And God Created Man

How do we account for the existence
of man? Where did man come from? There are only two explanations. One of them is found in Genesis
chapter 2, verse 7. And the Lord God formed man of
the dust of the ground. and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life, and man became a living soul. In verse 18 of
Genesis 2, And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should
be alone. I will make him, and help me
for him. And out of the ground the Lord
God formed every beast of the field, every fowl of the air,
and brought them unto Adam, to see what Adam would call them.
And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the
name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle,
to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field. But
for Adam there was not found and help meet for him. And the
Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs,
and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the
Lord God had taken from man made he a woman, and brought her unto
the man. And Adam said, This is now bone
of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman. because she was taken out of
man. Therefore shall a man leave his
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they
shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the
man and his wife, and were not ashamed." God created man and
created woman miraculously, marvelously, and wonderfully. God made man
from the dust, he made woman from man, he breathed into both
of them the breath of life, and they lived. When God made Adam,
Adam was not an infant. Adam was a full-grown man with
all his faculties and powers and strength. When God made Adam,
he was not a savage. Adam was never a savage. When
God created Adam, he created an intelligent, brilliant, and
beautiful man. Adam was created a fit companion
for God, for Adam walked with God, and Adam communed with God,
and Adam fellowshiped with God. A beautiful, brilliant, intelligent
man who named all of the animals and all of the trees of the garden.
When God created Adam, Adam was not a sinner. Adam had no error
or sin or fault in him anywhere. He was created morally, physically,
and mentally upright. His body and his mind expressed
the very image of God Almighty. Now in verse 16 of Genesis 2,
the Scripture says, 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. In Genesis chapter 3, verse 3,
Satan came to the woman and asked her, hath God said, verse 1,
you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? The woman said,
we made of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit
of the tree which is in the midst of the garden. And I don't know
that that was an apple tree, I don't even know where that
started. I don't know what kind of tree it was, and I'm sure
no one else knows. I just know that it was a tree,
a special tree, and that God said of that tree, man shall
not eat. Now, man could eat of any of
the trees of the garden except that tree. Why it was there,
I believe, to show man his dependence upon God. While man was intelligent
brilliant, beautiful, strong, a genius, powerful, ruling over
all of the earth, had power over the cattle and over the beasts
of the field and over the birds of the air and the fish of the
sea, having dominion over all of the earth except one tree.
And as long as that tree stood untouched, it signified man's
dependence upon God, that God was still sovereign, that God
was still the Lord, that God still reigned over man. Man reigned
over God's creation, but God reigned over man. And that tree
stood as a token of man's submission to God as long as it was untouched. And the serpent said to the woman,
verse 4, You shall not surely die, for God doth know that in
the day you eat thereof Now here's a key verse in this Bible. Then
your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God. You'll be God yourself. You don't
need the Father. You don't need Almighty God.
God is keeping you in subjection and under suppression And if
you eat of this tree, God knows that you'll be just as wise as
he is and just as powerful as he is, and you won't have to
depend on him. Now that was Satan's sin. Turn
to Isaiah chapter 14. In the 14th chapter of Isaiah,
there was a sin before Adam's sin. There was a sin before man
fell, Isaiah 14. I don't know a great deal about
Satan's existence before He became Satan. I do know several things,
and not a great deal, but I know that his name was Lucifer. I
can name three angels, Lucifer, Gabriel, and Michael. And I believe
the Bible teaches that Lucifer was the most powerful, and he
was more or less the leader of the other angels. That he may
have been, over the original creation, Now how old the earth
is, we don't have any idea. We believe that the Bible teaches
there was really two creations, that God created the heavens
and the earth, and that something happened in between that creation
and the time that God recreated the earth and made man. And that
something was the fall of Satan, who had control and power over
this earth and over the skies and over all surrounding the
earth. But here is his fall in Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12. How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the
ground, which did weaken the nations? And here was his sin.
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount
of the congregation in the sides of the north. That's where heaven
is, true north. I will ascend above the heights
of the clouds. I will be like the Most High."
Five times in that brief statement, Satan uses the words I will. Not God's will, but my will. I will be like God. And when
Satan tempted Eve, he said, God knows that you will be like God. Now that caused his downfall,
and somebody said that's the very essence of sin. I will. That is the source of all sin. I will. And the essence of holiness
are the words that Christ spoke in the Garden of Eden, in the
Garden of Gethsemane, not my will, but thy will be done. We see the results of the fall,
we see it in nature, where the trees are covered with blight
where thorns and briars come up, a man plants a garden and
weeds grow, we see in the lightning, in the thunder, in the floods,
in the snowstorms, in the earthquakes, in the pestilence, in the famine,
we see in all these judgments the results of sin. And we see
it in our own bodies. We see our bodies begin to decay
and to fail. We see them begin to die. We
see the results of sin in our hearts. when we would think good
and instead we think evil. The Lord God promised after Adam
fell that he would come here as a second Adam and restore
what the first Adam lost. God promised that he would come
here as a man and restore that paradise and perfection to man. God created man in perfection. He created man in wisdom. He created man in holiness. The Bible says he created man
holy and upright. But man, choosing not God's will
but his will, fell into sin and was separated from God. And because
of that sin, disease and death and condemnation came upon man. God promised that he would come
to this earth in the form of man as the second Adam. And as the representative of
man, he would restore unto him that perfection and that paradise
in which he was originally created. Now that's the first explanation
of where man came from. Now here's the other. How do
we account for man? Here's the other explanation
of the existence of man. And this is a rejection of God's
Word. It is not a fact, it is a guess. It is not a fact, it is a theory.
It is not a fact, it is a supposition. The evolutionist seeks to explain
the phenomena of man by leaving God out of the picture, and making
man the product of an impersonal, godless universe. Now here's
what the evolutionist says. Somewhere, sometime, a bolt of
lightning passed through the gaseous vapors and created a
speck of protoplasm so small that it could not be seen by
the naked eye, it fell into the ocean and it began to grow. And out of nothing, something
came. And out of something, an amoeba
came. And out of the amoeba, a fish
came. And out of the fish, an amphibian
came. and out of the amphibian, a reptile,
and out of the reptile, an ape, and out of the ape, a man. Now, men talk of having difficulty
believing the Genesis account of creation, that God created
man out of the dust of the ground. In his wisdom and in his power,
he created man in his out of the dust of the ground and created
a woman out of the rib taken from the side of a man. They
claim to have difficulty believing that. My friends, I gasp in amazement
at the theory of evolution, and I find even if I did not believe
that the Bible was the Word of God, if I did not believe in
eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ. If I had a choice
between believing that a supreme power and an all-wise God who
existed before all things made man deliberately and on purpose
and formed him out of the dust of the ground, if I had a choice
between that and believing that out of nothing something just
appeared and out of something An amoeba came, and out of an
amoeba, a fish, and out of a fish, an amphibian, and out of an amphibian,
a reptile, and out of a reptile, an ape, and then it became a
man with eyes to see and ears to hear and a mind to think and
legs to walk and arms to move. If I had my choice, I'd have
to believe in divine creation. It's the easiest to believe of
the two. But I want to give you, briefly,
five reasons why I reject the doctrine of evolution, and why
I believe the Bible account of creation. God created man. Here are five reasons. Now take
your Bibles and turn to 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. 1 Corinthians, chapter
15, verse 39. Now listen to this. a man is different from a beast
in every way. There is no similarity between
a man and a beast. Now listen to this, in 1 Corinthians
15, verse 39. All flesh is not the same flesh. There is one kind of flesh of
men, another flesh of beasts, another of fish, and another
of birds. in bone, in blood, in cells,
in flesh, in soul, in spirit. There is no similarity between
man and the animal, none whatsoever. A man walks erect. There is not
a beast, there is not an animal anywhere that stands up and walks
erect. A man's countenance differs from
a beast. The light of intelligence is
in a man's eyes. The light of intelligence is
in a man's face. The intelligence of God is in
a man's face. A man reveals his thoughts with
his eyes. You can read a man's character
by looking into his eyes. Someone said the eyes are the
picture or revelation of the soul. A man can reason. A man can invent. An animal can
be taught to obey. You can take an animal and put
that animal in a cage and cause a light to go on when food is
dumped in his dish, and he'll after a while associate the light
with the dish, and he'll associate the light with feeding time.
You can make an animal obey and respond. But did you ever try
to teach geology to an ape? Did you ever try to teach astronomy
to an eagle? Did you ever try to teach theology
to a dog? It cannot be done. But our missionaries
will tell you that you can go to the most primitive man, a
man who has had no formal education at all, and you can sit down
with that man and you can teach him the reasons for these things. and he can understand them. He
can not only obey impulses, but he knows why he's obeying them. He knows why this has occurred. You can teach him, the most primitive
man can learn and reason about things. And then, and I've overlooked
this for a long, long time, I discovered this not too long ago, the thought
behind this, the astounding revelation of this. It's something that
we carry around with us all the time, but we give it very little
thought and very little thanksgiving. A man has a hand. Only a man has a hand in all
of God's creation. The fish has a fin, the lion
has a paw, The horse has a hoof. The bird has a claw. The man's
got a hand. You say, so what? That marvelous
gift which God has given to man enables him to handle precision
tools, enables him to hold a hammer, enables him to hold a screwdriver
or wrench or a pair of pliers. That marvelous gift enables him
to operate typewriters, computers, delicate instruments, and machines. That hand enables him to do what
you can teach an animal to go over and plunk on a piano, and
you can associate different notes in different forms and so forth. He cannot compose, and he cannot
play that piano. He cannot take that violin and
his hands follow those strings and make beautiful, beautiful
He cannot take a horn and his hands play that instrument in
such a way that the melody comes forth pleasing to the heart.
Man has a hand, and he's the only creature in God's creation
that has a hand. I reject evolution, first of
all, because an animal and a man are totally, absolutely different. And in no way is that animal
and that man alike. Secondly, I reject the theory
of evolution because the evolutionist, and I don't care who he is or
how brilliant he is or what theory he may hold, he cannot account
for the presence of life. No way. The world is teeming
with life. Life is everywhere. There's life
riding on every speck of dust. There is life in every drop of
moisture. There is life in the air, in
the ocean. There is even life in the ice.
There is life in the Sahara Desert. There is life everywhere. An
American was visiting in India. There he met an extremely fanatical
religious young man who would not eat any kind of meat. And
the man asked him why. He said, Because I will not eat
anything that lives. And the man asked him, he said,
Do you drink water? He said, Of course I drink water.
He said, Would you get me a glass of water? So the young Indian
got a glass of water and the man took it and just lifted a
drop out and dropped that drop of water on a slide, eased that
slide under a microscope and told the young man to look. And
when he looked down through that microscope, he saw thousands
of moving creatures in that drop of water. There's life everywhere. The evolutionist says that, here's
what he says, that life came to our planet from a meteor. I asked him, how did the life
get on the meteor? Well, he says, somewhere, sometime,
A bolt of lightning passed through gaseous vapors and created life
that fell into the ocean and began to grow until finally a
man emerged. Somewhere, where did the where
come from? Sometime, where did the time
come from? A bolt of lightning, who made
the lightning? Passed through gaseous vapors,
who made the gaseous vapors? fell into the sea. Perhaps you
could tell me who made the sea. Every theory of evolution takes
every holder thereof to a blank wall and leaves him with this
question. Where did that come from? Where
did that come from? And so as he goes from his man,
to his ape, to his reptile, to his amphibian, to his fish, to
his tadpole, and back to his amoeba and his one-celled animal,
you stop him right there and ask him, where did that come
from? The evolutionist cannot account
for the origination of life, the beginning of life. God is
life, and life came from God. And then thirdly, Evolutionists
have no explanation for the mind. I want you to listen to this
carefully. The evolutionist has no explanation
for the non-material qualities in man which animals do not possess. Where did man get his love for
music? Where did man get his love for
art and for painting? Where did man get his appreciation
and love for beauty? Where did man get his love for
children and his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren?
Where did man get a conscience that tells him when things aren't
right and when he does wrong? Where did man get a sense of
loyalty and devotion? Where did man get his grief How
many animals you've ever seen, tears streaming down their cheeks?
Where did man get his sorrow? Where did man get his laughter?
These gifts of affection, of the heart and of the mind, are
not physical properties. They came from God. who made
man. The laughter and the joy and
the loyalty and the faith and the devotion, these things all
are gifts of God, and they cannot be accounted for by the evolutionists. I picked up a book one day on
evolution. The man was writing against it,
and he gave this little illustration. He said, If you put a little two-cylinder
gas minibike in a garage, a two-cylinder gas minibike, put it in a garage
and lock the garage, and leave that little minibike in that
garage for two million years, after two million years you open
the door and it'll fly out as a rocket to the moon. That's
evolution. The fourth reason why I reject
the theory of evolution is this. There is not one shred of evidence
supporting the theory of evolution, not one. If man was gradually
formed from an animal, if man gradually came from an animal,
step by step, until we have man as he is in this present day,
when did the process stop? And I ask, why did the process
stop? Where is the proof? Why are there
no forms today between animals and men? For that matter, why
are there no forms today at all between any species? Six thousand
years of human history we have, six thousand years, and not one
link not only between man and animal, but there's not one link
between any species. Turn back to Genesis 1. Now,
while I was reading the scripture a moment ago, there are three
words that were repeated over and over and over again in the
first chapter of Genesis. I wonder if anyone noted those
three words. In Genesis 1, 24, and God said, bring forth the living creature,
here they are, after his kind. Cattle and creeping thing and
beast of the earth after his kind. And God made the beast
of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind. And every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth after his kind. It uses that over and
over and over again. What does it mean? It means this.
You can have Shetland ponies, you can have thoroughbred racers,
you can have Tennessee walking horses, you can have an old horse
out plowing, but you cannot make a cow out of a horse. There's
no way in this world. You can have little bitty ponies
that little children can ride. You can have great big horses
that win all the thoroughbred races, but you cannot take a
horse and make him into any other kind of animal. You can have
German shepherds. You can have poodle dogs. You
can have St. Bernard's or bulldogs. You can
have chihuahuas or you can have wire terriers. but there's no
way under God's heaven in 6,000 years of human history you can
cross a dog with a cat. And you can have any other kind
of animal, you just name them, and there are various kinds and
various types and they have various images But no animal ever has
been able to produce any other species. That's what the scripture
says. And there isn't, in all of the
6,000 years of human history, one link between man and an animal. Now, I was having dinner with
a man down in West Kentucky a few weeks ago, a very prominent,
outstanding man. who is a leader in his church,
who is a strong, honest, dependable individual, who is a graduate
of an outstanding college, who is a dear friend of mine and
respects me, and I respect him. And he asked me this question,
and we discussed it at length. He said, Can a person believe
in the doctrine of evolution and still believe the Bible. I want you to listen to me real
carefully. Can a person accept the theory of evolution, that
is, that man came from an ape, that ape came from a reptile,
that reptile came from an amphibian, that amphibian came from a fish,
and that fish came from an amoeba, and that amoeba came from a bolt
of lightning from the meteor. Where that came from, we have
to stop. Now, can a man believe that and still believe in God?
Can he still believe the Word of God? Can he still believe
that Jesus Christ was a truthful man? Can he still believe in
the in the doctrine of redemption. Can he still believe in the cross?
Can he still believe in salvation by the grace of God? Now you listen to me. I said,
no sir, no way. You've got to make a choice between
evolution and the Bible. You've got to make a choice between
evolution and creation by the word and by the power of God. You can't have both, because
they're entirely opposite. Now, Brother Mann, you explain
what you say. All right, I will. I'll tell
you why you cannot have both. You cannot have the word of God
and the theory of evolution. I'll tell you why. Number one,
the Bible, the word of God, including every prophet who ever wrote
including the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible and every prophet presents
a world created by the hand of God, by the wisdom of God, by
the power of God, by the glory of God, In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and
all things were created by him, and without him was not anything
made that was made." Paul said in Colossians, all things were
created by Christ and for Christ and through Christ, all the way
through the world. Now that's what the Bible presents,
the whole Bible. Not just, you take, people talk
about rejecting the Genesis account of creation. This is the Psalms
account too, and Isaiah's account, and Malachi's account, and Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, and all thirteen epistles of Paul. This
is their account of creation too. It's not just Genesis' account
of creation, it's God's account of creation. And the silliest
thing I know is for a man to because he got a little education
to reject the Genesis account of creation. The whole Bible
rises or falls with the account of creation, God's account. I'll just take one verse, flip
over here to the book of 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Just dig into one of Paul's writings
here, 2 Corinthians 4, and here Paul's talking about the new
birth. And he says in verse 6, God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, that's creation, has shined in these
hearts of ours to give us a knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Christ Jesus. You can just go throughout the
word. Evolution says that the earth and the world and man came
about through an impersonal process of change, and it just so happened
that it worked out as it did. Then the second reason why you
cannot believe the Bible and believe evolution is this. The
Bible says that God created man in his own image. Evolution says that God did not
create man, that man evolved from a beast. Now when God said,
ìLet us make man,î weíre talking about Father, and man was made in the image
of God. And when all of this is over,
and the believer is raised from the dead, we're going to be conformed
again to the image of God. When we see the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Scripture says we're going to be like him. We're going to
have a body of flesh and bones, we're going to have a perfect
mind, we're going to have eyes that see unlimited distance,
ears that can hear the very thoughts of God. We're going to have a
mind that can comprehend all things. We're going to have emotions
which no burden is too heavy to bear. It's going to be perfect,
just like God. I believe there's going to be
a restoration of things as there were back here in Genesis 1 and
2. I believe there are going to be animals on the new earth.
I believe there are going to be trees and rivers and streams
and creeks and animals and fruit and all these things, just like
it was in paradise, just like it was in Eden. There is going
to be a new heaven and a new earth, and man is going to walk
on this earth with God as Adam walked with God. But one thing,
no possibility of falling, no possibility of sin, no possibility
of transgression. We are going to see him and be
like him. Now the third, evolution, says
God didn't create man, man came from a beast. The Bible says
that man was created upright and holy. That's what the Scripture
says. Adam was beautiful, Adam was
brilliant, Adam was wonderfully, marvelously, miraculously made
in the image of God, holy and without sin, and he fell. That's
what the Bible says. What's wrong with us today? Why
do we think wrong and talk wrong and act wrong? Why do we get
old? Why do we suffer? Why do we bleed?
Why do we die? Because man failed. The evolutionist
says that man started down here and he's on his way up. The Bible
says man started here and came down. The evolutionist says he
started here and he's going up. The opposite. The Bible says
that man is a fallen creature who needs a divine Savior to
lift him from the dunghill and restore him to the place where
he is fit company for God. That's what the Bible says. The evolutionist says, leave
man alone, and he'll eventually evolve from the dunghill into
an archangel all by himself. He's on his way up. He won't
need any help. When that butcher Adolf Eichmann
was arrested and tried and sentenced to be executed for killing so
many Jews in World War II, he was in prison. He was one of
Hitler's right-hand men. They finally caught him, put
him in prison, tried him, found him guilty, sentenced him to
be executed, and somebody sent a minister to see him. The minister
came to see Mr. Eichmann, and they talked a while,
and then the minister confronted him with the person of Christ,
Jesus Christ, our mediator, our representative
before God. And Eichmann, whose hands were
dripping red with the blood of so many people, who was such
a horrible beast. You know, George Whitefield said
one time, man is half beast and half devil." And somebody said,
Well, that may be so, but when we say that, we ought to apologize
to the beast. Ikeman was worse than a beast.
And he looked at this minister and he said, I believe in God,
I believe in heaven, and I believe in hell. But he said, Preacher,
I want you to know I don't need a mediator. I'll stand before
God on my own two feet. Brethren, I need a mediator.
In Adam I stood. In Adam I fell. In Adam I've
fallen to the depths of sin and depravity. I have imputed unto
me a guilty nature. I have imparted unto me by natural
birth a rebellious nature. I am on the dunghill of sin,
and I need to be lifted by the grace and power of God, and I
need a mediator with God to even make my prayers acceptable, and
my worship acceptable, and even my tears need to be bathed in
the blood of Christ. I need a mediator." The evolutionist
rejects the idea of a mediator, and he says, man will gradually
eventually evolve into an archangel. The Bible says, now listen to
this, the Bible says that sin is the moral transgression of
the law of God for which you and I are responsible. Sin is
the moral transgression of the law of God for which you and
I are responsible. Evolution says that sin is nothing
but the drag of your animal ancestors, and eventually we'll be without
it. Eventually we'll evolve out of
it. And in the last place, the Bible
says that God sent his Son into the world to restore man to his
place of glory. that God sent his Son into the
world to restore man to his place of perfection, that God sent
his Son into the world to restore creation to its place of glory
and perfection. But evolution denies the Bible,
denies the atonement, and makes man his own God. And that was the original sin. That was the original sin. That's
where it all started. That's where our trouble all
started. Satan said, back yonder, before the world, before man
was created, Satan said, I will be God. And he failed. When God put man in the Garden
of Eden, when he created man in his own image, through the
temptation of Satan, man says, I'll be like God. And he failed. And now the evolutionist says,
we don't need God. We don't need a creating God.
We don't need a regenerating God. We don't need an interceding
God. We don't need a keeping God.
We don't need a transforming God. Leave us alone. We've evolved this far, and we'll
make it the rest of the way by ourselves. Our dear Lord, give us faith
in Thyself and faith in Thy Word. Oh, the unsearchable riches and
mysteries of Thy Word. Now we see through a glass dimly,
then face to face we're going to know as we have been known. Now we walk by faith, but faith
will give way to reality. We're going to see all things
in the light of thy glory, and thy wisdom, and thy power. But while we walk this earth,
and particularly we pray for our young people who are exposed
to so many temptations, and so many pitfalls, and so many dangers,
and so many satanic powers trying to destroy their faith, and trying
to turn their hearts away from the living God. We pray that
thou would give them strength. We pray, O God, that thou would
give their feet a foundation, that thou would give them faith
in thy word, confidence in thy word in whatever comes Even the
unanswerable questions will commit to the wisdom of our God. And
O Lord, above all things, give us faith and confidence in Him
who is our Redeemer, who shall restore everything that we have
lost, who will lift us from the pit and enthrone us at Thy right
hand, Christ Jesus, our Redeemer. In His name we pray, amen.

And God Created Man

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