The Devastation of Sin

Today, we want to look at this topic, the devastation of sin, and the promise of the gospel, which we have here in the earliest chapters of the Bible. Genesis chapter 3, and I'd like to read the entire chapter, if you'd follow along with me. Genesis chapter 3. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, indeed, as God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden. The woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we made, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat from it, or touch it, or you will die. You surely will not die. For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God knowing good and evil.

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard a sound, the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? He said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.

And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree in I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me in I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, because of this, because you have done this, cursed are you, more than all cattle, more than every beast of the field, on your belly you will go, and thus you will eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. So the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children, yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.

Then to Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you, in toil you will eat of it, all the days of your life. But thorns and thistles, it shall grow for you, and you will eat the plants of the field, by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return. Now the man called his wife's name, Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever.

Therefore, the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken, so he drove the man out at the east of the garden of Eden. He stationed the cherubim in the flaming sword, which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life. Jesus asked the Lord's help this morning, our fathers, we come to you. We ask that your blessing would be upon your word this morning, may it be clear to us. May our blind eyes be opened, our deaf ears open, so that we might hear our hard hearts made soft, that we might receive your word in Jesus' name, amen. This morning, we are dealing with the chapter that is the most mocked of any and every chapter in the Bible.

There is no chapter in the Bible that is mocked as much as Genesis chapter 3. You have probably seen little cartoons here and there that depict Adam and Eve in the garden, scantily dressed, hiding behind the brush of the trees and so forth, and the snakes littering in the tree and an apple hanging from the tree and Eve maybe has taken it in funny little remarks about it. But you know what? You cannot understand the Bible and you cannot understand the gospel of Jesus Christ unless you understand Genesis chapter 3. Some people would rather simply not deal with it because it's embarrassing to them that this sounds like a myth. It sounds like one of those stories that explain certain things but the story itself is not true just the thing that's being explained may have some truth to it.

But the problem is that if we don't understand this account and this is a historical account, it's considered historical throughout the Bible. The New Testament considers Adam and Eve and the serpent to be historical figures. It's also a symbol laden narrative of history. It's real history but it's filled with symbols that are filled out in the rest of the Bible. There are what some call trajectories here, the beginnings of certain truth that are first given to us in a very subtle way but then they are developed through the rest of the word of God. And so this passage is filled with truth and it's relevant truth. It's truth and it's truth that will affect the way that we communicate the gospel.

If we do not understand these things and we will, it will affect the way that we communicate the gospel. We will either domesticate it, distort it, pervert it, change it in some way. Give it in a way that doesn't really do justice to the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we do not understand the problem of sin as it is described for us here in Genesis chapter 3 because if we don't understand the problem then we will not understand the solution. If we don't understand the fall of man in Genesis 3 we will not understand the death of Christ on Calvary. And so let's take a look at it. One look at several things. The first thing is we're going to go back and review a little bit because we've covered some of this territory.

But in the first six verses we have the treacherous deceit of the serpent. According to the New Testament, Satan stands behind the serpent here. In Revelation chapter 12 we are told that the devil is that old serpent who deceives the world. And in several other places this serpent in the garden is identified with Satan. Now whether Satan is embodied in the serpent or whether he is his representative, obviously there are things about this serpent that are important. And the first thing is that this serpent was a creation of God. He was made by God. Now what's important about this is this eliminates what's called dualism. The Bible does not teach as many modern movies teach that you go to that there are these two entities called good and evil and they are at war with each other and one will win depending on the effort of people on either side.

The Bible says is that evil is rebellion against the one and only God who is good. Evil is rebellion against God and God is good. And this serpent is a dependent creature. He is not a deity. He is a dependent creature. He was one created by the living God. Secondly we are told that he was the most crafty of all of God's creatures. And as we said before this word is really a neutral term and whether it means prudent, wise, making good decisions or whether it means crafty and sneaky and somebody is going to take advantage of you depends upon the context in which it is used. And obviously in this context it is used in the latter way. Notice his craftiness. He begins with the question with just the right amount of skepticism.

The skepticism comes through in his question. Did God really say that you cannot eat of every tree of the garden? He is very subtle. What he is doing here is he is putting the word of God on trial. He distorts God's word as well. He exaggerates. Did God say you cannot eat of any tree? And he implies something about the character and nature of God. He implies that God is the cosmic killjoy. He doesn't want you to have fun to enjoy life. He is withholding from you something that you need to find fullness in life. Now notice what happens. This is really interesting because all of us have experienced this when somebody comes to us with slander about someone and they exaggerate. They exaggerate so much that we have to correct their exaggeration and that is what Eve does.

She corrects his exaggeration. But notice she has a touch of annoyance regarding God in her statement because she adds these words that God says we can eat of all the trees, but the tree in the middle of the garden we are not to eat from it nor touch it unless we die. God didn't say anything about touching it when he ordered Adam not to eat of this tree but she adds that. It reminds me of those times when you have people who come to you and they bring slander about some other person. They say, you know, I have heard that guy is, he has really got some real problems. He is not very honest. In fact, somebody told me that he was once on the 10 most wanted list and you go, oh no, that is ridiculous.

He has never been on anybody's wanted list. Now, I admit he is not the most honest guy in the world. So you embrace the slander, you know, I wouldn't want to buy a used car from him. And that is what Eve does. She corrects the exaggeration but she, in essence, embraces the slander about God. You notice what Satan does in verses 4 and 5. He denies the doctrine of judgment. He denies the doctrine of judgment. He says, you will not surely die. God will not bring this judgment that he has promised on you. Now, there are many in the world who want to eliminate the doctrine of judgment from the word of God because if there is no judgment, there is no judge, if there is no judge, there is no fear. There is nothing to worry about.

No sanctions against our sin. And so she begins to debate with him about the moral character of God. Now, let me ask you something. Think about this for just a moment. How should she have responded to Satan's question? What should she have done? I think of the context of this that he is coming to her. He is coming to her in the context in which she is living in a garden that is a garden of perfection that God has provided everything for them. He comes in communion with them every evening, walks with them. They have everything they need. At the end of chapter 2, it says, and the man and the woman were both naked and not ashamed. They had a perfect environment, a perfect situation. They enjoyed the love of God in perfection.

What should she have said? Well, she should have said, you must be crazy. Look around you. God has provided all of this for us. He can enjoy everything in his creation. All he has said is, don't eat of this one tree. But she didn't. She instead entered into this philosophical with him about how much evil God may have. And God stands in judgment. In fact, basically, the serpent says, you need to grow up and get a little more sophisticated. You need to be able to pass judgment upon God and upon his word. One of the neat thing about this end of chapter 2 is that we have a picture here of people in total naivete, in a wonderful kind of naivete, gloriously naive they were. Think about their situation.

They went to sleep at night, and they had no memory of failure, no memory of greed or of lust, no memory of sin, no memory of jealousy or profanity, no memory of any wrong doing. They didn't have to go to bed at night and hope, I certainly hope I don't talk in my sleep and let my spouse know this deep, dark sin in my heart. They had a clear conscience, something you will never have until you are transformed. You'll never have a clear conscience. They had a clear conscience. No sin, nothing to regret, nothing to be ashamed of. They were naked and not ashamed. But Satan offers them something other than what they have. He offers them sophistication. You can, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God and you will know good and evil.

Now, this is vicious deceitfulness. This is so characteristic of the attack of Satan on the people of God. Throughout the word of God, this is the kind of attack that Satan brings against us. It is so subtle, it is so unlike what on the popular level people believe Satan comes against them as, in haunted houses, in Halloween settings. No, he doesn't come like that. He comes as an angel of light. He comes and promotes self-righteousness in your heart. He comes to make you feel right and God wrong in your circumstance, in the thing that you face. See what the serpent offered was partly true and totally false, and that's what he always does. He offers you an argument that is partly true and totally and completely false.

Now he promises them that they would know good and evil, and they did. In fact, notice in verse 22 that we read, even God says they know good and evil. It says the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil. They did know good and evil as a result of this. But it was at the cost of becoming evil. Instead of having the kind of knowledge that God had, instead of becoming more like God because they now knew good and evil, they became less like God. As you see, God knows good and evil omnisciently, but not experientially. God is never tempted to sin, nor does he tempt any man to sin, or woman. He's sinless, but what Adam and Eve experienced through this temptation was a knowledge of sin from the inside, the embrace sin.

And notice what they're losing before the fall. Think about what was going on in the garden. God was at the center of the universe. And because God was at the center of the universe, Adam and Eve were perfectly related to one another. This is the only, the one, and only perfect marriage that has ever been experienced. And it may have only been for days. You know why it was perfect? Because God was at the center of the universe. And that centrality was recognized by both Adam and Eve. And so they were perfectly related to one another. They both embraced his centrality, and the result was they had a perfect relationship. You've all seen that little triangle, that little picture of the marriage relationship where God is at the top of the triangle and down at both corners is the husband and the wife.

And it is to illustrate the fact that the closer that you get to God, the closer you get to each other. And that's really true. And here we have a couple who's living in perfect relationship with God where God is central. Well, they understand him to be God, and they treat him as God. And now Satan says, you can be the center of the universe. You can be the center of the universe. All you need to do is simply move God from that place, and you can occupy the place. And once you become the center of the universe, then God, he or she, or if there is a God, must earn my worship. And if he doesn't please me and meet my needs, then I simply will find myself another God. That's all idolatry is. Idolatry is when I put myself at the center of the universe, and then I choose my gods.

Well, the fall meant that each one of them experienced the fact that God was displaced in their hearts from being God. They de-Godded God. They turned away from God. They became the center of the universe in their own hearts. And when a person experiences this, and we all do, because of the fall, we begin to practice idolatry. Now here is the beginning of wars, fences, murders, rapes, devastation, anger, blow-ups, rape, war, greed, all because they believe the lie. I would like you to take your bibles. In fact, if you have a pencil or something, and you don't have a mark by this, turn to Romans chapter 1, verse 25, short, verse like I quoted, but I'd like you to look at it and like you to mark it in your Bible, because this is so crucial for us to understand.

For us to understand this truth, as he describes the fall of man and the movement of fallen man away from God, the ruin of man, kind, he says in verse 25, in the midst of this description, before, they exchange the truth of God for, and that should be the lie. There is a definite article there. In fact, in my margin, it says there's a definite article. And maybe in your particular translation, it might have the article. That's important, because it's a particular lie. The exchange, the truth of God for the lie, the satanic lie. And we know what the lie is, based upon what follows. It is the lie that we should worship and serve the creature instead of the creator, who is blessed forever. This is at the heart of the fall, for the exchange and truth of God for the lie, and they worshiped and served the creature instead of the creator.

And this was the heart of their problem. They believed the lie. Now what was the temptation? I think we ought to think about this for a minute, because it's important. We often think, and you probably have heard that the Bible know where it says that this was an apple tree. The Bible doesn't say anything about Adam and Eve eating an apple. And the type of fruit that it was really doesn't matter at all. And it is not sex, because sex was a part of the original creation. That was a blessing from God. That's not what the temptation was. What was the temptation? Often we think of sin as simply breaking one of God's rules, whether it's an arbitrary rule or not, breaking a rule of God, that's sin. That's what we think of as sin.

Sin is much more profound than that. God isn't this kind of person that establishes rules so that he will demonstrate his power over us. The issue here is that what Satan was doing was, he was fomenting a revolution. This is a revolt against their maker, their glorious maker. Remember the context. This is the one who made Adam and Eve and gave them everything that they could enjoy. The maker that they are now trying to dethrone and revolt against. They are trying to de-god this God. And that's what sin is about. Sin is revolution. And understand that. That's what sin is. Sin isn't breaking the rules of the church. That's an unbiblical concept. Sin is revolting against God. Yes, it does involve disobedience to his word, to his commands.

But at its heart, sin is revolution and revolt against the living God. Now the pattern that you have here of her sin is something that we see running throughout scripture. We see this pattern. It's the pattern that you have experienced this past week, and I've experienced because we all still struggle with sin. But notice what it is, because it's so perceptive. This pattern of sin, which now runs through all sins that are committed in the world, first of all, I hope you can read this. I didn't realize that was so small. Eve listens to the creature instead of the creator. That's the first step. Eve listens to the creature instead of the creator. When you are in the midst of a moral or ethical dilemma, who do you call?

Dr. Laura? Or do you go to the Word of God? You find out what the Word of God is in regards to the decision, my life. See what Eve did was that she listened to the creature, the serpent instead of the creator. Secondly, she followed her impressions instead of God's instructions. Oh, this is a characteristic of the modern day evangelical church in America. We so crave to find a way to live the Christian life by our impressions. This is what we want more than anything else. I didn't have to fuss with the Word of God. If I didn't have to fuss with trying to figure out what God is saying in these 66 books and discovering His will and knowing what it is that He wants us to do and what His character is like and what the Christian life is all about, if I could simply be so changed that all I had to do was to follow my impressions and know that that would be obedience to God.

Wouldn't that be great? See, that's why you can sell an experience like that. You've cured Christianity where you have a second blessing of some kind that's going to do something in you that's going to so change you that you no longer have to be concerned about the proclaimed written commandments in will of God. You don't have to study the Bible, understand God's Word, that you can simply go with the flow. You know, the Spirit gives you an impression and you just do whatever the Spirit impresses you to do. We would love that. And believe me, people who sell that kind of thing, and I need to be careful here. I know a lot of people believe that and they're not selling anything. They honestly believe that's what the Bible teaches.

But the problem is it brings total devastation. I grew up in a group that we had a second and a third blessing. The second blessing was total sanctification. And if you ever got this experience, which I never saw a person manifest that experience either there or here in this church, I don't know anybody who's fully sanctified in this church, starting with me, that they claim to have experienced this total sanctification, removal of their sin, nature. Wow, wouldn't you like to have that one? Or at least you'd like your spouse to have it. Let me need to live with somebody who had no, I don't know if it would or not. I don't think it would actually. And then she made self fulfillment, her goal instead of pleasing God, self fulfillment.

We are such a turn in upon ourselves people in this world. I mean, this isn't just my, or it's not just pop psychology or my evaluation. This is historical reality. We are the most self-centered people openly, perhaps not inwardly, because it's probably been the severe problems throughout the history of mankind. But man, we have magazines like Self and Me. Imagine that. I mean, it's amazing today. Do you remember that period of time we went through some of your old enough back in the 70s where people actually said it's wrong to be so self-centered? And our parents were so self-centered, that isn't even in the cards today. People openly and without blushing say they are living for themselves and their own self-fulfillment.

You got to treat yourself good, don't you? It's amazing how things in the Church have been transformed into self-centered things like we don't have Bible studies anymore, we have recovery groups where you can come and talk about yourself. And then every wicked thing about yourself in the midst of a context in which everybody goes, oh, wow, instead of actually studying the Bible, the Word of God and discovering what God's like and what I'm like and what I ought to be like and those kinds of things. So much easier to go to those kinds of things where you can just, you know, unveil yourself than to actually have to get into the Word of God and begin to understand who he is and what he is. And she follows this impressions, her impressions instead of God's instructions.

She made self-fulfillment her goal instead of pleasing God. And then chapter three, verse six, in response to her impressions, she usurps God's authority. The act of sin itself, James describes this when he talks about the lust rising up in the heart and us taking hold of that lust, embracing it as our own. And then it brings forth sin and sin brings forth death. That act of sin, when we actually just, we have thought about it, we've been tempted and now we act in disobedience. She acts in disobedience to God. She takes of the tree. She took, it says, and ate and she gave to her husband. Now notice the immediate results of this fall, of this sin. First of all, the first immediate result is their eyes were open, just as Satan had promised.

At one level he was telling them the truth, he kept his promise. But it was on the level like this, a person who has AIDS and a doctor who is an expert in AIDS have both have a knowledge of AIDS, but they have a different kind of knowledge. And oncologist has a different kind of knowledge of cancer than his patient. The patient has a kind of knowledge that the doctor unless he himself as a cancer patient doesn't have. What Satan was promising them and what they thought he was promising them was to have the kind of knowledge of good and evil that God had, what he actually gave them was the kind of knowledge of good and evil that a sinner under condemnation has. Their eyes are open, and this knowledge that he gives to them, this opened eyes, turns out to be something that is destructive and grotesque.

They begin to see things about themselves that they don't want anyone else to see. Romans chapter 7, as Paul describes this battle that goes on inside of a person with sin. This war, he pictures sin as being not me. It's no longer I, but sin that dwells in me. It gets like that, doesn't it? You hate this sin that is within you. And so they saw what they really didn't want to see. They wanted enlightenment at all costs. And the cost was, they paid dearly, was they lost the light of God's presence. They had basked in the presence of God. And now they're in darkness, spiritual darkness, and now they see, but what they see is their own nakedness. And as we said before, the word, very subtle change of words here in the account early on in the end of chapter 2, he says they were naked, they were both naked and not ashamed.

And now he says they were naked and very ashamed. He switches words slightly, it's a related word, but it's a different root. And it always has the connotation of impoverishment, naked in the sense of being stripped of everything. And now in their nakedness, their impoverishment, they see themselves. And now they have something to be ashamed of. Think of that. It's hard to even relate to this, isn't it? Can you imagine life without being ashamed of anything? Can you imagine life where it wouldn't bother you a bit for your wife or your husband or your child or your parents or your friends to know every single thought that you have, every lust that has ever arisen in your heart, every piece of bitterness, every ounce of pride.

Can it be something to live in a context like that where you could be totally and completely transparent and be ashamed of nothing? It's an amazing thing. And so they sew fig leaves. Now their eyes are open and they see their nakedness so they sew fig leaves. Now that is really preposterous, isn't it? That they try to close themselves with fig leaves and it's very primitive. In fact, the word that he uses here is loin, that's translated to loin pieces is like a belt. This is the beginning of the modern fashion movement. It's just nothing there. And sometimes you watch, I never do, but sometimes you watch these fashion shows and they walk down to whatever you call that thing and the silly looking walk and the clothes that are so ridiculous and so revealing and so insulting to what a woman is.

Here they are with their little belts trying to hide their nakedness. And of course, this is another very symbolic, laid element and that is this because if you notice down in verse 21, you would think God says, take those silly things off. He doesn't say that. Instead, He provides clothes for them. You know what the point is? There is no road back. There is no road back to innocence. There is no longer anything such as innocence in this fallen race. And you will never find a person who truly has innocence. Now we have a movement in the world, in American other places, it's not all nudist colonies or like this, but many of the nudist colonies are actually a philosophical movement. They believe this.

But if we can be totally transparent and uncovered in one area of our life, then we can become transparent in every area of our life. And so we start with our physical nakedness. Well, that's ridiculous. But you know what? We have spiritual nudists in the church all the time. People who think that the height of spirituality is we can gather in little groups and tell the depths of our sin to each other. Examinate, look at it, speak about it, go over it and over it and over it. Now I don't mean we're supposed to live hidden lies from each other. We are to confess our sins once to one to another, but those sins that we confess to each other are sins that affect you. I don't tell Bill all of my sins.

I do tell Bill the sins that I commit against him. I don't think I've ever told him one. I don't know that I've ever sinned against him. But if I sin against him, I have to go to him and I confess my sin to him. But we're not Roman priests. I need to talk to a believer who's not involved in the situation because I need help. But Ephesians chapter 5 verse 12 says, these are things that we are not even, they're not going to be spoken of, things that are done in the darkness. I think it's proper and good for a person who they give their testimony to say, I was steep and sin. I was a bondage to this kind of sin or that kind of sin. But to go into all the detail and it becomes the center of attention is the mistake that many make because there is no road back to innocence.

I can't get rid of this by simply confessing it to you. There is only a road to Calvary. The Bible says that you will never have a clear conscience in this life, but you can have a cleansed conscience. The writer Hebrew says in Hebrews chapter 10, that we can approach God with a conscience that has been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. When I come to him each day and instead of denying my sin, I confess my sin. The Bible says, he forgives me of my sin and cleanses me from all unrighteousness. I can have a cleansed conscience. Not just a clear conscience. I don't know if you've ever done this. Let me confess to you now that I said you shouldn't confess to each other. I've had these periods of time in my life where at certain points in my life, I decide I'm never going to sin again.

I've done this a couple of times early on. When I became an elder, I became an elder in church when I was 28 or 27, 27, 28. That seems weird, doesn't it? 27, 28 years old became an elder and I remember thinking myself, I didn't believe in perfection, but I remember thinking that I was going to stop. This was like a stake I could drive on the ground and that God could help me never fall prey to those besetting sins. But of course, as Paul describes it in Romans 7, when you do that, all of a sudden, when he read the commandment, that was not covered, I begin to cover it in every way I can imagine. I need a different power. I need the power of the Holy Spirit. It isn't enough to put on a little loincloth and cover up my sin from the view of God or man.

The only way, the only path, the only way my conscience can be cleansed is through the blood of Christ. So there's no way back, but there is a road to Calvary and at Calvary, Jesus deals with our guilt. And that's the reason we don't have to be a people dominated by guilt and shame because of the cross. And not only did they, their eyes were open, but also their fellowship with God was broken. Notice what happens in verses 8 through 10. It says, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden of the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves in the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. And then the Lord God calls to the man and says to him, where are you?

God pursues them and they flee. They're fleeing and God is pursuing, isn't that the way it is? That is how it is. That's how you became a Christian, God pursued you. He did all the running and sinning and he did all the chasing and he caught you. This is the first sign of grace in this passage. They could not possibly find God and they didn't want to if they could. They were running from him, trying to hide from him. They were afraid that he would destroy them because he had said the day that you eat of this tree, you shall surely die. Notice his approach in verse 8, it is with power and gentleness. There's a kind of a subtlety here. Notice that he makes himself heard. They heard him coming. They heard the footsteps.

Now this expression is used throughout the pinnitude, the sound of the Lord is used. It's a common expression in the pinnitude where it usually is a call for obedience. A call for obedience. And notice the irony. They heard and this is the primary word in both the Old and New Testament for obedience. Hearing. You all can relate to that. All your parents say to your kids, listen to me and you're not doing a sound check. You're not going, you know, testing, testing, one, two, three. Do you hear me? And when they disobey you say you did not listen to me. What do you mean by that? You mean they didn't obey you, right? That's what hearing is. When you say to your child, listen. What you are saying is obey me, obey me.

And here it's so subtle that he comes and they hear the sound of the Lord. But they're hiding because they have been disobedient. They have not listened to the word of the Lord. But not only that, he manifests his powerful presence. You see that expression there in the cool of the day. The word cool is, this is the only place in the Bible. It's translated this way. It's the Hebrew word Ruach. Ruach is the Hebrew word for spirit or wind. You're translated cool of the day. Now I suppose you could, and this is probably the reason they translated it this way, is because when the wind blows, it cools you off, right? But the point here I think is a subtle one that in the wind or spirit of the day, he comes.

This expression, this picture is used over and over in scripture of man's encounter with God. When Elijah was on the mountain, remember the mighty wind that comes. Or when he speaks to Job, it says he spoke to him out of the storm, Acts 2, when the spirit comes. It's like a mighty rushing wind. I believe this is a metaphor. It's in reality, but it's a metaphor for the manifest presence of God. Now think about this for a minute. Isn't this true in your life that sometimes the only thing that will wake you up and open your eyes to your sin is the manifest presence of the Lord. When you were all of a sudden through whatever circumstance, whether it's sitting under the Word of God or whether it's in your prayer life, whether it's in the circumstance of life, you have this great sense that you are in the presence of Almighty God that it grabs your attention.

I have to say that was one of the things in my heritage growing up in a Pentecostal church that was really a positive in this sense. That when somebody would begin to speak in a word of prophecy or interpreting a message in tongues, which I believe there were quite sincere, but when they did that, I got to tell you, it got your attention. When I was 12, 13, 14 years old, when somebody said, thus say at the Lord, I got to tell you, I went silent, I went still, I listened to every single syllable that was being spoken. Because as believers, we crave the presence of the Lord. The reason I believe the Pentecostal charismatic movements are the fastest growing movement in the church today is because people crave the presence, the manifest presence of the Lord, the felt presence of the Lord.

When God comes on the scene in this wind, they hear Him, they feel Him, they know He is there. The question He asked them is, where are you? Where are you? That has some profundity to it, doesn't it? Where are you? Think for a minute if the living Christ is really here in our midst as He claims that He is. The Bible says, when we gather in the name of Christ, we are then the Nathos of God, the holy place of God, where God dwells, His manifest presence is here. We don't see a cloud, we don't see fire coming down from heaven, but He is promising when we meet in His name, He is here. Imagine how you would respond if God were to say to you, in your ear this morning of Jesus Christ was to say to you, whoever you are, where are you?

How would you respond to His question? Where are you? He doesn't ask this question because He wants to find out where they are. He knows where they are. He has voiced, penetrates their concealment and lets them know they can't hide. That's what happens when the work of the Spirit comes in power in the church. Is people realize they can't hide from this living Christ? Without the presence of God, everything we do is totally fuel. We can crank it up more and work harder at it and do it better, but nothing is ever going to be produced that has eternal value if the Spirit of the Lord is not in this place and at work in us. Apart from the manifest presence of God, yesterday, Dewey came over and checked our heat.

We have a heat pump out there in the country and man, we freeze at times. This cold snap came on and our house wasn't getting over about 60 degrees at best. He came by and checked and he discovered that it was low and free on and so he put free on in it. I have to tell you, it is a world of difference. I am actually thought out this morning. It's incredible. I thought, I told you this morning, this reminds me of the Holy Spirit. You can work hard at the work of the gospel and the work of the kingdom and you can crank it up. We would turn that thing all the way up, trying to get some heat in the house and it kept blowing cold air. That's how we can do in the church. We can work harder, organize better, try to please everybody, but unless the Spirit of the living God is in this place, if he is not at work in our lives, then all that we do is vanity, vanity.

Notice Adam's response. He fears, he hides and he conceals. He fears and this is really interesting. This is the first mention of fear in the Bible. Fear in verse 10. The first mention of fear. And notice it is connected with sin and judgment. First on for 18 says, perfect love is continually casting out fear because fear has judgment. He fears. The reason he fears for the first time is because he has been disobedient. I got to tell you, I believe that the primary thing that we need to do to escape from fear in our lives is obey. It's learned to obey. I hate to say those kind of little things because I used to have this woman who would say to me every time she would talk to me of some problem.

I would try to give her some biblical principle, turn her to the passage and so forth. She would say, oh, here we go again, read two verses and call me in the morning. And most of us think our problems are of such a nature that the word of God just doesn't have the answer. It would be amazing how our lives would change if we simply started doing the simple things that the Bible commands, like listen, obey, pray, walk in the spirit, he fears. And then he hides. It hides among the trees. The trees that were given to him as a great blessing he uses them to hide from God. And he conceals, that is, he doesn't confess the reason that he knows he's naked, God says, who told you that you were naked? He doesn't confess that he's sinned.

He doesn't say, I have eaten of the fruit that you forbade. He doesn't confess it. He can seal the reasons for the symptoms. First John chapter 1 says, if we say that we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar. We may God a liar and the truth is not us. And then two verses later he says, if we say that we do not have sinned, we are deceiving ourselves. And the truth is not us. It's the hardest thing in the world for Adam simply to confess. To confess. Confession is so difficult. I missed something on my overhead. I don't know what happened. I got this out of order something. I wanted to show you something that Adam, in essence, is blaming God here. The woman that you gave me, right? It's the woman that you gave me.

That is the problem. The woman that you gave me to be with me. In other words, my circumstances are the reason that I had to sin. Instead of confessing sin, first on 1.9, in between those two verses, I just quoted says, if we confess our sins, if you fess up, if you say the same thing about your sin that God does, he is faithful and just based upon the crosswork of Jesus Christ to forgive you of all your sins, to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. With Adam, his blaming God, my circumstances, so we have this option. We either blame God or we confess to God. What Adam did was he blamed God in essence in a very subtle way. He said, this woman that you gave me, this trial that you gave me, this sickness that you gave me, this condition that you gave me, this spouse that you gave me, because he did give you those things, didn't he?

In his sovereign purposes. His path that I chose, and your sovereign, after all, maybe it was in disobedience to God's word, but it's amazing how we find it so hard to own up to our own sin. I remember when I was in high school, I was a junior in high school, I had my first car. My first car was a little 4CV. If anybody knows what one of those is, it was a little 4CV like a mini-cooper. It wasn't really a mini-cooper, it was a funky little car. I was away at school in Fresno, and I got this car down there, and this thing would go, I mean, gas back then was 25, 27 cents a gallon. You can tell how old I am. I could go for days, weeks, and months on a couple bucks for the gas. So I was the guy who took everybody everywhere at school, and I had a couple of buddies in the car.

We were going down Blackstone, I think it is, and right along there, in the radio zone, we're talking and jiving and carrying on, and I'm not paying any attention and it's raining. And all of a sudden, I look up and I've drifted over into the left turn lane, and there is that island I'm about to hit, and so I crank the wheels back, and the car skidded, I hit it spun around about four times, and I'm sitting there in the days, you know. And so, all it did was bend one of my wheels, so we changed the tire and we got out of there. No police came or anything. I'm 16 years old. And so when I take the car home that weekend, and the wheel, I've got to do something because these wheels are not easy to find them, and my dad says, what happened?

You know, I could have said, I could have just told him the truth. Like Adam could have just said, I ate, I ate, what you told me not to eat. Instead of saying that, I said, and it just came to me, it was just inspiration. I said, I was driving along, I was taking some guys, you know, just doing a good deed, and I was taking these guys somewhere, and a dog ran across the street. And I swear to miss that dog. It was amazing how quickly we can do that, isn't it? A couple of weeks ago, my grandson came in and he smelled pizza, my little Cole, my young, he's like two and a half. He smelled pizza and he wanted pizza, and Judy said, grandpa ate all of it. And it was so funny. He spun around and looked at me and he had this severe mean look, and he said, you ate the pizza.

And just like Adam, I said, I didn't do it, you're a grandma, I did it. He ate the pizza. But aren't we amazing? Isn't it amazing how we can't own our own sin? How we can't just simply say, I ate it. Adam had to say, the woman that you gave me, but notice in verse 13, she's no better. She says the serpent, and of course God created the serpent. She can face up to the responsibility, I want to blame one another. Boy, parents, can you relate to that? I don't know what Frankie and Shana were little when they'd fight, and you couldn't get either one of them to admit the truth. It's amazing. Now these are the immediate consequences of the fall, and these are the groundwork that is laid for all social pathologies that we see in the world today, all the cultural evils that bring us all the way down to the Holocaust, all the way down to the great massacres that we have seen in wars and evil that permeates this world.

It begins here in this revolution that they might have their eyes opened and no good and evil. Now notice God's curse, a curse and a promise in verses 4, 14 and 15, and notice what he says here. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed you are more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field, on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life, and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed, and he shall bruise your head, bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. God remains sovereign even over the sin situation, but now his sovereignty is in a different context in a response in a different way.

She sin cannot threaten the sovereignty of God. Don't ever believe this garbage when somebody says you some great tragedy happens to you and you say, and somebody says you God had nothing to do with that. Oh, baloney. I mean can you imagine the lack of assurance and peace that you would have if you thought that in life's greatest tragedies God had nothing to do with it? God is not sovereign when I'm in trouble. Is God sovereign when I sin? Is God sovereign when I have a child rebel? Is he sovereign? Absolutely. And he manifests his sovereignty in a glorious way here. Notice the order that when God comes to them, he first speaks to Adam, then to Eve, then to the serpent, or yes, and now in the curse, he first judges the serpent and then Eve and finally the man.

And notice his curse on the serpent. Now in this curse on the serpent, there's a bunch of things here. I'm not going to, we don't have much time, but let me just say this, his curse, this curse on the serpent distinguishes him above all the other creatures. In other words, the implication is there is a curse on the entire creation which Romans they tell us there is. But he is cursed above them all and the emphasis is on the snake's eating dust. This isn't a story to explain why snakes don't have legs. That's not with the point here at all. The point here is that he eats dust. It's an expression used elsewhere throughout the Bible, meaning total defeat. He's going to be totally defeated. And the physical snake, the serpent.

Every time you see a serpent who's crawling on his belly and eating dust, it is to remind you that God is going to win over this great opponent. He created him. In fact, as a result of his part in the fall, the snake is to be a perennial reminder to us of his defeat, the defeat of the defiant rebellious seed. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but in Isaiah 65 where it's talking about the kingdom, it is a kingdom passage. It's a millennial passage. It's a messianic passage. In that passage, it talks about what the lion's going to do, what other animals are going to do, how there's going to be perfect peace among them. They're all vegetarians now, they're not eating each other. And then it says, and the snake, the serpent, diet will be the dust of the ground.

What's the point? Satan is going to be completely and fully and totally and finally defeated. That's the promise here. This rebellion is going to be put down. The seed of the woman is going to conquer. And obviously this curse goes far beyond the serpent because in verse 15, if you notice, you have the serpent, first of all, the serpent in the woman in verse 14, but then when he talks about the defeat of Satan, he speaks of the seed of the woman and the serpent. He goes, the woman and the serpent, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. And then he says, the serpent and the seed of the woman, these two individuals, who of course speaks, the church recognized very early in church history, that this was a proto-event gallium.

And so, at the end of the day, that proclamation of the good news of deliverance, through a deliverer. So these words, obviously, as you read them, are programmatic, they're foundational for the establishment of the plot and the unveiling of God's story of history that is revealed to us throughout the book of Genesis and finally throughout the whole Bible. In the narrative that follows, there's going to be a war, enmity in the very next chapter of Brother Kills' brother and it's cast out. There's devastation because of this fall, but it's promises that the seed of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent. You may feel like, at times, there are times you get so overwhelmed with the battle, the warfare of the Christian life and you wonder, is there ever going to be victory?

Yes, there's going to be victory because there is a victor. He's the seed of the woman, he's the person of Christ. Who is the seed of the woman? Well, it seems obvious that the purpose of the verse here is not to answer that question but to ask it and the rest of the book answers the question. There's two things here, two massive truths that are unveiled here. The first is the cross. First of all, the cross. In John chapter 12, Jesus is speaking about the cross and in going to the cross, he says, in fact, why don't you turn there? This is another one. You should mark this. This is a key verse in the Bible that unveils this glorious truth that there is a victor who's going to defeat Satan in the seed of the serpent.

John chapter 12 verse 31, verse 30 says, Jesus answered and said, this voice has not come for my sake but for your sake. God confirming who I am, the Father, and he says, now, in other words, they are at a crucial moment. Jesus is just ahead and he says, now, judgment is upon this world. That is the world arrayed against God, the seed of the serpent in control, mankind arrayed against the living God. Now judgment is upon this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out and if I be lifted up, if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself. Now you understand what he's saying there, don't you? In this passage, he's not saying, if you exalt me in worship, I'll draw men to myself.

He is saying, in this passage, if I am put on a cross, if I am lifted up in judgment and nailed to a cross, I will draw all men to myself. This is the defeat of Satan. This is the gospel that he has crushed the head of the serpent. He has defeated him through the cross by paying the penalty for man's rebellion and sin and the revolution that took place in the garden. Satan is defeated and his plans are foiled. But there is another great truth here and I just want to mention it and that is the conflict that is ongoing. In fact, if you look at Romans chapter 16, notice this conflict that still goes on today and it will go on until the second coming of Jesus Christ. In Romans chapter 16, verse 20, you possible fall in closing this letter to these Christians at Corinth says, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

In other words, they were in a great spiritual battle and he says God is going to crush the head of Satan under your feet. And we have this picture, it is interesting that the seed of the woman ultimately becomes Messiah, the seed of the woman and we find out he is the seed of Abraham and then we find out he is the seed of David and ultimately we find out he is the seed of Mary. But then we find out, not only is Jesus Christ the seed of the woman but Jesus Christ as a seed. Isaiah 53 says that when he hung on the cross he would see his seed, his descendants and be glad. What does he mean by that? He doesn't have any of that. He has no wife. He means you and me. He is referring to everyone who was drawn to Christ because he was lifted up on the cross.

You have come to Christ and you bowed the knee of Christ and you have believed upon Christ and have been made right with God through his work and his person. You are a seed. The Bible says that the seed of Messiah, this godly seed, is going to defeat the seed of Satan. That is interesting. This conflict is set up in Scripture in such a way that humanity is always going to be divided in this way. There is always going to be a large segment of the human race until the final coming of Christ will oppose God and his Messiah, Genesis 3, 14 and 15 is the beginning of what John Calvin used to speak of as the two cities and it goes back, actually, to St. Augustine who talked about the two cities, the city of God, the people of God.

James Boyce wrote a book before he died recently about the two cities. There are the people of God and there are the people who follow the manipulations of Satan and oppose the work of God. There are people in the world today that their primary calling and life is to oppose the work of Jesus Christ both here and around the world. They are motivated by it. They will expend money and resources and energy in order to stop the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the commitment to it. And in their actions because of their identification with the purposes of Satan, the Bible refers to them as the seed of the serpent. The other way we are delivered from that is through the deliverance that comes through Jesus Christ.

The very next chapter can enable you have this class between two brothers and Cain slaves as brother, Abel and why did he slay him because Abel obeyed God and offered a sacrifice in Cain, hated him and sloughed him. That's why Jesus says to those who oppose him during his earthly ministry, you are your father, the devil, who is a liar and a murderer from the beginning and you do his work. You fulfill his desire. You want to kill me because you are sons of the serpent. But this is a glimmer of grace in this account here in Genesis 3. This beginning of announcement that the whole race is going to be under the curse, but there is a great division that is coming. There is going to be conflict between cities, a city of Jerusalem and a city of destruction, the city of Babylon and Mount Zion, but the seed of the woman is going to prevail.

The gospel of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God, is going to prevail. The seed of the woman is crushing the head of the serpent by the spread of the gospel today. As the gospel goes out around the world, the head of the serpent is being crushed. Jesus put it another way to Peter. He says, when you preach this gospel, the gates of hell will not prevail against it. It's like when you preach the gospel, you can stick your head into the gates of hell and you can call those that are under the grip of satanic enslavement and bring them out of that kingdom of darkness through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, not through war, not through murder, not through terrorism, through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The purpose of Genesis is that Israel would believe the gospel and receive the promise. You may be. It's nice people, when you refer to the gospel and the Old Testament, sometimes people go, what are you talking about? The gospel didn't come about until Christ came. Well, the Bible refers to the preaching of the good news, the Abraham, that he's going to have a seed and through that seed, all the nations will be blessed as the gospel, Galatians 3.8. God promised Israel I'll bring you out of Egyptian bondage, I'll form you into a nation and I'll give you a land. It's going to be like the holy place, like the temple for God dwells and you're going to dwell in this land and they had problems believing God.

They had problems believing this gospel and so they wrote the book of Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch so that they would believe the gospel and persevere. So he went there, an example to us, or a type to us, as we see the nation of Israel going against all odds to get to the promised land, their picture for us, that there is opposition. We are the seed of the woman, the seed of the Messiah, and there is opposition for us to do the work of God in this world. We always feel like we don't have enough resources and we don't have this, one of that, but the Bible says is that the seed of the woman is going to be victorious over the seed of Satan. The purpose of this message today, as I preach it to you, is that you would believe the gospel and receive the promises.

If you've never believed the gospel, it's that you'd begin to believe it now and if you are a believer, that you would every day believe the gospel and preach the gospel to yourself and believe the truth about God's commitment of victory for the people of God and the purpose of Jesus Christ. I pray that you will. That today, this week, not triumphalism as though we've already entered into the kingdom, but an attitude of yes, even if I have to lay down my life in death, it's worth it because we are involved in the greatest work in all the universe, the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not your political power, the worst thing that's ever happened to the church in church history is when the church gains some kind of political power and begins to legislate people into the kingdom of God.

Three of us now don't believe in pedobabtism, and I don't think you can baptize children into the kingdom of God. They have to come through faith in Jesus Christ. They have to come through responding to the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's our weapon. Our weapon are not of this world, they're not of the flesh. Our weapon is the gospel of Christ, the good news of salvation Christ. Let's pray. We pray you're blessing upon your word that you penetrate our hearts with the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the truth of the gospel of victory in Jesus today as we live for him. We pray that you would impress and imprint upon our heart. That truth. I pray that you help us, each one of us, regardless of our circumstance, regardless of our background, regardless of where we are right now in life.

If I pray that today the Holy Spirit in His power would come and open up ears and eyes and hearts so that we would believe the gospel and receive the promises we pray in Jesus' name.