to overcome the government and how to make bombs and all
that. Hate mongers. That's an awful
thing, isn't it, to say about another thing. He's a hate monger.
Well, it's true. It's true. Enemies. Enemies. Enemies of God Almighty who? in word or in thought, in the
least of his actions, could trample us this morning and crush us
like I crush an insect between my foot and the pavement. Enemies to whom? To the great
and glorious God who called us into existence. In Him that we
live and move and have our being. We are enemies. God Almighty,
huh? Oh, who could hurl, who could
cast us off into hell in a second? In a mace? In a mace! Look over here in
the book of Romans, chapter 5, I believe it is, verse 10. Listen to what this says. For if, when we were enemies, enemies
of who? Enemies of God. Enemies of the
God that made us? What has He done that would create
such an awful, awful feeling? of hatred. If, when we were enemies, we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being
reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." Then there in the
eighth chapter of the book of Romans, and the seventh verse, It says, because the carnal mind
is, in my day, against God, for it is not subject to the law
of God. Now, what I'm trying to say here
this morning, what I'm trying to establish, I'm trying to cause
men and women, to cause myself and to cause you, to understand
what you are by nature, and that it might dawn upon your soul,
and it won't apart from the Spirit of life and the Spirit of life
revealing it to you. And I pray to that end that the
Spirit of life and life might reveal unto you your need, your
need of a Savior. You have need of a Savior whether
you ever find it out or not. I pray that you will. But you
have need of a Savior because you're an enemy of God. You're
His enemy. You hate Him. You hate God. If words mean anything, you hate
God, and you have no reason to hate Him. And you have need. of being reconciled unto this
great and glorious God who hath not offended you, but you have
offended Him. We are enemies. How are we enemies,
you say? How? Well, let me tell you. We
are born enemies. We are born that way. Now listen to me. is born as a toad is born a toad, as
a snake is born a snake, so man is born an enemy of God. Like can only beget like. An enemy of God can only beget
an enemy of God. Therefore, we are enemies of
God by birth. Like can only beget like. A cow can beget another cow. A rabbit can beget another rabbit. A toad can begat a toad, a snake
can begat a snake, and an enemy of God can only begat an enemy of God. Therefore, the consequence is
that we are enemies to God by birth. Does not the Bible say
that we were conceived in iniquity? Conceived in sin and shapen in
iniquity, and therefore we come into this world as far as we
stand in Adam's fall, enemies of God Almighty. And we need
to be recognized. We need to be—if we go out of
this world unreconciled to God, our state will continue on as
it is now, enemies to God Almighty. We are enemies by nature, not
only born enemies, but enemies by nature. And that's 7th verse of the book
of Romans again. Let me look at that again with
you. Romans 8 and verse 7. Because the carnal mind is enmity,
is enmity, not might be or It could be, or there's a possibility,
but is, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it
is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, so
then they that are in the flesh cannot please God Almighty. Enemies by nature. What are we but carnal minds,
as fallen children of fallen parents? The result is enmity
against God. Now, an enemy can be reconciled,
but enmity cannot be reconciled. Our very nature is abstract,
irreconcilable, inmate against God, hating God, hating His ways,
hating everything about God, everything that's God-like. We hate such an awful, awful
condition. Born in a mess, and grow up in
a bed, never getting any better. That's our condition. And that's
the truth. So help me, God. That's how we
are. God, have mercy on us this morning. And if we be unreconciled unto
God, reconcile us, Father in heaven, come down and drop a
pounce of grace in our bosom, open our eyes that we might see,
cause us to tremble before you, and cry out, Do not pass me by. While on others thou art called,
God call on thee. full of enmity as a sponge is
full of water, after it's immersed in a bucket, and take the sponge
back out of, and the water, it's so full of water that the water
drips out of it. Now, that's the way we are, full
of enmity against God Almighty. Every nerve, every fiber, Every
power, every principle, every faculty, every passion of us
is at enmity with God Almighty. That's the way we are, warring,
warring, warring against God. Saddam is warring against a faction
of his people there, and his people are warring against them,
and it looks like the United States is warring against them. Warring against God, that's our
whole life. Inmate by practice. We are alienated
from the life of God. Inmate is in our mind by wicked
works. We've never done anything. We've
never done anything. that God could pronounce good
or blessed in our lives, in the state and nature that we were
born in, as enemies of God. We're enemies. We go astray speaking
lies from the womb, all of our acts in babyhood. We've got some babies here this
morning, and we look upon them as pure and innocent. But that's
not the case. That's not the case. They're
not pure, and they're not innocent. They go astray, speaking lies
from their mother's womb. All of our acts, even in babyhood,
all of our acts in childhood, all of our acts when we're youth,
all of our acts in our manhood, although they may not be known
at the time as such, yet all of our acts is a glaring, daring
imitation against God Almighty. We're in bad shape, bad shape. Can't do anything good. How awful! to have this threefold enmity
by birth, by nature, and by practice. God help us. May God enlighten
us as to who we are and make us see and feel and experience
a deep need that'll make our souls cry out. Have mercy! Have mercy, have mercy, have
mercy. We're in bad shape, aren't we? Oh, what can be done about it?
Well, listen to me. There's hope in Jesus Christ. God! What if He left us in this
state? What if there was no Redeemer?
What if there was no one? who could reconcile us unto God,
could take away the enmity in our minds. What if we'd be, of
all men, most miserable without hope in this world or without
hope in the world to come? But God, in mercy and grace,
sent the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of His bosom, the Son of
His love, sent Him to stand in our state, to be our sponsor,
to bear our shame, to bear our guilt, and to carry on Himself
all the iniquities, all the iniquities of our lives. Oh, my soul, God bless you, sent
him, the Lord Jesus Christ." All God and all man in one person. Did you know that the Lord Jesus
Christ, when they were out there on that boat, in that lake of
water there, and they was all asleep, and the winds, The winds
began to howl, and the water began to raise and to slap on
the side of that boat, and it looked like it was all going
to be drowned. And they woke the Lord Jesus
Christ up, who was asleep in the after part of the boat, and
they said to him, they said, Master, care us not that we perish. Now, the Lord said, O ye of little
faith. And he spoke, and he spoke to the water, and
he spoke to the wind, and the winds and the waves and the water
obeyed his voice. It was his lips that spoke. as
a man, but it was as God that he spoke to the wind and the
waves, and they obeyed him. The God-man, God sent him. In other words, God in the person
of his Son came himself to meet our needs. And what is our needs? We're sinners. We're described
by God himself as being his enemies, enemies of God, in the mind and
in the soul, in the heart, enemies of God. Is there any hope for
us? There's hope in him, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who came, who came and lived a life that we never
lived, a life of absolute perfection. Absolute perfection. They looked
him over. They searched him inside and
out, those that hated him. And they come up with this, we
find no sin in him. No sin in him, they said. And
he had no sin in him. And he come as a man and lived
and represented us on this earth. as a perfect man, God and man in one person, and
as a man. Boy, I see it. "'Come unto me,'
he said. "'Come, ye that are weary and
heavy laden, ye that are without hope, You that have a desire
to be rid of all this, to be reconciled, come unto me and
I'll give you rest. Come unto me. There's a way out
of this. It's by coming to the Lord Jesus
Christ. You say, well, must I not repent?
He'll give you repentance. He'll give you repentance. Must
I not believe? Yes. He'll give you faith. If you go to hell, if you die
in this state of being an enemy of God Almighty, if you die in
that state and wind up separated from God throughout the dangerous
ages of eternity, you blame yourself. You can blame yourself, it'll
be all your fault. And if God ever saves you, it'll
be God's fault. But if you go to hell, it'll
be your fault. He told you to come. He commanded you to come. That's not an invitation, that's
a command. He commands men everywhere to
repent. Are you interested? Enemy of God? Not reconciled? You interested
in being reconciled? Brought back into God's favor? Come unto me, our Lord said,
and I'll give you rest. Rest for your soul. Have you seen your needs this
morning? That's my objective. My objective. It certainly won't be reached
unless God, in mercy and in kindness, grants the Spirit to implant
the words of life in your soul, open your eyes that you might
see, and open your understanding that you might understand. I
pray thee, O God of heaven and earth, that men and women, and
boys and girls, even here of this world, might see their need,
and feel their need, and come unto Him, whom to know is life
eternal. The Lord bless you. We'll meet
again this evening.