A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with a man in our local park. He was sitting on a bench with his little daughter. They had been feeding the ducks together. And I approached him to offer him a leaflet. He glanced at it and threw it back towards me. "I'm not interested. It's all rubbish."

Well — we began to chat. And he brought out all the usual cliches.

There's no god. He believes in Darwin. The Bible's all fairy-stories. And I listened to what he had to say.

And then I said to him, "I don't believe you. I don't believe you believe what you're saying." And he said,

"What do you mean?"

"You're telling me that there's no God. You're telling me that the world just evolved out of nothing without a creator."

"Yeh."

"So you're telling me it's all chance. You're telling me that we're only here by chance — that it's just by chance that this planet exists; that the right elements just happened to come together to produce life on this planet just by chance; that creatures evolved just by a process of chance — that you're nothing but a collection of atoms and electrical currents that have come together by chance."

"Yeh."

And I had to say again: "I don't believe you. You don't believe that. You don't believe that you're just a chance collection of atoms. You believe your life matters. You believe that you have a value. You don't believe that you're just another chance organism that happens to have evolved to a more advanced state than a worm."

Well - he wouldn't back down. "That's all we are. We've come about by chance. We're just highly evolved animals."

"So if I were to knife you here and now, I'm not actually doing anything wrong. You've got no value. It's only like cutting a blade of grass — you're just another chance col­lection of organic material." Well — you could see him squirming but he still wasn't prepared to back down. "Yeh — that's all we are."

And I looked at his little girl. She was a lovely little thing. And all this time he had been cuddling her on his knee. And I wondered if I dared to say it. And I thought to myself, "Well, that's the only weapon I have left." So I looked at him and I said, "What about her? She's got no value either. She's just another collection of worthless atoms. And if I were to attack her, I'd no more be doing anything wrong than if I were to break a leaf off a tree."

And he was angry. And he said, "Don't you talk about her like that. She's the only thing in the world that really matters to me."

And I said, "Yes - she matters. She's got value. And you know it. You don't believe she's just a random collection of atoms. You know she's precious. She's not just a com­plicated machine. She's not just a highly evolved ani­mal. She's special and you know it."

Now that conversation illus­trates for me the tragic conse­quences of Man's attempt to escape from the God of the Bible. All around us we see men and women who do not want to believe the truth about God the Creator — that there is one eternal_, Almighty, self-existing God who has created all things for his own glory. As Paul says in Romans 1, they suppress the truth about God. But then what do they have to say? They have to say that Man himself is simply a prod­uct of chance. In the beginning a Big Bang. A vast explosion throwing matter randomly in all directions. And then stir together that material for 15 billion years and finally by chance you get the right combi­nation for life. And that life evolves by a chance process of natural selection and random mutations. Man is born. He is the product of chance and cir­cumstance, nothing more. There is no purpose, no mean­ing. He may ask "Why am I here?" but there's no answer. And when chance and circum­stance decree, mankind will cease to exist. Human history leads nowhere.

Let me sum up what the atheist must believe about man. I'm going to give you five headings. The atheist denies the reality of God. But by denying the reality of God he must also deny the reality of Man. He must deny firstly, the reality of human knowledge.

We are conscious creatures. We think. And we assume that our thinking is reliable. We assume that the processes of our brains have meaning. We 'assume that logic can be trust­ed, and that we can gain knowledge by observing and reasoning. But if my brain is simply a collection of cells assembled by chance, and a stream of electrical currents, what reason do I have to trust any of its processes? How can I have any certain knowledge about anything? I know my brain is pouring out a stream of thoughts — it's like a computer that's pouring out information onto a screen all the time. But for all I know, this information may be false or meaningless ­just a random stream of data without any basis in reality. I may just be a brain lying in a tank in a laboratory some­where — and all my memories, all my experiences — all the things I say I know, may simply be the products of random activity inside this brain — just illusions created by chance. The atheist or the agnostic who says "I do not know God exists" has to say "And I don't know anything else either. I don't know if I exist. I don't know if this world exists. I don't know if my little girl exists." When people suppress the truth about God, they have to deny that human beings can know anything for sure.

Darwin himself saw this clear­ly. He once said this: "The horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind ... are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust the conviction of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" You see the complete dead-end into which atheism leads. Darwin says: "My mind tells me that I am a chance product of evolution. But if I am a chance product of evolu­tion, then I have no reason to trust my mind."

And then secondly, they have to deny the reality of human conscience. By conscience I mean that faculty within me which makes me say "I should." "I should do this. I should not do that." "This is right. That is wrong." The atheist has to say "Your con­science is just an illusion." Why should I trust this sense of right and wrong if it's just one more chance product of the evolutionary process? As it happens, human beings have evolved with an inward feeling that it's good to be brave and bad to be cowardly. But if the process of evolution had hap­pened to go another way, they'd have developed a differ­ent feeling. Our sense of right and wrong has nothing objec­tive about it. Think back to my man in the park. If I were to attack him or his little girl he would say I had acted wrongly. But what basis has he to say that? He feels it's a wrong thing to do. But what makes it wrong? Who says it's wrong? Only conscience — and con­science is no more than some electrical currents running round in a brain that came about by chance. As an athe­ist, what possible reason do I have to trust or obey my con­science?

And then thirdly, the atheist has to deny the reality of human love.

Here is this man in the park ­and he loves his little girl. And we say that is a good thing. But what does it mean? Don't forget — that man is simply a machine, assembled by chance, without purpose, with no guar­antee of its reliability. And within the part of that machine we call the brain, electrical cur­rents are fizzing. And within the machine as a whole, certain hormones are pumping through the system. And one of the results of all this electri­cal and chemical activity is that it makes this man protective towards his offspring. One organism is conditioned by chance to protect another related organism. How can love be better than hatred? They are both simply the result of the way that the human machine has been programmed by Chance. Chance has decreed that we feel protective towards babies — but there's nothing good about that. And when this little girl cuddles up to her dad, he can't say "she loves me." He can only say "This chance organism is pro­grammed to look for protec­tion to a more powerful organ­ism." All human love becomes simply a product of chemical reactions — and they are simply the product of evolutionary accident.

And then fourthly, the atheist has to deny the reality of human hope. Any hope for the future of humanity is simply an illusion. All the scien­tists, all the politicians, all the environmentalists in the world cannot change the reality. We live in a universe that is run­ning down. It is going to die. The universe will one day be a cold, dark, burned out ruin. Whether its tomorrow or ten billion years from now, the human race will have ceased to exist. It will leave no trace behind it. It will have achieved nothing. It might as well not have existed. The greatest acts of heroism, the most wonderful works of art, the most brilliant scientific achievements will be forgotten as if they had never happened. Man is no more than an organism thrown up by chance in one corner of the universe, and when chance decrees, Man will cease to exist.

Bertrand Russell the atheist philosopher saw this clearly. Let me quote perhaps the most famous words he ever wrote: "Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving ... his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms... no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feel­ing, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave ... all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system ... the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a uni­verse in ruins." Man's whole history is an irrelevance — just a random pattern thrown up on the computer screen and then lost when the computer is switched off.

And not only is there no hope for Mankind — there is no hope for any individual man or woman. I am simply an acci­dental collocation of atoms — and one day I shall die and those atoms will be scattered.

And whether I have lived an utterly selfish life or a life of service to others, it will all be forgotten — and it can make no difference to the ultimate his­tory of mankind. Hope is an illusion.

And fifthly, the atheist must deny the reality of human value. And that is simply the bottom line of all we've been saying. The atheist must say that human life has no meaning, no value. If I take a hand­ful of dust and shake it out I ask you: which is more valu­able? — the answer is neither. They are both just random "collocations of atoms."

Hitler saw plainly the implica­tion of evolutionary philosophy. Six million Jews were herded into the gas-chambers. That was no crime — they were simply an unshapely branch on the evolutionary tree.

Human beings have no responsibility towards one another. Whatever Hitler did, he had been conditioned to do by his physiology and his environment — and they have been dictated by chance. Chance had decreed that the time had come for the Jewish race to be exterminated and Hitler was simply the tool of the chance process of evolution. Human beings have no value.

The dominant note of modern philosophy is despair. Believe me — I have not exag­gerated in my picture of where atheism must lead. Read the philosophers of the twentieth century and you will find what I have said on every page. We have no knowledge — we are simply lost bewildered crea­tures in a meaningless uni­verse. Conscience is att illu­sion. There is no right. There is no wrong. There are social conventions but no reason to keep them. Human love is meaningless— just a physiologi­cal phenomenon with no real value. Human hope must be abandoned — man's future is extinction. And we are crea­tures without value. Russell called Man "a helpless atom."

Listen: "Brief and power­less is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to all good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man, con­demned today to lose his dear­est, tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness..."

What is Man? That is the atheist's answer. A meaning­less creature, without knowl­edge, conscience, love, hope or value.

Samuel Beckett's play Breath lasts for all of 35 seconds. A pile of rubbish on a dimly-lit stage. You hear a cry, then a breath breathed in; the light brightens a little for a few sec­onds and then begins to dim again. You hear a sigh as the breath is breathed back out again. Another cry — and the play is over.

And that is human life ­momentary and meaningless.

Now do you believe that? Is that what Man is? That is where Beckett's atheism had led him. But is it true? And every one of you knows that the answer is no. You know that Man is more than that. You know that there is such a thing as knowledge. You know that there is such a thing as right and wrong. You know that love is precious. You know that it is not absurd to hope. You know that your wife and your children are not just worthless meaningless collections of atoms — a pile of rubbish on a stage. You know they have value.

There are some truths you cannot escape from. Maybe not everyone here is a Christian. Maybe some of you even call yourselves atheists or agnostics. But there are some things you know inescapably. And top of the list — you know that human beings have value. But apart from the message of the Bible, you cannot explain why human beings have any value.

Only the Bible can explain what makes Man valuable ­what makes Man special and precious. Reject the message of the Bible and you are left in an utterly meaningless world, a world of ignorance, hopeless­ness, illusion and despair.

I want to sum up what the Bible says about Man in three statements. You will find them summed up in Genesis chapter 1 verses 26-29.

1. The first statement is this. Man was created by God. The Bible opens with the words "In the beginning, GOD" ... Not chance but God — the everlasting and infinite God who cannot not be — Ultimate reality. He who has no beginning. He who has no cause. He who is.

This God communes within himself. Genesis chapter 1:26. And God said, "Let us make man." Verse 27: "So God cre­ated man."

Man is a creature. That is the most fundamental truth of all about Man. He does not exist by chance. He exists by the plan, the purpose of the Eternal God. He exists for God's pleasure. And the Bible further teaches that God not only created Man in the begin­ning, but it is God who keeps us in existence every moment. We are dependent creatures ­dependent on God not only for food and drink and clothing but for our very existence. "In him we live and move and have our being."

Now on the one side this is enormously humbling. What is the real root of atheism? Why would people rather believe that they are the product of chance than believe that they are creatures of God? Well ­because they do not want to admit that they are dependent — that they are dependent upon God every moment for their very existence — that they owe him gratitude and obedience. Its the parable of the Prodigal Son who boasts that he is inde­pendent and free — but all the time is living on money his  father has given him. To admit that we are creatures is hum­bling.

But it is also the only road to real human dignity. I am not a pile of rubbish thrown together by chance on a stage. I was planned and made by the wis­dom and power of God. I am special to him I have a value ­because he values me. My life is not meaningless. I was creat­ed for a purpose. I was created for the pleasure of God.

A computer is programmed to print out letters randomly. Look at the piece of paper. Rubbish. Nonsense. Worth­less. Yes — occasionally three or four letters come together to make a word — but the whole thing is meaningless.

A poet sits down and he writes a sonnet. Lovingly he creates. He chooses words. He builds his pattern of sound and meaning. Its a treasure. It has value.

You are a poem springing from the mind of the eternal poet. You are a sculpture shaped by the hand of the ulti­mate artist. You are a creature of God. And you are precious to him.

2. The second truth the Bible teaches is this. Man was created as the climax of creation. Genesis chapter 1 tells the story of the creation of the universe, step by step. The heavens and the earth, light, the sky, the dry land and the seas, plants in all their variety, sun and moon and stars, living creatures teeming in the waters, birds flying in the skies, beasts and reptiles that move along the ground. Each in its turn is called into being. And God says of each one "It is good."

But then God says: Let us make Man. Man is the final, climactic step in the work of creation. Everything that has gone before has merely been a preparation for this moment. The cosmos in all its vast splen­dour has only been created to be a home for man. The sun and the stars have been created (ch 1 vs 14) to serve as signs for Man's benefit to mark seasons and days and years. Were told in chapter 2 that the beasts are created to be servants and companions for Man. Everything else that God cre­ates, he creates for the service and happiness of Man.

We are not strangers in a strange land. The atheist looks out and can only see a terrifyingly vast universe domi­nated by chance, a universe in which Man is an irrelevant and trivial speck. But the Bible encourages us to look out and to see the universe as our home — a home that God has designed for us — a home to be explored and wondered at. Listen to Fred Hoyle: "Why is the Universe as it is and not something else? Why is the Universe here at all? It is true that at present we have no clue to the answers to questions such as these..." He goes on to talk about "the truly dreadful situation in which we find ourselves. Here we are in this wholly fantastic Universe with scarcely a clue as to whether our existence has any real sig­nificance."

 By contrast the Christian with the Bible in his hand can look out and say "I know, I under­stand why this Universe exists. It is God's gift to me — to Man." How vast a palace God built for Man to grow up in and how full of delights to dis­cover. The atheist cannot explain why there should be beauty in the world or why Man should have a capacity to enjoy beauty. But the Christian knows why there is colour and music and hazy sun­sets and dazzling snow. He can say "they were made for me ­God's gifts to his most special and treasured creation."

Creation was made for Man. And Man is to be head over creation. You see God's com­mand to Man here in chapter 1 vs 28: God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground". Man is-given authori­ty under God to subdue the earth — to bring out its poten­tial, to develop and cultivate the created order. Man is given authority to rule the beasts. In chapter 2 vs 19, we are told that it is Man who gives the beasts their names ­they only find their true role and identity in submission to Man.

Man is special. The atheist may tell us that we are only highly evolved animals but we know that it is not true. The animal rights activist can say that Man is no more valuable than any other animal but in our heart of hearts we know he is wrong. When 20 children are gunned down in a school hall, we know that its not the same thing as 20 hens being killed by a fox. When an earthquake swallows up a city, we know it's not the same thing as an ant-hill being destroyed. We know that Man has a unique dignity, a special value. But only the Bible can tell us why.

And the Bible's explanation is that God has crowned Man with glory and honour and appointed him to rule all cre­ation. "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fin­gers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is Man that you are mind­ful of him, the son of Man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honour. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas."

Those verses tell us that the destiny for which God creat­ed Man is wonderful beyond words. They're taken from Psalm 8 That psalm begins with the words: "O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens." The psalmist has caught a glimpse of the glory of God. But then he says: "What is Man that you are mindful of him? (vs 5) ... You have crowned him with glory and honour." Do you see: Man is to share the glory of God. Man is to rule the whole universe as God's representative. The atheist has to say "Man has no ulti­mate future — he will perish in the ruins of a burned-out universe." The Bible says: God has created Man with a future that is unimaginably wonderful. He will rule over a universe full of the glory of God. The atheist says: "Human hope is a delusion." The Christian says: "We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God."

3. The third truth the Bible teaches is this. Man was created in the image of God. Genesis chap­ter 1 verse 27: "So God creat­ed Man in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them."

Man is created to mirror God. God is a God of infi­nite and perfect knowledge. So Man has true knowledge. He cannot have infinite knowledge because he is not infinite. He is a creature. But he can have true knowl­edge. That is the answer to the great philosophical dilem­ma: how can I know anything for sure? I can know because God has made me in his own image. When God created my senses and my brain and my consciousness, he created them so that they were capa­ble of true understanding and knowledge. Two and two make four. I know that — and I am not deceived. An athe­ist cannot say "I know that two and two makes four." He can only say "My brain tells me that two and two make four and I work on the assumption that its true." But the Christian can say "I know."

Again God is a God of righteousness. His eternal character is to love goodness and to hate evil. And so we are created in his image, conscious that some things are to be loved and that other hinges are to be hated; that some things are good and that others are evil. It's not just a social convention that kindness is good and cruelty is bad. It's not just an idea planted in our brain by evolutionary chance that truthfulness is good and deceit is evil.

These inward conviction spring from the eternal nature of God — we were made in his image.

And most important of all, God is a God of love. We read in verse 26: "Then God said, Let us make Man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over"... all the beasts. Within the one being of God there are three per­sons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — that is why God says "Let us make." And these three persons are bound together in a relationship of eternal, perfect and infinite love. Each person of the Trinity gives himself to the other persons in an unbroken cycle of love and joy. And Man was made to mirror that.

That is why we read in vs 27: "God created Man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Why did God create male and female? So that they in their love would be a picture, a mirror of the everlasting love between the persons of the Trinity. When a Man feels his heart drawn out in love towards his wife, he can say: "This love is not just a chemical accident; a biologi­cal trick to ensure the repro­duction of the species." He can say: "This love is an echo of the eternal love that exists in the very being of God. God is love — and so Man cre­ated in God's image can truly love.

What vast dignity the Bible gives to Man! Created by God, Head of all Creation, destined to rule the Universe as God's representative, God's image-bearer, capable of true knowledge, true right­eousness, true love. That is the Bible's picture of Man as created by God.

Now we believe in the Fall. We believe that at a real moment in history, in a real place, Adam and Eve rebelled against their Creator. And we believe that Adam's sin involved the whole human race — that the whole human family was implicated in Their Father's sin. Adam was not willing to see himself as a creature, dependent on God. He wanted to be his own God. You shall be like gods, said Satan, knowing good and evil — choosing for yourselves what is best. That was the choice Adam made: he was determined to shake off his position as a creature and to pretend that he could be independent of God.

We need to see how gross, how wicked Man's rebellion against God is. Man was cre­ated with this awesome posi­tion under God, astonishing privileges — but that was not enough. He was determined to throw off the God who had shown such amazing kindness to him. He was determined to believe a lie ­that he could be his own god. Paul says: "They neither glo­rified God as God nor were they grateful." The human race created for such a glori­ous position was not grateful — instead they turned against the God who had piled such honours upon them.

And the consequences of that are all around us. Through one man sin came into the world — and death through sin. Ruin, confusion, misery and death. Man is a guilty creature. And Man is a depraved creature. We speak of total depravity. Man, separated from God, has been depraved, twisted, in every part of his being. The image of God in Man has been horribly defaced.

And yet it has not been obliterated. Man is wicked ­but' he is still Man. Man is depraved but he has not stopped being Man.

Now let's think about what that means. Man — every man here in this world — still carries the image of God. That is why human beings still have reason and knowl­edge. Total depravity means that we use our minds in a deceitful and proud and sin­ful way — but we still have minds. We can still think and reason and learn and know.

Man still has conscience. Total depravity means that our conscience is damaged — it can be perverted and twist­ed — but we still have con­science. Every man still knows that some things are right and others are wrong.

Man still has love. Total depravity means that love is mixed with selfishness and greed and lust; our love is often given to the wrong peo­ple and the wrong things ­but fallen men and women can still love.

Man still has hope. Total depravity means that our hopes and dreams are often evil, and the way we set out to achieve them is wicked — but fallen men and women still do dream of a better future — for themselves and for the world.

Man is guilty and damaged. But he still carries the image of God. Its terribly defaced but its still there. Someone compared Man with a won­derful temple that's been bombed, gutted by fire, and vandalised. Its appallingly ruined — but you can still see how wonderful it once was. And that is why every human being, in this world, however sinful, however depraved, however damaged they may be still has value.

And in the gospel of Jesus Christ a way is open for every man or woman to be restored — to be delivered from the ruin caused by sin — to become fully human again.

The Lord Jesus Christ came to restore the image of God to ruined mankind. Jesus Christ the Son of God, the one who was eternally the image of God, came into this world and became the perfect Man. He offered a perfect obedience to the Father. He died for the sins of guilty Mankind. And now those who are united to him by Faith — they are restored to the image of God. They become truly, fully human. The ruined temple is rebuilt. From the day they become Christians, they begin to be like God in his knowledge, and goodness, and love. Step by step they are sanctified. They become holy, Godlike. And in the world to come, they will be perfect in the likeness of God.

Those who are joined to Jesus Christ are the true humanity. They are the only people who, in the end, are truly human. They have true knowledge, true goodness, true love, true hope, and infi­nite value. They are God's treasured people.

But what of those who reject Christ — who never turn to him, who are never joined to him — the true per­fect Man? What will happen to them on the Day of Judgment? They will be cut off from the human race. The last traces of the image of God will be obliterated from them. And they will be cast into hell — ruined and wretched creatures, stripped of reason and knowledge, insane and bewildered. The seared conscience will finally be burned out of them and they will be given over com­pletely to evil and ugliness, clinging forever to the sins that make them wretched. They will be cut off for ever from love, filled with an ever­lasting hatred and rage against God and against every other creature. They have no hope — they are trapped forever in despair and horror. They are no ­longer human — they really are what Samuel Beckett pic­tured — a pile of rubbish, without meaning, without value. The name the Bible gives to hell is Gehenna — ­that was the rubbish heap outside Jerusalem where the refuse of the city was burned. And that is the fate of those who live and die without Christ — they become worth­less, value-less rubbish, cast out forever from God's uni­verse, into the fire of Gehenna.

In the end, the division between the saved and the lost is total and absolute.

Men and women, children, who are joined to Jesus Christ become true human beings, utterly beautiful, full of wisdom and righteousness and love, reflecting God's glory for ever, ruling over a restored universe forever. That is what men and women are supposed to be.

But those who will not have Christ — those who will not have the God of the Bible ­those who will not bow to the sovereign God — for them there is nothing but ruin. Cut off from God, cut off from the human race, cut off from all that is good and God-like for ever.

Sometimes people ask me: "In heaven how can I be happy, knowing that my fel­low human-beings — maybe the people I love best — are in hell?" And the answer is simple. No human being will be in hell. The creatures in hell are not human beings any longer. They are things that were once human beings. But they are human no longer. The person you knew and loved will not be in hell. That person had so many lov­able qualities — the remnants of the image of God — but now, the image of God has been obliterated. The crea­ture in hell shares the like­ness not of God but of Satan. That person you once knew and loved — with his God-like qualities — no longer exists. You could not love the crea­ture in hell if you tried — God cannot love that creature ­there is nothing there to love.

Here in this world, the line between believers and unbe­lievers is often hard to dis­cern. We have so much in common with one another. We can sympathise with one another because we are all still human-beings.

Unbelievers have so many remnants of the image of God still remaining in them ­they may have so much charm; so much kindness; so much wisdom. And believers may fall so far short of the full image of God — they may display so much dishonesty, malice, selfishness. We meet unbelievers who seem so much nicer than many believ­ers.

But in the world to come, there will be no such confusion. Those who are joined to Jesus Christ will at last be restored fully to the image of God, sharing all his perfections. And those who are cut off from Jesus Christ will be stripped of all the last remnants of humanness. At last we shall see Man-in-Christ for what he really is — the true likeness of God. And we shall see that Man-without-Christ is not truly Man at all; he is — as George Whitefield used to say — part devil and part beast.

It is not enough to ask the question: "What is Man?" The question is "What are you?" "Are you a true Man?", a true woman, joined to Christ, growing in the likeness of God, being prepared for glory? Or are you still living without Christ, doomed to destruction and everlasting shame? May God press that question home to every heart tonight — for Jesus's Sake.