I know the hammer, I believe the spoon sounds familiar, but it's an echo from last year. More verses than both. Genesis chapter two in verse one. Now the serpent was more subtle than any piece of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Go, have God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, that of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden. God has said ye shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not eat of the garden. For God just know that in the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God's knowing good indeed is. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and that it had a desire to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband good her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed big leaves together and made themselves open. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his guide hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Turn our side. And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. And he said, He told you that I was naked, half-thousand of the tree, whereof I commanded thee, that thou shouldest not eat. And the man said, The woman whom thou gaveeth to do with me, he gave me of his tree, and I did eat. And again, God reversed his word. this morning to our hearts and to the Christ. Our Father, we ask once more that by thy Holy Spirit thou will speak to our hearts through thy word. We thank you for thy word, we thank you for its clarity, we thank you for its sullen. We ask, Lord, that we might see ourselves this morning as we ponder this solemn portion We ask, O Lord, that we might be brought face to face with our imposition, fear, and mood again, and face to face with our own adequacy and position. We ask in the name of the Lord Jesus. Now you will recall that last night we began our list of nine beginnings with two at the beginning of the material universe. and the beginning of the human race. And this took us to the end of chapter two, where we read the man and his wife were not ashamed. And that was where we finished last night. The first chapter was giving this illustrative of God's feelings with a soul. And chapter two brings before us in an illustrative fashion the joys of Adam in a state of constant contact with God, or rather it brings before us Adam's constant joy in this way, and is illustrative of the walk of a man with God in light so that he is happy and satisfied. Now again the picture changes, and in chapter three we have the beginning of human sin. I remind you again that it is not the beginning of sin. So we believe that that took place somewhere between verses one and two in chapter one, when Satan sinned and the angels rebelled and the great catechism or catastrophe resulted. But now we have man, having been made perfect, living for a period of time in purity and innocently falling into sin. There are three things I want to bring before you this morning concerning this beginning of human sin. First of all, the prelude to it. Secondly, the substance of it. And thirdly, it affects. And these things we have in these two verses that we read. Now sin always has a beginning somewhere, and oftentimes it is only just a small beginning. When the serpent came to the garden on this occasion, there was no indication that things were going to be any different from that they had seen the day before, or the day before that. And when the serpent made his approach, again there was no indication that this was to mark the downfall of this woman and her husband, but so it turned out. If you read the epistle of James, you will find a little verse there. It verse five in the third chapter which says, Behold how great a matter a little fire can look. The marginal reading is, Behold how great a wood or forest a little fire can look. And those of you who have been reading the newspapers of late know that even a carelessly cast away cigarette end can result in the diva-saving of hundreds and hundreds of acres of forest land. Just a little beginning. How many of you have been reminded by the Sunday announcement all around the country, break your mouth? A little fire can kindle a great forest. You've got to be careful of little beginnings, especially in the matter of sin. I remember an occasion when I was in London some years ago, I should say many years ago, and there was always the case around Buckingham Palace there was a milling crowd. We were always waiting for cars with notables to come out or go in through the palace gates. But I remember something suddenly happened. At Constitution Hill there came a fire engine with its bells ringing. They don't have sirens in the old country. They have bells. And this thing making an awful racket came a Constitution Hill and began to make its journey around the Victoria Monument in front of the palace. And suddenly on the second floor a pink window opened onto a balcony and a little girl stepped out and the people forgot the fire engine and they swarmed over to the railings there for there on the balcony stood Princess Margaret Rose. Just a little girl interested in a fire engine like other little girls and little boys. And after that fire engine went to deal with the business again a conflagration at what is turned out to be that started in a very small way. As we watch the beginnings of sin, we shall not find ourselves eventually looking back upon lives that have been delastated by evil. Sin always has a beginning. Now there were three things that led up to this one, and I want you to know this one in this chapter. First of all, number one, Eve listened to the wrong voice. And number two, Eve looked in the wrong direction. And number three, she longed in the wrong word. Now what do I mean when I say these things? The serpent said unto the woman, Therefore on the chapter three, Has God said, You shall not eat of every two of the gods. Now immediately the Satan has in mind to lay doubt in this woman's thinking. What exactly has God said? Now it is trying to give her a loophole. Say that and Satan is very skillful, you know, in finding seeming loopholes. There are men in this day and age in this we live who are paid for the same thing, finding loopholes. They call them lawyers. I heard about two men strolling through a cemetery one day, and one said to the other one, look here, here's a small grave to hold two men. The other one said there are not two men buried there, only one. Oh, no, there must be two, said the first man. See what the other guy says. Realize a lawyer and an honest man. However, it is possible sometimes to find loopholes. And Satan is suggesting to the women that there may be a way out from what God has said. Now there really wasn't, you know, that Satan was very anxious to give the woman the idea that there was a way out. She hasn't thought about it up until this time, but now she begins to think. The woman said unto this serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden. God has said ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Now that was not what God said. He said nothing about touching the tree. He did say ye shall not eat of it. that already Eve has started a conversation, or Satan has managed to start up a conversation with her, and she is listening to a voice that already has begun by suggesting that there is a loophole out of the way of God's instruction. Now the question that Satan, as the conversation unfolded in pride, is this. that God was out to keep the women. You shall not surely die, he says, for God does know, but in the danger he eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be of God's knowing good and evil. I wonder whether there is anyone here this morning, and Satan has come very subtly and subtly to you from time to time and suggested that because we are a Christian, there are so many things that you're missing in life. There is so much that you could be doing that you're not doing. And there are things without which you needn't really have a bad conscience, and you could try them. The devil is a past master at the art of impressing people with the idea that God is a thief. And the world around you has that idea. They say, I wouldn't want to become a Christian. I'd have to give up this and give up that and give up the other. Well, if I were a Christian, there are so many things I would have to do without. They forget that they have never tasted things that are real and contested by the heart. They walked on only one side of the street, and they hadn't tasted the other ones. As Satan tells them, it's not worth walking, and so they continue on this side. But my Christian friends, you're different. You have tasted the joy of getting victory over sin instead of giving way to temptation. You have known what it is, so you have sensed your job too. to have had fellowship and communion with God, and to have known what it is in your trials and difficulties, to have standing at your side generally able to solve your every problem. So it's a strange thing that you should be tempted from time to time to turn aside, because having had a sudden cross move, it's amazing that you should be attracted to a length of step And yet there are believers like that. Perhaps it is that they have never really given to the Lord Jesus, the right of way in their lives. They have never tasted the experience of being whole and dearly to Christ, so that living the controlled life, with the way the rings of such a light in the hands of the Lord Jesus, they have known true joy, true peace, real victory and overcoming. Maybe you're a Christian who's been falling between two schools. You've never given God to all and learned the joy of a surrendered life. Or you have never, or it's been a long time since you, you hear through the reins on the neck of your passion and let them go to town and pray for the joy in the world of its treasures and passions and so on. So you've never had the best out of this world or the best out of the world that is to come. I'm sorry in my heart for a half-hearted Christian. I'm sorry in my heart for a man who tries to keep one foot in the Christian path and one foot in a worldly path. That man's going to get torn in two in the process. Eve listened to the wrong voice and that voice suggested to her that God was out to speak her. Now you young people, when the temptation comes to you to believe that maybe there are things in the world that you will enjoy, maybe they will be brought up in a Christian home. And sometimes you hear young people talking about things that you never tasted and you say now, wouldn't it be right for me as a Christian to know how these things taste? so that I'll know what I'm giving up and then yielded me more to the Lord than just off a very subtle way of being tempted. Because the fact is, you cannot juggle in these things, you cannot give them the right and place them without being corrupted in the place and without leaving out spiritually. He doesn't say, and you can tell it not from me, but from the Word of God. There is absolutely nothing in this old world that can satisfy your converted heart. There is nothing that the world can give to you that can bring you real joy. For the best thing you can do is satisfy yourself on this one point, to begin with. God is not out to keep you. God would only keep from you the things that in the end would destroy you. God has the monopoly of two girls, two kings and two to charity factors. He had not learned that lesson, because he bowed her ear and she listened to the wrong voice. But not only did Satan incur that God was trying to teach her, Then he cast doubt upon the fruit of God. Have God said you shall not surely die? If God said you shall surely die, it isn't true. You shall not surely die. Somebody says wasn't taken right. For when Adam and Eve took of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, while they were given ice from the garden, they didn't die until many years afterwards. And after all, God had said in the day that they were stirred up, they were so surely by. God didn't teach his work, did he? Again, we have a wrong idea. When you speak of death, you can't even speak about physical death. But that is the least important kind of death. Spiritual death is really death. And the moment this man and this woman sinned, or the danger faced him, God came in, and he took this word to drove them out of the garden and placed between them and him an angel and a flaming sword. What to do? To keep away with the spirit of life. They died. They were separated from God, and that is good as you will get. Let God be true, a lovely man, a liar. Again Satan's voice led him into wrong thinking. He cast doubt on the word of God. God's word is always true. That's the reason why some of us long since have been started in outworn theory. Because I mentioned to you before, first I was at Hollywood beginning to do it. Then I was a slimy toad with my tail tucked in. Then I was a monkey of a banyan tree. Then I was adopted with a big jing-jee, a pari-wag, a fly-moot, a monkey, then a man. Glory be to nothing for this godless plant. You find it far easier to believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Again this verse of Satan projected the fact that judgment would not come upon them. It was not really God. Now the word of God says, the soul that sinhood shall die. The raising of sin is death. And don't you imagine that it started as a sin and get away with it. You can sin and sin to be getting away with it, but it doesn't work that way. God knows what's going on. You can pull the wool over the eyes of other people. You can pull the wool over your own eyes if your food has been up. that you cannot blind God to the things that you are doing and saying and thinking, and God has declared, as surely as you sinned, you will suffer. So the same verse in Ecclesiastes would say, if any man breaks down ahead, a serpent willed by him. You know after what principle is illustrated there? The same one as this one. What do you ever a man saw? That's really all for a reason. If you break the head, the serpent bites you. You sow and you reap. You sin and you suffer. If you sin, you must surely suffer for your sin. And notice, even though you can and confess your sin and God forgives it, God forgiving sin does not interrupt the cycle that sinning sets up. When we begin to sin, we start a certain cycle in motion. And while God may forgive our sins, God will let their consequences perhaps complete that cycle until like a boomerang may return upon our heads. The best thing we can do is to realize that sin is a bad business and we can't engage in it without suffering. Friends listen to their own voice. the voice that suggested that God was out to treat her, the voice that cast doubt upon God's word, and that suggested also that consequences of sin might be averted. And that wasn't all. She looked in the wrong direction. I read that she saw. Now time and time again we remind ourselves how possible it is in the wicked world in which we live, to look in the wrong direction and to see the wrong thing. In a Christian camp a few weeks ago, I came across a book of poetry. A little girl, forty years of age, was reading it at the table, and I confiscated it. Afterwards, I challenged the young man to whom it belonged. and suggested that while they might be, while there might be some good poetry in it, there had been deliberately placed in it some bad poetry and some pictures to go along with the bad poetry. And he might well ask his own heart why he purchased that book. We discussed the matter at large. He said, Mr. Woodhouse, I don't think you realize. You think he's had so usually nothing. He should prove the things that are passed around in our high school. I suggested to him that that was no excuse at all, because too long he should not make a right. But I believe in this he was true. Some of us who are parents don't know the things that are passed around in our high school. Or maybe the child is more moral than the north. Though I doubt it. Do you even look in the wrong direction? You know, sometimes it takes courage anything that's put into your hands to say, I despise it, I don't even want to look at it, take it and go your way. But if you want to be a real witness to the Lord Jesus, that's the only thing you can do when things like this are on your way. When I tell him that in the wrong direction, I mean that she looked in the direction of the tree of knowledge of very little is doubt in her mind. You know, sometimes it is right for us to ask ourselves just what we are thinking about before we look in a certain direction. We may find ourselves particularly weak in this connection and asking for trouble. That's what she did. She looked at the tree and she saw, first of all, that it was good for a few. Secondly, he saw that he was pleasant to the eye. And thirdly, he saw that he was at true to the desire to make one wise. Now I'm telling you things that you know. Princess John will read about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. These are the things that are in the world, according to John in his first epistle. So if you go back to this portion here, you will find that in this sweet old fashion, Eve was tempted. The lust of the flesh. He saw that the food was good for food. The lust of the eye. He saw that the presence of the eye. Or the lust of the pride of life. He saw that it was a thing to be desired to make one wise, and he saw for that temptation lock, dock, and barrel. Do you remember when Satan came to the Lord Jesus after he had been unhungry for forty days and forty nights? He came to him, and he tempted him in the same threefold fashion. Listen. Command of these stones he made bread, the left of the face. The Lord Jesus dismissed that temptation with, it is written. He takes him to a high mountain and he shows him the kingdoms of the world, the lust of the earth. And the Lord Jesus conquers that temptation by saying again, it is written. And then Satan takes him to a temple of the temple and says, press yourselves down for a given that angels will bury up the pride of life. The Lord Jesus again overcomes that temptation by saying, It is of it. And the devil leaves him for a season. Eve looked in the wrong direction. She was not strong enough. The way she was thinking to look at the tree of life in this fashion. And when she saw these things, she longed in the wrong way. She wanted what she wanted when she wanted it. Even though God didn't wander the habit, she wasn't so unlike you and me wisely. I wonder how often do you pump yourselves and say, I can please myself. The Bible doesn't preach through that. For it says you are not alone. You are brought with you the Christ, the purchase better Christ. But too many of us are all too often self-centered, and we like Eve want what we want when we want it. And we are not willing to come and speak to God and say, Lord, I'd like it. But I'm willing to go without it if it's not your plan for me at this time. You know that sometimes God will give you what you want when you want it, even when he doesn't want you to have it. At the time we'll come when looking back, you'll say, I wish for God. I'd never have it. Oh, that's a good thing. James again tells us to cry, It's the Lord will. It's the Lord will. So it is then there was a prelude to the beginning of human sins. A prelude, he'd listened to the wrong voice. He looked in the wrong direction. And she longed in the wrong voice. And when you look at your own heart, You know the reason why evil things fail. Because we share a common heart, dear Adam and Eve. So what was the substance of its beginnings of human sin? It was a better sin indeed ever, sir, it was a sin of disorder in God and delighting his presence. He listened to Satan's voice and so he crawled out his chest. He's gotten the victory. You know, Satan really imagined, for don't you think that Satan, like God, is on the table and can do all things, or on the present and is in every place. Don't you think that he is omniscient and knows everything? He is not. He has emissaries in every place, and they bring him information. For only God is omnipotent, and omnipresent, and omniscient. Only God can do all things, he is in every place and knows everything. Caitan imagined that by making this human sin and causing her husband to sin, it may well be that God would destroy them in the garden, and that would be the end of man. I don't know what you know of the history of Caitan, but I read in Ezekiel twenty-eight, thou art the anointed share of the coverer, thou art more cutting down amid the stones of fire. Certainly now at one time was the highest of the angels in heaven. He had the freedom of heaven. And I imagine, idiot possibly, that Satan meant something of God's plans with regard to man. And he imagined that God's plan to exalt man to share the throne of his son was an insult to himself. For Satan's throne was as high as it was going to be. He would never be exalted to share God's throne and serve That Satan imagined that God was insulting him in making these plans so known. So he says, let me call man to disobey God. God will destroy him, and then he will never sit on a throne that he is higher up than mine. I suggest that possibly that was how Satan thought. But I am honestly willing to imagine that this sin This disobedience of God did remain the destruction of man there and then, and the end of God's plan for him. For he forgot that God made us even the wrath of men to praise him. And God is an expert at working things out. So always she disobeyed God, and she delighted Satan. God did not destroy her on the spot. They found, according to second Corinthians, that the serpent beguiled thee. They found, according to first Timothy, that the woman was deceived. But it was very, very distinctive of the man who was not. I want you to see for a moment the terrible position in which this woman by her disobedience posed her husband. Soon he came back into the garden, for apparently he was not there. He learned what he had done. And then he had a solemn choice to make. He now had to choose between God and his wife. He had to choose between deliberately disobeying God, doing it with his eyes open, and taking his hand beside the sinner, or turning on his wife, and taking his hand with God. That was a dreadful position for a man to be put in. I don't think you'll care for that when she finished. You know, it's true that the innocent brother was reduced. Eventually Adam put out his hand and deliberated because of that reason. Should he stand beside his wife and turn his death upon God? But I wonder, wouldn't he have done it? Had not he been deceived. I wonder, because I don't know, that it certainly shows the magnitude of this woman's On the other hand, perhaps the sinner is worse. He deliberately sins. And when he has done it, have not he been deceived. I wonder, because I don't know, but he certainly shows the magnitude of this woman's sin. On the other hand, perhaps the sinner is worse. He deliberately sins. Sins with his eyes wide open. and is not at all deceived. They disobeyed God and they delighted that evil was, and now they are running away from God. So this was the effect of the beginning of human beings. The failure of it, the substance of it, and now the effect of it. Four things happened when these two things The eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed big leaves together, and made themselves open, and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Now first of all, their minds were affected. By their disobedience of God, their innocency and purity were exchanged for evil, for and against countless. This man and his wife had been naked all along. And they were not ashamed. The end of the verse of chapter two tells us that. They had no reason to be. They had made them in this fashion. They were husband and wife. They shared the garden only with the rest of creation. They had no need to be ashamed. But now their minds have become perverted. They are no longer pure and innocent. And so immediately they develop a good complex. He said, Adam says, We hid ourselves. So, so we were naked. Their minds immediately have been possessed. How do we ought to stop here for a moment? Because? So, that we cannot sin and get away with it. So that we cannot go into evil things without eventually erasing the consequences of them. It is not just that they are forced to sin without working our minds and our thinking. until it is possible for our minds, even existence, that we actually become testers of evil thoughts. Now when I know my own mind, I know yours. Now if you fear that we cannot prevent evil thoughts coming into our minds. But a wise man has suggested, while you cannot prevent the birds from flying over your head, you can prevent them from making a mess in your head. You cannot prevent evil thoughts coming to your mind, but you can prevent yourself from developing them and from enjoying them and leading on from them into other things. You have done this, you know. God knows our minds and hearts. He knows what he thinks. And his word declares, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. It's not what we are on the outside, it's what we are on the inside. And that should make us hang our heads this way. You know, I marvel that God is so gracious with us. I marvel that God suffers so long with us. He knows our frailty and our weakness. He knows our sin. How am I going to prevent myself from thinking wrong things? Do you remember that verse in the New Testament? What the other things are pure and lovely and honest and look good, of course. If you fill your mind with good things, you won't have to worry about the evil. The devil takes advantage of a fertile empty mind. Their minds by their sinning will affect it. Now notice that because this is a vicious circle. If I think about sin, I'll commit it. If I commit it, I'll think more about it. If I think more about it, I'll go back into it and say that vicious circle goes on and on and on they sin and their minds will affect it. And that's the reason why you find them in trouble afterwards again. But not only were their minds affected, but their actions were affected. Then God came down to the garden of the school of the day, and he looked for Adam, who was amazed, while he now he knew all about this. God was not astonished. He knew what was going on, when it was going on. The agnostic says, or the atheist says, Now here's a fine kettle of fish. You say that God made man, and no sinner he made him, so move with him. He has to go out, ask him, wear out, don't you think for a moment, but God asked his question, Adam, wear out, thou? Because God didn't know where he was. Tell me where he was. God asked his question, because Adam didn't know where he was. And God was very anxious that he could find out. Adam, where art thou? And immediately Adam has to face up to the question. And he has to ask himself, indeed, what's the answer? Where am I? I'm running away from God. I'm not looking into the face of someone this morning who's doing that, am I? Running away from God? Because the will of God has been made known to you and you hesitate to take that step. You know, God has a principle. He leads believers a step at a time. If he don't have this step, he doesn't say, well, we'll miss that one out. He'll go on to the next one. Similarly, there are many scented believers in Christendom today in the church of God today who are not grown because they came to a point in their lives where God made certain demands. and they refused to comply with those demands, and God stopped right there, and they had finished me a break with no further. Since Saul of Carthage was shut down on the road to Damascus, you remember he said, Lord, that is what I have me to do. God had great plans for Saul of Carthage, but he said to him only one thing, go into the city. Now if Saul of Carthage had refused to do what God said at that point, Maybe further it would have happened. So they obeyed at that point and God would deliver him the next. You know they are believing this. And as they read the Word of God and they listen to ministry, they come across a word baptism. And they say, yes, I was baptized, because when I was a baby, my mother took me to church, and they made a cross on my forehead, and that was baptism. Now, don't you believe it? That christened, I'm going to hear that christening is not found in the word of God at all. Baptism is an anglicized word. It's really a Greek word that has been given in English saying, because there is no real translation of it. But to get that tithe and to get it under the water, to get it right under the water and to get it out of it. But as many other kind of vassism, now you know these things, you can get all these things. Somebody there finds that out and then says, I'm scared of the water. I couldn't do this. I'd like to, and I didn't get scared, but I'm afraid I'd drown. And I could, you know, that there are a few things you can do here. There seems to be that time. Your lovers will say, I don't think I want to be a spectacle. I would want people to look at me going down into the water and coming out, be dragged over and wet. Your pride beats you from... You know this. If God is referring to you, this said, and after conversion, it's the very next one. And you have refused to take it. Little wonder you haven't been going through this. Or maybe it's something else in your life. If God has been putting a finger on and saying, this is the next step. You've gone far enough of the question now to be able to do this thing and this is the next thing when you say, no, anything but that, Lord. I go here, I go, but not there. The Lord says that it's not there, it's not anything. One step at a time. You know that's how a child walks. One step at a time. I never met a child yet or a grown-up either who went two steps. You have to go a step at a time. These two were running away from God. You know, I think there was a note, a plaintive note in God's question. Adam, where are thou? Every other night he had come running to God so anxious for his fellowship. So anxious, because I love this phrase, in the cool of the day. You sit out on the porch there, after the heat of the day, and that little jitter, you know, across the porch, there's something lovely about the cool of the day. And remember this. Adam and Eve had little bondage over this. There were no drugs in Adam and Eve's way. So they brought in God in the crown of the belly anything this person. And I can think about their fellowship and joy and communion. But not anymore. It's been rudely and violently shattered. And now when God comes in this direction, they run in the same direction to get away from him. You know, it must have grown in the heart of Adam. But he couldn't turn and look God in the face. as he had done every day, they called it. Yes, their actions were affected by their illness. But then called their efforts and their attitudes were affected. You as a man who had deliberately taken his hand beside his wife and had entered into her sin, so then God said, What if they done? After a instant of the truth, immediately he turned down and blamed the women. So women, he said, She gave it to me. I don't think that was like Adam immediately before this happened. You know, Adam in his innocency and perfection led his way. I feel sure that he's still in his hair. It's an interesting thing to notice that when God made Eve, he didn't make her out of it out of Adam's head, to run him or out of his face to be walked upon him, or even God made her out of his side to be loved. I know that has been pointed out to you before. We need to remind ourselves of these things. I don't love this wife. That is one reason why you have to stand beside her in her sin. But now you will notice he has changed men. Even his attitude toward his wife has suffered. He did it. She gave me of the fruit. But he not only blamed the woman who blamed God too. He told the woman who died over me. He gave me of the tree and I did it. So Adam blames the woman, he blames God, and the woman blames the serpent, and then God turns around and blames her. He said, you've nobody else to blame but your soul. Their attitudes were affected. And then, of course, finally, their destiny were affected. Here's the last verse of that chapter three. Find that God drove them out of the garden and placed between him and them an angel and the flaming sword. to keep away of the fear of life. Because God knew that when a man's a sinner, he's very presumptive. He takes so much for granted. Having gotten something innocently, he'll go on to get something else. And something else. And there's no stopping him. What it says. They turn their backs upon that beautiful guy. They never realize all that was going to cost him. When they did what apparently was such a small thing, they did so by evil, gladly. I wonder how much obedience means to you. Let me tell you a sweet story if I told you. A colleague of mine in the Old Kent, he in fact is living now in America. When he was a theological student, He used to spend his Sunday in five rural churches, not very far from the college he attended. The services were staggered, so he could take in each of them during the day. They were not very far from each other, but to spare himself, he would take a bus from one to the other, and so he would spend his Lord's death. Someday we heard, one Saturday, we heard of a family in one of these five churches in festive news. In fact, the person who told him said, I'm sure that they are on the verge of starvation, a mother and father and three children. He decided he said, when he heard it and he said to himself, I must make a point of seeing them and seeking to encourage them tomorrow. He went to bed and couldn't get to sleep for thinking about his family. He passed and returned and he rested on his bed. The midnight hour came and went. No sleep. One o'clock came and went. No sleep. And just about one o'clock in the morning he was lying there. The Lord said to him, He said, You know, you have a little money. You could take it to him if you'd buy them a little. But he said, I lay there and I argue with God. Lord, I have just a little change. I have enough of my best care to these five churches and nothing more. He said, God to him did great. You have two strong legs, and you could walk. The exercise would be good for you. And they need the money more than you need the bus ride. He said, I lay and I tossed on my bed for fifteen minutes, trying to argue this thing out with God. Then I'm going to argue with you until the right decision was made. I said, all right, Lord, I'll do it. I walk tomorrow, and I'll take this money to them so that they can eat tomorrow, even if they haven't eaten today. The Lord said, that's very good. Now I want you to get up and go. I want you to put the money in an envelope, and I want you to take it to that. Now he said, Lord, I'm willing to do that, but it's really ridiculous to go at this time in the morning. If I didn't eat today, it's so if I'm not eating. So you're going to be able to go. Please, Lord, give me some rest. It's one at right now. I have to preach five times tomorrow, and I don't think it would serve any purpose to take it to them and be higher. The argument ends with the Lord for another fifteen minutes. And in the end it knew that two hours sleep would be better than none at all, and it would take him a half an hour at least to walk to this house. So he said, all right, Lord, I'll get. So he got up, and he was good on his clothes, and he picked up the change after gesture, and he put it into an envelope, and he threw it down, and threw it very foolish. He took it out of the house, down the darkened street, and he worked for a half an hour until he came to the stage where this family moved. When he got to the door there was another dilemma. No more of us, no little of us, no you have made a fool of himself. But you know he saw the handle of the door and he opened. So he threw in the envelope, he heard it hit the floor, he closed the door, and then he hurried back and climbed into a bed that was now cold by this time, but he was very soon asleep. When he wakened up in the morning and started his round of the five churches, Eventually he arrived at the place where this family was in fellowship. He saw them sitting in a row. They occupied the whole of a small few, five of them, mother, her father, mother, and three children. Now he was preaching, he saw the tears coursing down the cheeks of the husband's and he felt a warm glow inside. He says, we have contributed a little bit to this man's peace of mind this morning. So he was kind of glad now the audio was over, and he was done, and he was glad he'd done it. You know, no sooner had he pronounced a benediction than this man jumped up from his feet, came out to him and said, Mr. Lorry, I want to talk to you. He said, Larry, I want to talk to you. He said, Larry, thought he knew what the man wanted to talk about, so they went into the vestry and they sat down. By this time the man was weeping hopelessly. He said, Mr. Larry, you're not going to believe what I'm going to tell you what it is. He said, you know that my children haven't eaten. My family hasn't eaten for almost three days. He said, last night I got so desperate that I determined it wouldn't go on a day longer. So he said, late in the evening I sharpened the card in there, and I secreted it behind a clock. And he said, I waited until my family was back this week. My wife was restless and the midnight hour came and went, and she wasn't this week. She said, you know, it wasn't until almost two o'clock that I realized my family were all in a deep sleep. And he said, I was awfully sitting in the darkness with a knife in my hand when I heard footsteps on my wall, I thought. He said, I sat there holding my desk, and somebody ultimately came up to my son's door, turned and I'd open the door and see something in, and closed the door. He said, I thought I was going to be discovered in that awful place. But he said, they couldn't get through the fever, and whoever his wife left. But when they were, I knew they were really done. I picked up an envelope, and he said, in the darkness I opened it, and coins fell out into my hand. And it said, I dropped on my face and I, yes, in the presence of God. I'd gotten so close to merging my family and taking my own life. And yet God hadn't forgotten. Peter Lowe told me, I never gave that man the satisfaction of knowing who it was, why it came to his door. He said, but I went home from that service and I got down on my face and he said, I made the coverlet of my dead, yet with my tears. I came so close to disobeying God, and I didn't know that five lives come in the day. Do you think that it doesn't matter whether you obey or disobey? You don't know what hangs on your obedience or what may be the result of your disobeying. Look at that column short in our minds, shall we pray. Follow me, our third coming, or how often we want our own way. How often when we choose to go the way our hearts have taken and to turn so deliberately from thy will, so dear that we pray. We know that to hearken is better than sacrifice, and to lay or obey than the fat of the enemy. We ask the Lord that we might have good attuned to thy voice. And when we hear these speak to us, make us willing to go all the way with you. Give us to thee, O Jesus, we pray, that we might never have the blood of other men on our hands, that we might never turn away from the will of God, from disaster into the lives of others. Since we can never know what may or may not happen, if we get no good, we ask that thou will keep us. in the path of obedience. Make our lesson of this morning a very real one to us. It doesn't take us very, and sometimes it's very, very hard to do. We pray in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.