Joseph's Alabaster Box

Creation is a faith, and Evolution is a faith (a religion). Neither of these can be proven by pure science. Both must be believed. Those who claim to be Creationists have the preconception that the Bible is the reliable record of the beginning of the universe. Those who call themselves Evolutionists have the preconception that the earth is billions of years old. These preconceptions are basic, but there are many others. A preconception is defined as “to form an opinion of something beforehand.” A preconception can be a deception which is defined as “the fact or state of being deceived.” To deceive an individual is to convince him that something is true when that something is not true. You may be deceived yourself. The thing you teach others may not be true. If what I believe is false, and I am deceived, how can I know it? If I ask myself this question, then there is hope that I may not be deceived, or that I may learn the truth. Is a person just as well off being deceived as he is knowing the truth, if he is happy and well-adjusted? Deception can never be good. Usually, people who are deceived are being exploited by someone or something. Some of what we believe may be false, but that in itself is not deception. All of us have wrong ideas about some things, but may or may not be adversely affected by those wrong ideas.

Where can I turn to learn if I am deceived? Shall I go to Wikepedia on the internet? I love Wikepedia and help support it, but I can’t rely completely on Wikepedia. Could I discover truth if I search school text books from kindergarten to university? All of these, in spite of their wealth of truth, are only the works of other men, and may contain their preconceptions. Should I turn to the most intellectual men who ever lived – Einstein or Newton? They are just men like me. I know that because they died. Should I look to the great philosophers like Socrates, Euclid, or Plato? If I read what they wrote, I’d have to read what somebody interpreted, so I’d have to trust the interpreter more than them. Help!

I, like all normal humans, was born with a natural preconception that a supreme being exists. This supreme being is not a human. I can rely on the truth of what I stated because every civilization in every age worshiped some sort of god: stone statues, fence posts, animals, you name it; men have worshiped it. The truth that all civilizations worshiped a divine being of some sort makes it reasonable to believe that the fool has said in his heart there is no God. Atheism is learned behavior, and can be unlearned. Darwin chose to be an Evolutionist because he could not bear the thought that if Christianity be true, my father, my grandfather, and almost all my friends are eternally lost, and this is a damnable doctrine.

Where do preconceptions come from? The growing-up environment of every child is different somehow. The human learns certain likes and dislikes. Some things make humans feel good about themselves and the world around them. All of us tend to move toward those things that make us feel the most secure and pleasant. All of our knowledge comes from outside ourselves – at least all of those things that matter most. Knowledge that comes to us is sorted out into piles labeled “I like” and “I don’t like.” At some point in life the thought of God occurs to us, and we place the thought in one pile or the other.

Somewhere along the line most of us decide to be Creationists or Evolutionists. This is a purely an arbitrary decision, based solely upon what makes us comfortable. There is the matter of the weight of evidence. The weight of evidence can never prove anything, but it can provide enough rationale to make a decision; however, poorly formed the decision may be. We are certain we have not been deceived, or have formed a preconceived idea. Since neither faith can be proven by empirical science, how can I know I have come down on the right side? Should I just go with the flow, and believe what most people believe, or is it possible that the few who believe the other way right? Oh, my! What a dilemma! And the though that I might have to live fore eternity with my decision doesn’t help me feel better. But if I come down on the side of Evolution, the thought of eternity is what I wanted to rid myself of.

Suppose the Geological Time Scale is wrong, or that pesky dinosaur blood cell is only a few thousand years old? After all, there is no real hard, test tube type proof that the Big Bang really happened. In fact, everything we know about Creationism and Evolution are only things we believe. Creationists will tell you right off that at the foundation we only believe. We can’t claim that anything is a fact. Charles Darwin and his disciples set out to prove Genesis wrong, and thereby destroy the Creationist’s faith in God, and for millions of people, he succeeded. Are Creationists deceived, or are Evolutionists deceived? Who is laboring under the worst preconception? Both can’t be right. Somebody has got to be deceived. And everybody said, “It ain’t me.”

Who has the better basis for what they believe. Repeat: There is no test tube evidence for either. We must rely on the weight of evidence – remember? Who contributes the most benefit to life in general: Creationists or Evolutionists? Somebody just stole a box of glassware off our carport. We live in a lower middle class neighborhood on a dead end street. People who live down the street regularly throw trash into our yard as they pass. There are members of our church who live down that street. While I suspect there are members of our church who would do things like that, I would think it would be more likely that people who believe we are just animals who do bad things like that. I don’t have money to do a study, or have access to a study to establish the truth of my belief, but I am sure there is more crime committed by people who don’t believe in Creation or God than there are who believe in Creation.

In the foreword of Dr. Duane Gish’s book, Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics  (Available from ICR at www.icr.org/store or 800 628 7640), Dr. Henry M. Morris writes, “Since he joined ICR in 1971 he has participated in almost 300 debates, usually held on university campuses and opposing faculty evolutionary scientists, or – once in a while – an evolutionary philosopher or even an evolutionary theologian. And (at least in our judgment and that of most in the audiences) he always wins!

“… His opponents cannot produce scientific evidence for evolution for the simple reason that there isn’t any!”

To the evolutionist science is a dogma. A dogma is something that is right because it is declared to be right. For example, evolution declares that the earth is 4.54 years. This is based on radio metric dating. Radio metric dating is not reliable. Using Darwin’s example, I would say, “That is a damnable dogma.”

There is an outside, very remote possibility that I am deceived. I am astute enough to know that, and honest enough to admit it, but the penalty for deception I might have because of Creation could not be compared with the person who is deceived by Evolution, the religion of atheism. The Bible commands us to examine ourselves. This examination should be done objectively and deliberately. The tests of our faith must be tested by outside factors, not something we conjure up ourselves. The examination must be done by a non-committed individual of knowledge source. Weigh the evidence carefully.

        Job lived a long time ago. So long ago, in fact, that we can only guess. But our guesses can be educated guesses, for the Bible, where the story is recorded, gives us some clues. For example, there is no mention of the Law of Moses in the book, so we can assume that the book was written before Moses. There is no mention of idols or idolatry so we can assume that the book was written before idolatry developed. Information given in Genesis about two of Job’s three friends hint that Job may have lived after Abraham. The book of Job is at least as old as the Pentateuch, since Moses probably edited both. At the beginning of the book Job himself was a man old enough to have ten children, and an enormous fortune. After his trials Job lived a hundred and forty years, making him at least as old as Abraham, another indicator that the book is older than Abraham. The conclusion is that we only know the book is as old as the patriarchs, or older.

          Job was exceedingly wealthy; having vast herds of animals and acres of farmland. He was a prominent man; being respected by all who knew him. He had a large household, with servants and slaves for every task. He was a man of great intelligence. He knew much about the Lord God Creator because he worshiped Him appropriately; offering burnt offerings regularly for his children and himself. Note his learned words in Job 12: 7 – 10:

         “But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this? In whose hand [is] the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.”Job knew why the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God (Psalm 14:1). The reason is because man’s brain tells him there is a Creator because the creatures, and even the earth, tell him there is a God Creator. If man is going to deny the existence of God; he must turn from the knowledge in his brain, put there by the creation, and depend on his silly, emotional heart to tell him what to believe.

         Take note of these startling words from Isaiah, chapter one and verse 3:

        “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: [but] Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.”

           Oxen and asses are among the dumbest animals. Somebody somewhere may have trained them, but I have never seen or heard of it. They can only pull, or carry burdens. Yet these pitiful creatures know their master, and his crib; something the fool evidently does not know. The fool doesn’t know his master’s crib. In fact, he will strongly deny that he has a master. It is possible that a master can provide great security. The master the fool serves doesn’t have a crib, for a crib is a place of rest, food, and safety. Satan has no place of rest, food, and safety – only a swirl of chaos 7/24. Satan has laboratories where science is carried on without observation, without experimentation, without repetition, and without peer examination. Satan’s dogma is mythological deception that is a strange sound in an age of scientific advancement and learning.           

         But I have drifted from my thought. Job would have been surprised indeed to hear a man like Isaac Asimov, one of the most brilliant fools of the twentieth century, give his “eternity-view.” Dr. Asimov is known to every fool in the world as a man who was their spokesman. Dr. Asimov’s words are chiseled into the walls of halls of learning. His books adorn every library shelf in the world waiting to corrupt the mind of young and old. A Russian Jew, Dr. Asimov rejected the existence of the God Whom his nation worshiped for thousands of years. Dr. Asimov proves that intellect is not necessary for one to have faith in God – in fact, it is a hindrance. Common sense is of more value.

          On these pages I have quoted Dr. Asimov before, but it is appropriate to quote him again now in light of Job’s and David’s statements. Dr. Isaac Asimov who died in 1992 at age 72 left these words for mankind to meditate upon:

          “I am an atheist, out and out. It took a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.” (Isaac Asimov, “Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine”, January, 1992)

           Job knew there existed a Creator God because the environment could have only come into existence at the beck and call of a Creator. No one has ever given a satisfactory answer to “where did life come from?” What perpetuates life? Until that basic question is answered, all the evolution talk in the world is just mythology. Job’s faith was the result of his observing brain ruling his unstable emotions. Instead of an irrational emotional unbelief, Job enjoyed the tranquility of knowing his “Redeemer liveth.” Faith is based upon knowledge. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Faith is reinforced by the complexity and order of nature, and the absolute certainty of the Bible. Ultimately God gives us our faith.  Job observed the wonders that God had wrought, and concluded that only a Creator could be responsible.  

          It seems that Dr. Asimov would have been astute enough to know what he was saying when he said he was emotionally an atheist. He had written a commentary of the Old Testament where it is written by David, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. …” He was saying exactly what God had said in that verse. His foolishness is seen when you consider his reliance on his emotions (heart) rather than his brain. There must have been some sort of dysfunction in his brain. Perhaps it is a spiritual insanity that causes people to reject factual brain knowledge and rely on emotional heart feeling. Listen to this interesting statement from the Bible, II Timothy 1:7:

          “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

           Now if I am not mistaken, if God must give us a sound mind, then we evidently do not have one before He gives it. Job had a sound mind. God gave Satan permission to do anything he could to Job to force him to curse God to his face. Through extreme adversity and torment, Job did not curse God. He remained steady in his faith though he lingered on the brink of death and total loss. Job did not worship God just because God enriched him, as Satan believed. Job worshiped God because of Who God is, and what He is. God was forced to become a bloody God because His people lived in a wicked world, and God had to protect them.

          Please don’t shrug my words off as no more than my religious belief. I do not have any religious beliefs. What I believe is truthful history, faithfully recorded long ago when men were wiser. I don’t claim any infallibility in reasoning and conclusions, but I insist that the gist of what I am writing is based on eternal truth. I hate no man. All men’s souls are precious to me because they are precious to God. I love and respect my fellow man. I feel obligated to tell him the truth.  

           In Psalm 24:1 we read, “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”

          Evolution is an evil philosophy that contradicts the Bible and its revelation of how the universe and the life in it began. Science is not our enemy. Those who hold to the Word of God as infallible have no quarrel with the scientific work of scientists. Biologists and all the rest contribute mightily to the comfort of humanity. We commend them for this. Our contention is with those who go outside the realm of science, and make statements about the age of the earth while claiming to speak as a scientist. The evolutionists mutter about creatures turning into different creatures over millions of years as they withhold whatever evidence they have for making such preposterous claims. Evolutionist are the modern alchemists. They convert glitter to gold.

          It may be a fact that a scientist holds in his hand a fossilized bone. No one could controvert that. However, it is not a fact that that fossil is evidence of evolution. It is a fact that there is a fossil bird called “Archaeopteryx ” but it is not a fact that this thing has anything whatever to do with reptiles turning into birds. It is a fact that dark colored peppered moths became more plentiful in the 19th century. It is not a fact that that phenomenon had anything to do with evolution. It had everything to do with adaption.

          I believe I have as much understanding of science as the average person. I understand that water is composed of two atoms bound together in a molecule containing two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. I also have a tad of understanding of the human mind. For example, I can detect the fallacious nature of a statement like, “When someone claims that they don’t believe in evolution they cannot be referring to an acceptable scientific definition of evolution because that would be denying something which is easy to demonstrate. It would be like saying that they don’t believe in gravity!” (“What is Evolution?” p. 3) If evolution is as easily demonstrated as the Law of gravity, then let’s get on with the demonstration, and stop making irrational assertions.

          Creationists are accused of not understanding what evolution means. Some claim that the dictionary definitions are wrong. If dictionaries are wrong, then how will we know what we are talking about? Surely, it seems, the evolutionists do not believe we know what they are talking about.

          Here is a definition Dr. Moran, quoted in the last essay, declares to be in error. The Chambers definition of evolution is “… the doctrine according to which higher forms of life have gradually arisen out of lower … .” Moran is likewise judgmental of Webster, who defines evolution as “… the development of a species, organism, or organ from its original or primitive state to its present or specialized state … .” If those definitions are not correct, then nobody but Dr. Moran knows what evolution is. Dr. Moran said this just after he quoted Dr. Douglas J. Futuyma as saying, “Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles with a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions.” Excuse me, but isn’t that what the definition in Webster’s dictionary said evolution is, except that Webster is much easier to understand?

          I strongly suspect that this smoke screen is sent up to conceal the truth. I’m thinking that Dr. Moran is the one who does not understand what evolution is. Evolution is the poison of society. Evolution is Satan’s doctrine.

          Psalm 24:1 declares that “The earth is the the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” The fullness of the earth refers to everything in or on or about the earth, even to the microscopic things in living cells that man can only gaze at in wonder if he understands that it is a created thing. If he gazes at it with the profane eyes of an unbeliever, then he will see only moving matter that has no significance in the real world of toil and weariness. Not for anything would I wish to devalue the knowledge and work of brilliant scientists, whatever may be his religious belief. However, I am determined to point out as best I can the error of their way: the error of their way being their refusal to give the Creator glory for His work of creation. Scientists are working with the products of God’s labor. Whatever man sees or touches God was created by God from nothing and it belongs to Him. Scientists have a divine right to examine these things, for God said in the beginning that man is to

          “… subdue the earth: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

           We would be much better off without some of the products of science -the internal combustion engine, for example -but most of science has helped us.

          The non-renewable resources of the earth were created when God created the earth. Lead, iron, probably coal and oil, and all the other metals, both base and precious, were created in the earth in verse 1 of Genesis chapter 1. Brass and iron are both spoken of in Genesis 4:22, and steel is spoken of in II Samuel 22:35. Gold is spoken of in Genesis 2:11, and Ezra 8:27 speaks of copper. There are six metals spoken of in the Old Testament. There are thousands of other things in the earth’s crust that are important to man, but all of them belong to God. We are only stewards of what God has endowed the earth with.

          The great apostle used this verse in I Corinthians 10:26 when he was talking about what man is permitted to eat. I have heard people talk about it being unhealthy to eat pork, and how folks shouldn’t eat other stuff, and I am not pushing against their ideas, when I say that I believe a person can eat just about anything in moderation, if he asks God’s blessings upon it. I dearly love picnic shoulder. This eater is not a recreational eater. I eat for fuel, but I do enjoy eating. Picnic ham is one thing that I have difficulty with. I can eat it just for fun. Especially when it is surrounded by plump, luscious yams.

          I think the main reason a person’s diet is harmful to him, if it is, is that he doesn’t take time to thank God for what is on the table, and the hands that provided it, and the hands that put it on the table. Slouching on a couch or easy chair watching tv is a great way to develop stomach problems. America is hauling around enough fat on her ribs and hips to share with everybody on Earth. “The earth is the the LORD’s …” and He has told us to eat of it, even if it were offered to an idol.

          The LORD has even allowed some of us to call some of His Earth our very own. Isn’t that wonderful? God has given my wife and me a speck of His Earth that’s nearly five hundred feet along the street, and nearly one hundred fifty feet deep with a nice little house sitting right in the middle of it. I hope you have some of God’s Earth to call your own. I hope if that is so, you are taking good care of it, because He will reclaim it someday.

          I am happy that this verse in the Jewish hymn book makes it clear that I, a dog of a Gentile, also belong to the LORD. The psalm says, “… the world, and they that dwell therein.” Oh, bless God! I belonged to Him while I was a sinner. I was His because He created me. I was one of His creatures in the world that He owns. And then I gave myself to Him. I acknowledged His ownership. I was happy to confess that I was His own creature. Blinded, vilethough I was, I was still one of His very own. Now I am a spiritual son of Abraham, as entitled to be called a son of God as any Hebrew upon the earth.

          In turn, what a rebuke this is to those who say that peoples of other nations, kindreds, and tongues do not rightfully belong to the LORD. He created them. They belong to Him by creation. They are part of the world that God loved and sent His Son to redeem. God will dispose of his own in the way He chooses. And the criteria of His choice have been made. His choice will depend on how his own dispose of Him.

PSALM 115:16

Summer is glorious! Just like fall and winter and spring are. God’s glory is seen in every season. The humming birds are doing aerial combat around the feeders on the front porch and the patio. They sometimes sit on the perch above the feeder outside my study window, and preen. They must have a bunch of things on them. Just about every living thing has some sort of parasite that feeds on it, even fleas, so the beauty of the humming bird just camouflages his mites. God’s world is beautiful, even after 6000 years under the curse. The soil in my garden is rich and good, but it is full of weed seeds. Thank God for the hope of His soon appearing when He will take us to our new home.

We continue to study the psalms that refer to the Lord’s creative work, and this study has not been exhaustive by any means. Today we give attention to Psalm 115, verse 16. “The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’s : but the earth hath he given to the children of men.” This is an important bit of information to reinforce what we learned in Genesis 3:15. “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” That command was never changed, and remains in force till this very day. Man is charged with the responsibility of keeping the earth and caring for it. It is right to be an environmentalist, if the right perspective is placed on all elements involved in the environment. We must remember that God created man to have dominion over the earth and its creatures. Pity the Creation (Romans 8:18ff).

God reserves the heavens for Himself. We will one day have the privilege of walking in God’s heaven, and it will be our final home, but the Heaven of heavens will always be the private property of the Holy Spirit. God needed no heaven before He created the earth. He inhavited the Heaven of heavens. He needed no abiding place, for the universe was His domain. But when He created Earth and its creatures, then He needed a place for His throne from which to rule His creation. He also needed a place where His chosen ones could live with Him forevermore.

We know very little about Heaven. It is a material place as opposed to a spiritual place of though spiritual beings dwell there. It has streets of gold, and a river with trees lining its banks (Revelation 22:1,2). Jerusalem can be measured (Revelation 21:16), and so it must be a material place of atoms and molecules. I suspect that Heaven is the nucleus of the universe, and if that is true, then it must be quite far away. Traveling at the speed of light it would take a space ship thousands of years to reach some of the planets in our solar system, so how could Jesus have come to Earth to be born a man, and how could our souls get to Heaven in time to come back to Earth with the Saviour?

Those questions are simply answered and understood when we consider that our souls and spirits will not be bound by time, space, and gravity when they are released from this robe of flesh in which they are imprisoned. And, at the resurrection, our new body will be like the resurrected body of Jesus Christ, and will likewise not be confined to those three dimensions. We will be able to get to Heaven at the speed of thought! We can think of a place, and our soul will be borne to that place at the speed of thought. That is, instantaneously.

Verse 15 of our psalm says, “Ye are blessed of the LORD which made heaven and earth.” It is almost too much for me to realize that I am a recipient of the blessings of the Creator. This is no idol we are talking about. This is the God Who inhabits eternity. I am poor and needy, yet I know that through the years my life has been lived before the Lord just as all lives are, and He has done things for me that I am not even aware of. He saved me when I was but a lad, and has watched every minute of my existence on Earth. If we could somehow get this truth planted in the stony soil of our hearts, and fertilized by the Word of God, how much better would be our lives.

　If men can heap upon you great honors, just think of what the Lord Creator can do. What an honor it is to kneel alone in the presence of the great King, and almost feel His hand on the top of your head as you breathe your prayers, and enter into a state of ecstasy as you give honor and glory to His Holy Name. What an honor to hold in your hands the blessed old black Book that has survived through the millennia as He preserved it. The old Book that has been splattered with countless tears of joy, and drops of martyrs’ blood. Many people have laid down their lives before they would lay down the Word of God. On a shelf above my head lies my grandmother’s Bible. Worn and dog-eared, it has on its sacred pages the tears and breath of my darling grandmother who worshiped the God of Creation Who made Heaven and Earth, and gave the earth to man.

What an honor and privilege to walk upon Earth that God made and gave to us. The property my wife and I call our own has only been known to us for a few years. It was once a farm where row crops were raised. Before that it was a tree-covered wilderness where Indians walked the shady trails in search of game. All of that time, God has cared for it. All that time, God knew about it. The history of this little patch of Earth is known to the Lord. What is beneath the sodl of this place only the Lord knows. There may be some ancient person buried here who is known only to God. This soil may have within its elements the blood drops of some ancient warrior who fell here. We should walk upon the earth with reverence because God made it and gave it to man. As I take a handful of soil from my garden, I am holding in my hand stuff that the Creator made for my benefit and blessing.

As I visited in a home in Siberia (a flat on the high upper floor), my host showed me some black and white pictures of corpses washed out of the bank of the Tom’ River that ran through the city of Tomsk. This river freezes in winter, and come summer, it floods. In such a flood one spring, many corpses were washed out of the soil. These corpses were people who were murdered by the Soviet police. The good, rich soil of the river bank had been forced by man to conceal their inhumane crimes.

Going shopping in Siberia is serious business! 

Once I had an adventure I have not space here to relate. Part of the adventure was when I reached the top of the mountain I was crossing in a big truck, I saw the corses of hunting dogs that had been shot by their masters, and left there. I saw these hounds in the headlights of the truck because it was well before daylight. An object lesson in cruelty, these hounds relied upon their masters for their existence. No doubt they had served their masters as well as they could; chasing innocent game animals all over those steep hills, and their reward was death-dealing bullets. That beautiful mountain top had to absorb those faithful pets.

Many a war has been fought over ownership of the earth. Many a profane idol has been made from the materials of the earth. God gave it to man. God reserved to Himself Heaven, and so He is able at any time to reclaim Earth for the benefit of those who love Him. The ugliness of man has harmed

Earth even more than we know, but God will make it right again. Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5) Psalm 39:9 says, “For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.“

We live in a littered world. I live in a nice neighborhood. Only new cars go by here. There are only fine homes with pretty yards. Often I must go out into my yard, and pick up trash that my neighbors throw out: hamburger store stuff, beer cans, unidentifiable stuff that I get into a garbage can without touching. These are supposed to be middle class patriotic Americans, but they evidently despise their nation. I’m sure my yard is not the only place on Earth where they discard their trash. They insist on living in a clean car, but they are happy to live in a filthy soul. People that will not obey God create a bad environment.

The great Joseph Parker wrote, “Dare the wicked man to read the Psalms? Has he any one of the hundred and fifty which he can call his own, and which he can read in the morning light before going out to renew his iniquity? Is there not one line left for the poor wretch? Has he not one string in all the infinite harps? Can he not quote one verse, saying, This encourages me to do the best I can for myself to perpetrate mischief, to outwit my fellow-creatures, to keep false weights and measures; this will enable me to give licence to every desire of my heart? In all the Book of Psalms not one little line can be claimed by the bad man.”

No wonder the bad man hates the Word of God. In it he can find not one word of consolation or encouragement for his sins. Never can he find an honest excuse for his iniquity. Truly, the Lord gave the earth to the children of men, but He did not give them the right to shove other people off of it by hook or crook. Man must give an account for the conduct of his life, and of how he has served as a steward of the earth that the good God gave him for his happiness and peace.