The last section was entitled hope. For the Christian, hope is a special word that does not mean that we wish for a fairy tale ending. Instead, our hope rests solidly in the assurance from God that what was once perfect, will be restored again to perfection. Our decaying and crumbling world will be restored - along with much that is on it - to the pristine garden from which it began.

So, to examine this hope and to determine its basis, we look to the beginning. The beginning of all things.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." (Gen 1:1, 31 NIV)

Or perhaps you prefer the "scientific" explanation for the beginning of life. That 4 billion years ago, a swirling mass of particles had coalesced and cooled sufficiently for life to begin on the new born earth. Many years of chance electrical charges and a protoplasmic soup combined to spark the first vestiges of life - the first amino acids. Through continued chance encounters these amino acids formed the long chain proteins that would eventually develop into single celled animals. As evolution continued its march toward higher and higher development, plants and animals began to populate the earth until, relatively recently, man appeared - the current champion of evolution and survivor by his intellect.

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