Now more of you than I would like to think are as afflicted as I am at my age with waking up in the early morning when your sleep is not done. Did you ever have that experience? I have it often. and I'd gotten into the habit of going back to my school days when at my day school, a public school, though in England a public school is a private school, and a private school is simply a school. But I don't want to confuse you. But I learned so many scripture portions in my day school that they still come back to me in the middle of the night or the early morning I will lie there and I will recite to myself some of these things I learned them when I was a boy at day school Isaiah chapter fifty-three, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For she shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. I could go on, say the whole chapter. These things don't leave us. Now one of the portions that I learned and that I've been reciting from time to time is Psalm number eight. Let's turn to it, shall we? Psalm eight. I suppose I was probably about eight when I learned Psalm eight and it still stays with me. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. who has set thy glory in the heavens, or above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, thou hast ordained its strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the works of thy fingers, the moon, and the stars which thou hast ordained, What is man that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madeest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet. all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O Lord our God, O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. There's a question here, and I want to take it as a topic. What is man? The verse says, What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him, for thou hast made him, a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madeest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet. I want to suggest to you that obviously man is a creature. Thou hast made him. And as a creature, he's only a very small part of a massive and widespread creation. I think sometimes that he has a little higher assessment of himself than he should have. Man has become proud. and even ecology has gotten scared. Man does not really realize that he's a creature, and he doesn't recognize that he is, and this is in the main, answerable to a creator. I read a man named Stephen Crane who wrote a book called War is Kind. Very strange book. But I make a quotation from him here. He says this, A man said to the universe, Sir, I exist. However replied the universe, the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation. Now I think that that was putting him in his place. I'm not obligated to you because like me, you are a creation. So man is a creature. But the more we think about him and study him, we come away with the impression that God has a great opinion of man. and nobody knows him better than God, God has a great love for man, and he has made man a creature of privilege. Now sometimes we don't recognize how privileged we are. The unique thing about man's creation is that God made him in his own image. That's what we are told in Psalm eight. And he made him to have dominion over all things. Man is a creature of privilege. It doesn't mean when it says that he's made in God's image, that God necessarily has hands and feet and so on, a donkey has a brain, a man has a brain. A donkey has a liver and a donkey has a man has a liver. A donkey has a heart and a man has a heart. There's not so much difference between the man and the donkey physically. And speaking of a donkey, I was thinking of a story, or it comes to me, of a little boy who got a donkey for a birthday present. And he was so excited he couldn't wait to get into the stable to see his donkey. And in short order he was there. And his father followed him, just to see what would happen. And when his father looked through a crack in the door and saw the boy approach the donkey, he was very surprised to hear him talk to the donkey as he stroked him from ears to nose. Oh, you nice Christian donkey. Oh, you nice Christian donkey. Daddy was intrigued. He pushed open the top of the stable door and he said, John, why are you calling your donkey a Christian donkey? He says, Daddy, he has such a nice long face. I'm sure you don't know any Christians like that. I've met a few. But you know, a Christian with a long face is a misnomer. When your sins are gone, when God is your Father, when you're born again, when you know that heaven is to be your home, there's nothing, absolutely nothing, to have a long face about. Now, if it has nothing to do with the feet and the hands and the heart and the liver and so on, When it says that God made man in his own image, what was it that God was focusing on? He was focusing on the fact that he was making man in his own image. Man was special. He became a creature of privilege. Man, as God made him, had access to God. No donkey ever had that. No rome speed ever had that. None of the other creatures had a means of approach to God. That's the main reason why man is a creature of privilege. Do you know why? because God gave him the capacity to think and to love. And God did it because God wanted him. God loving him wanted him to love God in return. Marcus Dodds was an old preacher with the Free Church of Scotland. He died, I think, in nineteen o six. But he made a statement that I wrote down one day, I thought it was rather profound. He said, Matter, however fearfully and wonderfully wrought, is but the platform and material in which spirit, intelligence, and will may fulfill themselves and find development as God intended them to. There's a difference between the other creatures and man as a creature. What were those things that Marcus Dodd mentioned? The first one was spirit. God is a spirit. and we were made in the image of God and given a spirit. The second thing that he mentioned was intelligence. Now, I think that a dog can learn things. I think a horse can learn things. If you sufficiently drum them into them, they will learn them. But it's hardly accurate to say that a donkey has intelligence. Now, somebody's going to argue with me that, and it's not a large point, because a dog can look up at you in such a way that you're sure that that dog is deciphering your thoughts. But in this sense, a dog doesn't have intelligence. Intelligence goes along with spirit. And the third thing that he mentions is will. Spirit, intelligence, and will. Now here is another writer. Man alone among God's works can enter into and approve God's purpose in the world and can intelligently fulfill that. Now no other creature on earth could fall into that category. It's so important I want to read it to you again. Man alone among God's works can enter into and approve God's purpose in the world and can intelligently fulfill it. What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him? That's the reason why. Because God put into man that which could respond to him. And yet man across the face of the globe has many, many, many men and women. have no contact with God at all. There's a means of contact, but it never crosses their mind that there is a God to face. One of the things that you should most thank God for, as a believer, is that you came into contact with things that rose your conscience Now that's something else that the other creatures don't have. But you have one, and God made you that way so that you would know right from wrong and so that you would come to grips with the fact that somebody made you, and therefore you are responsible to someone in the way that you live. What is man? He's a creature that God made capable of communication with himself. That must surely make man the most privileged of the creatures upon the earth. He's been given a spirit, he's been given intelligence, and he has been given a will. Now the latter thing is where he usually comes unstuck. Man is also a creature of promise. Because as God made him, he made him with great capabilities, not only physically and intelligently but spiritually. he was made capable of communion with God, not only finding, getting a knowledge of God, but actually talking to him as a man talks to his fellow. Now you know something about this, most of you, probably all of you. Because you get away in a quiet place, sometimes you kneel, sometimes you sit in your seat, Sometimes before you're going to take a nap and your thoughts are moving hither and yon, they light upon God. And you think about Him. In your heart you love Him. And so you sit in your chair or you lie in your bed and you talk to Him. Man is made capable of communion with God. And He does that with His Spirit. The Spirit... that was in the image of God and like God's Spirit so much so that it became the medium of communication between them. What about intelligence? We don't live very far from Cape Canaveral as it used to be called, and we know that man has proved by his intelligence of being able to probe the almost unfathomable. He is actually manufactured a computer that almost thinks for itself, and under certain circumstances actually does. Nobody can deny that man has intelligence. Some don't use it, but they have it. This man with whom God wanted and made possible communion is the God who gave man intelligence that staggers us. Aren't you astounded at some of the things that surround you? Some of the things that you read about. How many of you have visited Cape Canaveral? Now, there's quite a number of you. How many of you have stood somewhere in Keystone Heights and watched the shuttle take off? Zoom. How many of you? Now, I live in the right direction. I look out my front door, and it's a wonderful sight. And at night, it's a very awesome sight. And man manufactured it. Man made it. The intelligence that God gave man enabled him to learn something of the laws of nature and how to overcome the laws of nature so that a massive vehicle, like the shuttle, can be shot out into space and be brought safely to go out again. and again and again. God has made man able to fathom almost the unfathomable. And man hasn't reached the ultimate yet. If the Lord Jesus tarries his coming, there are many, many things that are coming into being at this point that will stagger us even more that we've been staggered we ordinary folk by what we see in the air and in the heavens. We know that man has proved himself capable to mount to the almost, and I suppose, totally Unscalable. Man has set foot on the moon. I don't know what our forefathers would have thought. If they were told as they looked into the heavens at that bright, shiny object, one day man will put foot. They would have been so taken aback. They say, I don't believe it. There was a time when I didn't believe it would be possible for man ever to reach the moon. I had to change my thinking because they did it. And they did more. They sent pictures back to us of them standing on the moon, setting up the flag, the American flag on the moon. I'll never forget. the first journey into space for a spaceman. I have two sons. One was in the house and working in the basement, this was Mark, and the vehicle had landed on the moon, man had gathered his stones and his dust and all the other things that he was to bring back to Earth. And then... His machine sitting on four legs was ready for takeoff for him to come home. I had my eyes glued to my television set. And when it got within maybe two minutes, I called down to Mark in the basement. And I said, son, the vehicle is going back. They're going to send it. It's going to start on its journey in two minutes. He said, okay, but he never came up. No sense of wonder. I was really shaking in my boots. I was so excited. I was so thrilled. And I was so scared for the man in the machine. I watched it take off. And I marveled. Because the camera followed it. and passed out of sight. Intelligence? Man certainly has intelligence. Man has reason, I think, to be proud of some of his accomplishments. But if he does the right thing, he gives to God all the credit. The God who gave him his spirit also gave to him his intelligence. Now we are all intelligent. In varying degrees, But you now, when you come face to face with a man who is imbecile, how grateful you are for your capacity to think and to figure things out. In other words, your intelligence. Do you ever thank God for these things? We take so much for granted. It isn't until we come up against some tragedy like that. and we say to ourselves, I could have been like him. That could have been me. How different my life would have been. How wonderful God has been to me! Not to let that happen to me. Man is a creature to promise, made capable of communion with God, given an intelligence, that made him capable of reaching the moon in a machine and returning safely. And God has made him a creature of such privilege that if he will work in harness with God, the Bible says that nothing will be impossible to him. It's a sad thing for a creature as privileged as man to be out of touch with his maker. We're not automatically in touch with God because man was not here very long when he fell. And then God took certain things from him. He took his innocence. He was no longer innocent. He had disobeyed God. He took from him too, I believe, that kind of intimacy that he had with the other creatures, even, it says, the fish in the sea. I believe he lost it. But, you know, God has made it possible for him to regain that. I can't imagine that he wants to become intimate with the fishes, but I do believe that God has made it possible for him to come up a long way if only he will make his peace with God. Really, that's not possible for a man to do. He has to come and take a look at the cross. And he has to see their God manifest in the flesh, dying in agony and shame and blood. Because the man to whom was given spirit and intelligence was also given will. And he chose his own way. And since the wages of sin is death, The man for whom God had such great plans is condemned by his sin to go to hell. Unless he takes the only way out, and that is coming to the cross and realizing that Jesus died there for my sin. He didn't go there because he deserved to die in that fashion. He was a spotless son of God. He went there and he died in that fashion. And scriptures down through the book are fulfilled. They pierced my hands and my feet and so on. Proverbs is pointed to this. Isaiah fifty-three what a picture of the cross and the crucifixion but because man has a will and he uses it in the wrong direction stubbornly going his own way walking willingly in the dark walking in the wrong direction deliberately deafening himself to the voice of God which says, you know that where you're going is not heaven. Brings him to the point where he's sin is real to him. And where God says now you're face to face with it. Are you sorry for it? Are you prepared to repent of it? Or do you look at somebody else and say, my life's not as bad as his life? My life hasn't gone that far. I just had a grandson who committed suicide because he was on the wrong road. Do you know what he said to his younger brother who adored him? Don't put your footsteps on the road that I'm walking. And yet he deliberately persisted on that road. Man has a will and he needs to be controlled. Now he can allow his will to become an avenue for repentance for his sin. If he's willing to look at God's word, if he's willing to ponder the thoughts of God's holiness, if he's willing to look into his own life and see how far he's short he comes, how bad are his habits, how evil are his thoughts, so that he comes to the place where he says, I can't get to heaven this way, I'm lost. That's what drives a man to Christ. He cannot save himself. When he realizes that, then he wants to find his Savior, and he finds one in the Lord Jesus. Yes, man, who's a creature of privilege, is a creature of promise. because God made him capable of great things, and great things are demonstrated by men. And I've rehearsed some of them. But in the final analysis, man is a creature of perversity. I know what's good for me, but I don't want it. I know the way I ought to go, but I prefer this one. We are, by nature, so perverse. Privilege, oh yes. And promise, there's so much that is capable in us of doing what God wants us to do. But we turn and we walk in the opposite direction, or we hesitate to step out In faith when God calls us, somebody has said that faith steps out into the seeming void and finds the rock beneath. When you have faith, you don't question God. He says, take this step, you take it, and the solid rock is there. You may not have seen it. You may have wondered about it, but God's made you promise this. If you will live by faith, you'll live a happy and successful and productive life. But keep God out of your life. You have no aims and you have no power and you have no future. You'll suffer loss in the glory if you're a Christian. And I don't understand how a man can suffer loss. and recognize at the judgment seat of Christ that he has been so disobedient. I don't know how he's going to enjoy heaven to the full. I just don't understand that. But I think there's a penalty somewhere at the end for that. Man's will is what causes his choices, and so often they are wrong choices because he has a perverse mind. Will you turn with me for the last moments, please, to Jeremiah chapter seventeen? You see, man's problem, his greatest problem, is he has a heart problem. Man has a heart problem. Let me read to you these verses or some of them. The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron and with a point of a diamond and and is graven upon the table of their heart and upon the horns of your altars. I want you to remember that, the table or the tablet of the heart. Now go down here. And I want to start with this one, and bring you back to the one I just read to you. Verse five, Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and that maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. Here is the first thing, and it's wandering. You see, a man, when he seizes his own will, and gets what he wants it causes a diversion in his path that led to God he is wandering away from God his heart departed from the Lord that's heart trouble of the worst kind now go down to another scripture Verse nine, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Because you're a man or a woman, because you're a human being, and God has been responsible for your creation, there comes a moment when he challenges your will. And he says, look, I made you. I've preserved you. I feed you. I help you. I love you. But I'm not getting love in return. Man loves his own sin. And it is sin. The consequences of sin are hell at the end of the life. There's nothing different from that. When a man's heart departs from the Lord, if he departs far enough and he never repents, he finds himself in the caverns of the damned. Be careful that your heart isn't wandering from God. We are human and we are creatures of perversity. So often we choose the wrong way instead of the right. So his wandering is found in verse five. His heart departeth from the Lord. And then his wickedness is found in verse nine. His heart has become deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. To live to the end of your days with a wicked heart is to be shut out from God forever. wonderings lead to wickedness. Then the verse says, I, the Lord, search the heart. That's the next verse, verse ten here. There isn't anything in your life or in your heart that you can hide from God. Whether you're a believer or not yet a believer, God reads your heart. He searches your heart. He knows what is in your heart. But he says, when you come to trust him, a new heart will I give you? That's worth having. The man whose heart departs from the Lord becomes wicked and sinful. And a thing that God... that will shut him out from the presence of God. He's a creature of perversity. His woe is that God reads his heart. Do you ever sit down quietly and ask yourself, what is the state of my heart today? God is looking down upon my heart. Have I been selfish today? If you have, confess it and God will forgive it. Do you remember you were angry and you spoke an evil word, a harsh word? You remember it. You come and tell the Lord that you're sorry about it and you ask forgiveness and he expunges it. You know, the wise Christian keep short accounts with God. If you sin and immediately you're overwhelmed with a sense of your worthlessness and you're sorry about that sin, you confess it to God and then try to put it right, that's the way to stay a happy Christian. There's one last thing about man that I want to say and it's this. Man is a creature of preference. He is the one who makes the choices. And it's the same with God and his salvation. He can choose to become a Christian and a child of God, or he can choose to go his own way and be separated from God forever. Now there may be someone here. and there has never come into your life a moment of conversion. I took you to the cross a little earlier in my message. You've got to take a look at the cross and Jesus dying there. You've got to recognize And to tell him, you know that he died for you. If you've been the only sinner in the world, Jesus would just as willingly have climbed the hill called Calvary, carried his cross finally, and been nailed upon it. Because his love for you is such, he would have done it for you alone. I've said this poem from this platform more times than one. I'm going to repeat it. Is it nothing to you that the Savior has died? Is it nothing to you? Can you carelessly glance at your Lord crucified? Is it nothing to you? Can you gaze on the dying one in pain and forlorn? on the face of the royal one, marred by the thorn, on the nails that are, the hands that are nail marked, and feet that are torn. I say, is it nothing to you? Your will has to be broken. You have to come as the sinner that you are, confess your sin, and then by faith accept God's forgiveness. He is waiting to do it. Shall we pray? Our Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus. We thank you that so many of us know him and love him, though so often we selfishly grieve him. But there may be someone here And the moment of conversion has not come yet. And the death of the Lord Jesus is totally in vain for that person. Lord, don't let them die like that. Touch their consciences and their hearts that they might before it's too late. Trust the Lord Jesus. Receive his salvation. and bring heaven into their future. We ask it seeking thy blessing upon what has been said. In the name of that self-saying, Lord Jesus.