I want us to do a study on pictures
of Christ in the Old Testament. I'm going to use Henry's New
Testament eyes as a guideline. And so we'll be going through
the Old Testament looking at pictures of Christ and I'll use
his as a guideline among others that I read. And the first one
The first picture is found in Genesis chapter 3, and it has
to do with the fall. We have to start here. I believe
Spurgeon coined the phrase, wrong on the fall, you're wrong on
it all. You're going to go wrong. And
I believe this is where Arminianism, and when I say Arminianism, all
false religion is nothing but Arminianism. They all just collectively,
you can call them all Arminianism. Because it's a system of works.
If it's not grace, it's works. And they go wrong here. They don't understand what happened
in the fall. There was a spiritual death that
happened When Adam rebelled against God, and Adam being the federal
head of the human race, the whole human race fell in
Adam, and we died. In Adam, it says, all died. We spiritually died in Adam.
And in time, we physically die. But I want us to look at this
chapter here. This is going to be our first
picture here. And I tell you this, if you want
to know, if you really want to know and understand the reason
for all sickness, all diseases, all wars, all fussing and fighting,
whether it be in the family or in the community or in politics,
the whole root of all of it started right here. This is the root. All we see are now the branches
and the fruit, the bad fruit from this root. But all death,
all sickness, all pain, all sorrow, all everything bad started right
here in chapter three. And thank God you and I know
this. We're not looking for the answer. We have it. We have it. Now in this chapter, We have
God who is holy, God who is just, God who's the creator, the sovereign. The earth is the Lord, the fullness
thereof, and they who dwell therein. It's all His. This is His. He created it. We have Satan
who comes in this form of the serpent. He takes over this serpent.
uses this serpent to beguile Eve as it says in the New Testament
she was beguiled Eve was beguiled and then we have we have and
and Satan was a created angel Satan is not on the level of
God Satan is not omnipresent he's not omnipotent power all
power He's a created angel is what he is. And he failed. We
know that he failed. He was very powerful angel. Evidently
he was over a multitude of angels because it speaks of the devil
and his angels. Once he was over, he fell with
him. He led them into this fall. And we have Adam and Eve created
of God. Adam was said to be created in
the image of God, created holy, righteous, innocent, knew no
sin. Can you imagine the perfection
of Adam and Eve? I tried yesterday as I was going back
over this, I tried to imagine this earth that we live on as
perfect. I tried to imagine what it was
like at one time. This was perfect. This earth
was perfect. Adam and Eve were perfect. Everything
about it was perfect. And then sin entered. We have
the act of sin. We have Satan introducing sin
into this world through Adam. And we have the curse that came
out of it. And then we have the remedy in verse 15, the seed
of the woman. And this is where we have a picture
of Christ. Now, my plan was to get through this chapter by,
you know, uh, uh, type by type, but I don't know if I'm going
to get through it this morning. The more I looked at this, this
morning, every scripture was, was just, it just powerful, just
powerful. So let's, let's look at it and
see where we end up at. Now the serpent was more subtle,
that is, more cunning than any beast of the field which the
Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea,
hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. You know, all we know about the
serpent is given here in this verse. It was created of God.
It was part of creation and Satan possessed it, used it. And this
is why the serpent is cursed. It was used to sin. The very
reason why, when God cast the wicked into hell, he says he
cast them body and soul. The body has to go there too.
The body that we use to sin in, or those who are lost, the body
they use to sin in, has to suffer also, just like this serpent. And I find it strange that Eve
was not alarmed when the serpent spoke to her. And I thought of this. I think maybe it's because sin
had not entered into her. She didn't know sin and therefore
fear, fear was unknown to her. It just struck me, if you've
never sinned, if you never knew sin, she would not know fear. When was it that Adam said, I
heard thy voice and I was afraid? It was after the fall. Sin entered
in, and sin brought fear. unexperienced with this matter
of fear. And I think that's why it didn't
bother her. You know, she just, she didn't suspect anything.
She didn't. You ever see a, take a child,
a real little child. You tell them not to speak to
strangers, don't you? When you have kids, you tell your little
children, don't speak to strangers. And why? Because they're so gullible. They're so gullible. They don't
expect evil. They don't know what evil is.
They haven't experienced it yet. They don't know what it is. And
they'll just do what anybody, any adult tells them. And you
tell them, don't listen to strangers because you've already experienced
evil. And you know the danger that lies out there. The whole
world lies in wickedness. And I see Eve in this. I see
her being what we call naive. She didn't have the experience
of fear. Sin is what brought that on. And here's another danger
I want to point out as we go along through here. Being alone
can be dangerous. Being alone can be dangerous.
God said it's not good that man should be alone. You know, the
scripture says that two, you know, two are strong, but a three-fold
cord is not quickly broken. But being by yourself can be
dangerous. It can be. Satan waited till
Eve was away from Adam, and then he struck. Then he struck. I thought of this scripture in
1 Corinthians 7, verse 5. Defraud ye not one another, except
it be with consent for a time. And Paul was speaking here in
Corinthians about intimacy. He was talking about intimacy
between a husband and a wife. But he's saying here, don't defraud
one another, except it be with consent. for a time that you
may give yourselves to fasting and prayer. Something's going
on. Something's troubling you. There's trouble. And you just
want to give yourself to prayer and fasting and seeking the Lord
over it. And he said, with consent, you can, you know, separate for
a while. Don't not leave the house, but
separate with intimacy. But now listen, here's what I
thought of. He says here, except it be with consent for a time
that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come
together again, now listen, that Satan tempt you not for your
incontinency, your lack of control. He says, you come together, you
come back together because Satan will take advantage of that.
Satan took advantage of Eve. I think that Eve was out there
in the garden, And she was probably out there in just a beautiful
day, perfect day, just walking through the garden. And when
she got close to that tree, Satan was waiting on her. He's an opportunist. Oh, he got, he's patient too.
He'll wait on you. He'll wait for that chink in
the armor. He'll wait. And so Satan, he, he, he, he
gets her when she's alone away from Adam. He didn't, he does
not come. and Adam head on. Adam was more
powerful than we give him credit for. He's more powerful than
we give him credit for. He came at Eve. The scripture
has said that the woman in the scriptures is the weaker vessel.
He came at her. John Trapp said this, he climbed
over the rib to get into Adam's heart. She was made from the
rib of Adam. And he says Satan climbed over
the rib to get into his heart. He used Eve to get into the heart
of Adam. That's what he did. And what
he does here, he doesn't scare her. He comes as this serpent. This serpent, I think, is probably
something really beautiful among all of creation. And he uses
God's word. He uses God's Word to get her
attention. Hath God said? Well, it can't
be all bad if he's using God's Word. You know, it's amazing
how many people think because a man carries a Bible, he can't
be all bad. He may be the devil. The devil
carries the Bible. I'm telling you, the devil's
not doing his work out there in the dives and on the street.
That's just men and women being who they are. Satan is doing
his work in the pulpit this morning. That's where his work is being
done He's transformed his ministers his angels into into ministers
of righteousness Self-righteousness not Christ righteousness, but
they're the moralist in town there. They are the moral majority
what they are and He knows that And he uses that, he uses that
on men and women. He's crafty, he's crafty. He
can come in this room and you'll never know it. You'd never know
it. He won't come in this room with
pitchfork and horns and a fork and tail. That's not how, he's
gonna come in this room with a suit on and smooth words, I
mean smooth. Smoother words than anybody else
you'd ever hear of or hear from. Crafty and he knows how to craft. He knows how to craft his words.
He knows that, you know, words are dangerous. They're powerful. I don't know if there's anything
more powerful than the word. It's powerful. Hitler used it
to move a nation and to commit genocide on the Jews. The power
of a word, you know, I look at that man when I see him on television,
I look at him and I thought, who would follow that? Who would
follow that? He's not impressive looking at
all. But the power of words, of course, there was a spirit
behind that, but the power of words. And that's what he does
here. He takes the word of God and
he uses it to get our attention. And then he questions what God
said. You know, it's like having people
say to you, doesn't the Bible say, you know, come off the wall
or something. And you know, the Bible doesn't
say it. Satan that's satanic you're speaking to a satanic
spirit doesn't but doesn't the Bible say twisting the Word of
God we see here he'll put a twist on the Word of God he says here
in verse two and three listen and the woman is he Satan misrepresents
the Word of God and the woman said unto the serpent WE MAY EAT OF THE FRUIT OF THE
TREES OF THE GARDEN, BUT OF THE FRUIT OF THE TREE WHICH IS IN
THE MIDST OF THE GARDEN, GOD HATH SAID, YE SHALL NOT EAT OF
IT, AND THEN SHE ADDS TO IT, SHE ADDS TO THE WORD OF GOD,
NEITHER SHALL YOU TOUCH IT LEST YOU DIE, THAT'S NOT WHAT GOD
DIDN'T SAY THAT TO ADAM THAT WE HAVE WRITTEN HERE, GOD DIDN'T
SAY THAT, She put that on there. Lest you die, she said, don't
touch it lest you die. You're going to die if you eat
it, if you eat it. She said, we can't even touch
it. But Eve had no reason here to
expect such evil. She had not known sin yet. But
I tell you this, when the word of God is brought into question,
that should raise a red flag. If someone says, tell me what
the gospel is, tell me what the word of God is. But when they
start to debate the word of God with, but doesn't the Bible say
this and that? And be careful, be careful. Satan's very real. He's very
real person, very real person. But Satan got her attention. Then he got her interest. Then
he got her talking to him, and then he got into her mind. That's
what Paul is talking about. He said, as Eve was beguiled
by the Satan, he said, lest your minds be, trying to think that
scripture he's saying there, be turned away from the simplicity
that's in Christ. I'll paraphrase it. But he gets
into your mind, and then you start to think, and you start
to think in his way. Boy, he can twist you now, he
can twist you. Eve knew the command not to eat
of the tree, of the knowledge of good and evil. She knew that.
She told that. Satan pulled that out of her.
But then here comes the lie. You see, the scripture says he's
the liar. He's the father of all lies. He couldn't tell the
truth. He couldn't tell it if he had
to. I mean, he couldn't do it. He's got to put a spin on it.
He's got to collar it. He's got to collar it. I wrote
an article one time, I don't remember when, but I put the
collar of truth is never gray. The collar of truth is never
gray. It's either black or white. It is what it is. There's no
gray area in truth. But he puts a gray area here
now, he brings in a gray area. And the serpent said unto the
woman, you shall not surely die. John Trapp said he used logic
and rhetoric on her. Got her to listening. You'll
not die, in dying you will not die, is what he's saying. He
put a big question mark on the word of God. As soon as you do
that, you're in trouble. As soon as we put a question
mark on God's word, trouble. Someone suggested this and it
may be so. He said, you'll not die. And
he probably took a bite of it himself right in front of her
and didn't die. He just talking to her. He may have. But here Satan is suggesting
God will not do that to his chief creation God won't God won't
keep his word on that he just don't want you to eat of it but
there's a reason he doesn't want you to eat of it there's something
he's holding back from you and he said uh so he he's he's he's
in her he's in her head he gets in your head satan knew that
she didn't know what die meant she'd never experienced you and
i know what death is i've done so many funerals We've been to
so many funerals. We know what death is. We know
why we die. We know we all have to die. We
know that's coming. We know it. We know why. She
never experienced death. She never witnessed anything
dying. Everything was just full of life.
It's just like when you talk to young people, because I've
been there. You really can't grasp this thing
of dying. You're so full of life. You're so full of energy. You're
so full of just gusto. But now you and I that are older,
I think about it. I never thought about it. I believe
when I was a teenager, and it wasn't until I heard and believed
the gospel that I actually began to think about dying. And I never
thought about it like I do now. I woke up this morning thinking
about it. I did. I woke up this morning thinking about what that's
going to be like, what that experience is going to be like, to leave
this body, the soul leaving the body and going before the Lord
and seeing Jesus Christ, whom I preach week after week, and
seeing all the saints of God and walking on that new... I
was thinking that four o'clock this morning. That's what I was
thinking. When I was 20 years old, I was
not thinking of that. That did not cross my mind. I
was thinking about what I was going to do when I got up, what
I was going to do, play. You know, it was just life. Life. And she didn't know what
dying was. She didn't know what death was.
She'd never experienced it. And this is where Satan takes
advantage of us, our lack of experience. I heard this so much when I was
a teenager. It may not be in these very words, but the principle
of it was there. Go ahead, try it, you'll like
it. You'll enjoy it. Don't worry, you won't get in
trouble. Don't worry, you won't get in
trouble. I had a young, now this is after I got older, before
I came here, I was training a young man as a machinist. And he came
to me and he wanted me to lie for him. He docked in, he punched
in. He's punching in late every day.
And he's punching in late when he was being called up for it.
And he said, and he came to me and he said, you tell him, you
know, he told me what to tell him. I said, I'm not gonna lie
for you. He said, I thought you was my
friend. I said, if you was my friend, you wouldn't ask me to
do that. If you was my friend, you wouldn't ask me to get in
trouble. You wouldn't ask me to stick
my neck out and get it chopped off for you just because you
can't get out of bed and get here on time. I said, I'm not
lying. Now, when I was 20 years old,
I'd have lied for him. I'd have took up for him. But
this time, I said, no. Years have gone by. God's taught
me a thing or two. I'm not lying for you. You just
get out of bed and get here. Or you can just get in trouble. And I say this to young people.
Anybody ever watch, any young person ever watch this, don't
get pulled in with that kind of rhetoric. You're not gonna get in trouble.
Come on, it's fun. It's fun. Well, Oftentimes fun ends in
trouble. Then Satan challenges the knowledge
of God. For God doth know that in the
day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open. You know,
Paul speaks of the eyes of your understanding being opened in
Ephesians 1 18 because they were closed in the fall. What's funny,
you know, Satan says your eyes will be open, but what happened?
Their eyes were shut. It was the reverse. If Satan's
in it, it'll always be the reverse of what he's trying to get. Always. And now, now, unless God gives
you eyes to see and ears to hear, you and I are blind, deaf, and
dumb. We are. We are. You know, the
Lord said this in one place, if thine eye offend thee, what? Look it out. Now you know he's
not talking about literally pluck the eye out because that wouldn't
stop the problem. You'd still be thinking of it.
But he's talking about getting rid of the root of the problem,
showing every appearance of evil. Leave it, get away from it. For God doth know that in the
day you eat thereof, then your eye shall be opened and you shall
be as gods, as God, knowing good and evil. They knew the good,
but what their Heavenly Father had protected them from was evil. You don't need to know evil. When I was young, I wanted to
experience things. Mom and Dad would say, don't
do this, don't do that. I'm like, but I want to. You did it. I
want to experience it. Now I wish I hadn't. There's things I wish I hadn't
experienced. I wish I'd have listened to wisdom.
I wish I had. But he's saying here, God's keeping
something from you. Yeah, evil. But notice here,
Satan has no fear of God at all. You see, with the wicked, there's
no fear of God. Isn't that what Scripture says?
There's no fear of God. We see that on the streets nowadays. These kids, young people going
in with these masks on and just Robbing these places it brought
daylight running out laughing and carrying on there's no fear
of God The God is being preached today
doesn't need to be feared anyway He puny little thing he can't
do anything But Satan has no fear of God. He lies on God.
He's suggesting that God is not good for his word And he listened
this It struck me this morning He knows He knows that God is
omnipresent, and he has no fear to do this. No fear. I don't
know this, but I wouldn't doubt that that conversation that Satan
had with God over Job, that he may have had that same conversation
over Adam. Let me have him, I'll show you,
and Adam fell. And he says, well, I tell you
what, I brought down Adam. He knew no sin. It would be easy
to bring down Job. He's a sinner. It'll be easy
to bring him down. Oh, no, no, no. But he has no fear of God. He
knew God is omnipresent, and yet he's doing this anyway. Sin,
sin will absolutely destroy any fear of God. It'll destroy it. And when the woman saw, in verse
six, and when the woman saw, you see, here we go, the eye
gate, the eye gate, what she saw, and this is more than just,
how many times she see that tree? Who knows? How many times she
see that tree? This time it was a different
look. This time he got into her head, he twisted the word of
God, then she began to ponder. Sin had already happened. She
began to ponder, she saw, you see the eye gate. The eye gate
is dangerous. Be careful what you cast your
eyes upon. A man looks upon a woman to lust
after her, he's committed adultery already. Job said, I made a covenant
with my eyes, I will not look upon a maid. He knew that to
turn and start looking upon a woman, a maid, to continue, the thoughts
are going to start rolling, and next thing you know, you're like
David. You fall off the balcony for
Bathsheba. The eye game. And he knew it. And she saw that
the tree was good for food. It wasn't poison. Like I said,
it may be he took a bite of it. He might have been sitting there
eating it. And she said, well, there's no poison in that. Eat
it and die. She saw that the tree was good
for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes. It was really attractive. Whatever this tree was, it was
very attractive. Evil to human nature. is attractive. Sin to human nature
is attractive. You see somebody that's very
attractive, you can't stop looking. Man or woman, it don't matter.
Your eyes are drawn to it. You're just drawn to that. She
saw that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired
to make one wise. Then she took. She was not forced. It was not forced upon her. She
was tempted. Satan doesn't force us to do
anything. We're tempted. And then when
we're tempted, we start to lust after it. And the next thing
you know, we're falling head over heels after it. That's the way
of the flesh. She took of the fruit thereof
and did eat. and gave also to her husband
with her, and he did eat. She's taking the bait, taking
the bait. It was good for food, no poison
in the fruit, pleasant to look at. And to top it all off, it'll
make me wise. It'll make me wise. You know,
man loves to be thought of as being wise. They do, intellectual,
intelligent. Nobody likes to be thought of
as being a dummy. We like to be thought of as being intelligent. Wisdom doesn't come by foolishness. It made him foolish. And we'll
see this in a little while. I can't go through all this,
but it will make him wise. What did Adam do when he heard
the voice of God walking in the cool of the day? He hid behind
a tree. Sewed fig leaves together, hid
behind a tree. God's omnipresent. You can't hide from God. He knew
that. But that's how quickly his intelligence turned to foolishness. That's what sin did to him. The fall has not happened yet,
though. It hasn't happened yet. The fall
takes place when Adam eats the fruit because he's a federal
head of humanity. He's the one God set up his head.
He set him up as king over the earth. He set him up his head
in the house. He set him up his head on this
earth and it doesn't happen till he falls. Eve was deceived. It says in first Timothy two
14, Adam was not deceived. It says rank rebellion, but the
woman being deceived was in the transgression. Adam was not deceived. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew it. He knew it. Eve was deceived, but not Adam.
Now, I'm going to pick up here in verse 7, Lord willing, next
week. And, well, there's no way. I looked at this this morning.
I had fully prepared to do this one in one setting. Not possible. Not possible. There's so much here and I just
want to, I just feel like we really got to get a hold of this
before we get to the seed of the woman, the remedy. Because
when we go from there on, we'll see Christ. We'll see Cain and
Abel. We'll see the Ark. I mean, we'll
go all the way through the whole Old Testament looking at pictures
of Christ. And I don't want to hurry. I
don't want to hurry up and get a lesson done. I want us to learn
something. All right.