I want to begin tonight in the
book of Romans, chapter 5. Romans, chapter 5. And then we're going to go back
to Genesis, the third chapter. Romans, chapter 5. We're in a mess spiritually because
we were all born in sin. alienated from God. Under the law of God, we've already
been tried and found guilty. No hope for any recovery by ourselves. God's law has examined us and
found us to be guilty. Guilty as charged. Once again this evening, I want
to talk to you about how we got into this mess, and then who
came to get us out of it. And I'm gonna begin here in Romans
5, first of all, verse number 12. Romans 5, 12, wherefore as by
one man, that's Adam, The Bible only talks about two atoms. The
first atom and not the second atom, but the last atom. The first atom was of the earth,
earthy. That last atom, that's the Lord
from heaven, who took into union with himself our nature, of humanity. So wherefore as by one man, Adam,
sin entered into the world, and of course where there is sin,
there's got to be death. For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So there's death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men. That is all that Adam represented. And he represented our whole
race. He represented everybody. For
that all have sinned, that is all sin in Adam. We were in him
when he sinned. He stood before God as the old
writers used to say, as our federal head. And when he stood before
God in his innocence, in his sinlessness, we stood the same
way. But when he defied God's law,
one law, that's all God gave him. one law. When he broke that
law, not only did he become a sinner, but all that he represented became
sinners, and that's the whole human race. He did not stand before God as
a private individual. All of the billions of people
who would follow him We were in him. And his act of disobedience was
absolutely devastating to all of humanity. But God sent another
representative man. That's the Son of God. His name was called Emmanuel. God with us. And he came to represent all
of his seed. All of Adam's seed was the whole
human race. All of our Lord Jesus' seed was
the elect of God. All of those chosen before the
world began unto everlasting life and salvation in Christ. Our Lord Jesus was God's first
elect. He chose Him first. Psalm 89,
I have chosen one out of the people, and I've exalted Him,
God said. He was one of us, one of us,
because He took our nature into union with His deity. God chose
Him first, Isaiah 42, Christ is the elect of God. And in Him,
there was a vast number of people who were chosen unto salvation.
Now, if you persist in rebelling against the truth of God's Word,
of election unto salvation, then you will be to your own eternal
peril. You cannot defy God's Word. If God says something, if you
want to say, I don't understand it, that's okay. If your attitude
is, I need more light on this, that's okay too. But when our
God says something specifically in His Word, And then you, in
rebellion, say, I don't care what it says, I don't believe
that. Believe me, you're in dangerous
territory. Do not deny that which God has
spoken. You see, salvation that originated
with God, in the purpose of the Lord, in the covenant of grace,
in which God chose a people unto salvation and ordained that they
be redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and then called
by the Holy Spirit who would make known to these people that
which has already been accomplished on their behalf by Christ. If
you don't believe what God says, you're essentially calling God
a liar. Oh, that God would give us faith.
For you see, this salvation that is all of God and all in Christ
and revealed by the Holy Ghost, this is the salvation that gives
God all the glory. And the Lord said, I am the Lord. That's my name. And he said through
the prophet Isaiah, and my glory will I not give to another. Let's read about this. Last Adam
now, and I'm just gonna read one more verse in verse 19, and
here are both Adams mentioned. The first Adam and the last Adam,
verse 19. For as by one man's disobedience,
that's the first Adam, the many That is, the many that he represented
were made that is legally constituted to be sinners. You were born a sinner. You don't
become a sinner when you sin. You're born alienated from God. You're born a stranger to the
things of God. You're born ignorant of the gospel
of God. You're born not knowing who God
is nor how God can be approached. There's a great barrier that
exists between you and God, between me and God. It's called sin. That one man's disobedience meant
that all of us were legally said to be or declared to be, we're
sinners. It doesn't matter who you are. Even so, now watch this, by the
obedience of one, that is this last Adam, what did his obedience
consist of? His obedience unto death, Philippians
chapter 2, even the death of the cross. Obviously, He was
obedient to all of God's law and to all of God's will the
entirety of His brief life. But it was by the obedience of
His death, of laying down His life, by that act of obedience,
The scripture says, shall many be made or legally declared to
be righteous. We became unrighteous through
the disobedience of one man, Adam. We become righteous by
the obedience of the last Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ. And only those who made the righteousness
of God in him are the elect of the Lord. Those only. So how did you become a sinner? By nothing you did. Nothing you did. What you have
done has got nothing to do with you being a sinner. You're a
sinner because you were in the loins of the first Adam. And
like it or not, believe it or not, he was your representative. And what he did before God, you
did before God. And I did before God, we became
sinners. And in that same manner, our
Lord Jesus came. God had ordained that he be the
lamb who was to be smitten and wounded and crucified. He would
be killed by God himself as that sacrifice for our sins. And by
his obedience, we are made the very righteousness of God without
any input on our part whatsoever. We're saved by the obedience
of our Lord Jesus. Now I want us to go back to Genesis,
the third chapter, and let me just make a few statements here
tonight that, to kind of add to what I've just said. We learned this morning that
Adam having sinned, And when he sinned, that's when his wife
fell. Eve did not fall before Adam. Eve did indeed sin before Adam,
but she was not her own representative. She did not die when she ate
of the fruit that was forbidden for her to eat. Because the law
of God was given to her representative. When he kept it, she is okay. Now, when she broke it, she didn't
die. But she did die when Adam sinned. He was her representative, just
as sure as he's your representative and my representative. and Adam
sinned. Immediately he knew he had really
messed up. His conscience was awakened. He now knew something about goodness,
but he didn't know how to do good. He lost all ability to
do good. And he now understands evil. but he doesn't know what to do
about evil. He can't get rid of it. He can't
wash himself of his own sins. He stands guilty before God.
And he and Eve went to hide their nakedness behind fig leaf aprons. And they went so far as when
they heard the voice of God, they went so far as to try to
hide from God in the forest. Look what sin has done to Adam
and to his wife. It has made fools of them and
sin has made fools of us. thinking that we can weave fig
leaves together to make an apron. Well, what are you talking about,
Jim? That we can, by some works of our hands, make ourselves
to be righteous before God. That's an impossibility. We're
separated from God. And all of our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. and then trying to hide from
God in a forest that is now cursed by God, sin has ruined us. And there's no possibility of
us being reconciled to God by anything we can say, do, or think. It's an impossibility. But the Lord came calling. He came seeking the lost ones. I said this morning it came in
the cool of the day. And the word cool is wind. Reminding you of the same word
that's used with reference to the Holy Spirit. Let me tell
you something, when the voice of God comes by the power of
the Holy Spirit, somebody's gonna listen. Somebody's gonna hear. Now, the immediate response may
continue to be rebellion. For you see, the voice of the
Lord is the gospel. It's the preaching of the gospel.
Can you think of anybody else who heard the gospel and at first
they didn't want to have anything to do with it? Well, Saul of
Tarsus. He heard the gospel from whose
lips? Anybody? From whose lips? Huh? The Lord's lips, right. And from
the preaching of Stephen. He heard Stephen preach. Did
he get excited about what Stephen preached and said, I'm so thankful
to be able to hear this? No, he said, you fellows who
are stoning him, let me hold your coats so you can get a better
aim and throw them rocks even harder. When the voice of the Lord first
came to him, he didn't like it. It made him mad. But later, the
voice of the Lord, the gospel of grace, made him glad. Not
too long ago, we had somebody visit with us, and the gospel
made him mad. Well, at least I got some kind
of reaction. Maybe the gospel will make him
really glad, and that's up to the Lord. The Lord came to Adam. and to
Eve, not to kill them. That's what they deserved, right?
That is what they deserved. But he came to make them spiritually
alive. And God called unto Adam. He
did not just abandon Adam. Well, you made your bed, now
lie in it. No, God wouldn't let him go.
Because you see, Adam and Eve were two of those chosen unto
salvation before the world began. And the Lord came in pursuit.
For you see, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that
which was lost. And unto Adam and Eve, The Lord
said, actually in their earshot, because the words were actually
spoken to the devil. You know, Adam, he blamed his
wife. And Eve, and she doesn't have
the name Eve as of yet in this passage. The woman, she blamed
the serpent. The serpent blamed nobody, he
kept his mouth shut, as well he should. But the Lord told the serpent,
I'll put enmity between you and the woman, and between thy seed
and her seed. And it shall bruise thy head,
the seed of the woman. Who in the world is that? That's
the Son of God. That's the Lord Jesus. born of
a virgin. It shall bruise thy head. He
will, Christ would do that. He did that at the cross. At
the cross, he satisfied justice. At the cross, he brought in everlasting
righteousness. At the cross, he put our sins
away. And at the cross, he dealt to
the serpent, to Satan, a death blow. And thou shall bruise his heel.
The heel of the Son of God was bruised. That is at Calvary. And then a little bit later,
now I've got to get on over further. I want you to look at verse 21. Keeping in mind that Adam and
Eve had made aprons or garments of fig leaves. But you know what
happens to fig leaves? They fade. They wither, they
dry up, and they fall off. And I'm sure, you wanna turn
this verse, you've read it a hundred times, I reckon, or more. Isaiah
64, verse six, look at this again. And I believe there's kind of
a hint of the fig leaf aprons fading in this passage, Isaiah
64, 6. But we are all, all of us, as
an unclean thing. Well now, wait a minute, brother
Isaiah. You're a prophet of God. Are
you including yourself? In this awful dilemma, yes I
am, he comes back and says, we, all of us are as an unclean thing
and all of our righteousness are as filthy rags. And we all
do, what does it say? Fade as a leaf, like a fig leaf. Your best efforts to establish
righteousness are sure to fade. because it's no good. We're by nature self-righteous
people. And the only one who can strip
us of our self-righteousness is the Lord who is our righteousness. And his righteousness is imputed
to us. Go back to the text now. So he
says, In verse 21, unto Adam also and to his wife did the
Lord God make coats of skins and he clothed them. And the very tense of this word
is it's a work that will be perfected later on. When will it be perfected? At the cross. That's where righteousness
was brought in. You see, the sin of Adam was
imputed to us. And our sins were imputed to
Christ. And Christ's righteousness that
he established for us has been imputed, reckoned to, charged
to our account. And we're robed in the glorious
garments of God's salvation and the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. You'll notice there at the end,
verse 21, the Lord clothed them. He didn't say, you want to put
this garment on? No. I can just see him ripping the fig leaf aprons off
our parents and then putting upon them a beautiful garment
so that the two naked, helpless, unrighteous sinners become comely
before God and beautiful in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Forgive me, but I've skipped
over verse 20 on purpose So I want to go back and deal with that
for just a minute. And Adam called his wife's name
Eve. Now she's got a name. Because she was the mother of
all living. Now wait a minute. Who else is
living? Just the two of them. But you
see both Adam and Eve believed the promise of God of the incarnation
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the life that would be given
to sinners through Him. We live on account of Him. They
believed the Word of God. They believed life in Christ. This is an evidence of their
faith. The Lord had said to Adam in
the day ye eat thereof, you shall surely die. There's no promise
of life there. There's only the promise of death
upon disobedience. But then our Lord gives them
great hope in the seed of the woman who's coming. and there's everlasting life
in him. And so Adam, believing God, believing the promise of
God, he laid hold of the promise of God and said, this my wife,
her name is Eve, the mother of all living. The mother of all
living. When it seemed like death was
all around them, They believed the life that God would give
to their offspring. Now look at verse 22. And the
Lord God said, behold, the man has become as one of us, us,
Trinity, right? Father, son, and spirit. To know
good and evil. And now lest he put forth his
hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever
in this condition of being a sinner. Therefore, verse 23, the Lord
God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from
whence he was taken. I want you to notice this, and
I don't have a lot of time to deal with this, But so often
the woman isn't even mentioned. Because you see, she is one with
Adam. Even as the church of our Lord
Jesus Christ is one with the last Adam. So when the Scripture
says here, it speaks of Adam, whom God sent forth out of the
garden. Eve is included because they're
one. Back in chapter one of Genesis
verse 21, male and female made he them. And most of the time,
it's just Adam who is mentioned because Adam is the head of Eve,
even as Christ is the head of the church. So therefore verse
23, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till
the ground from whence he was taken. He sent him out. He sent him out. But this was
not an act of wrath. This was not the punishment of
God. God sent forth Adam and therefore
Eve out of the garden. It was really an act of mercy. Because had Adam remained in
the garden, and I would understand his reluctance to be put out
of the garden. Wouldn't you? I understand the
reluctance. He had such wonderful memories. notwithstanding his sin, not
including that, but he could think back and say, you know,
I walked with the Lord here and talked with the Lord and worshiped
the Lord and fellowshiped with the Lord. I've been here, I don't
know how long he had been there, but he said, I love it in here.
And the Lord sent him forth and evidently Adam was reluctant
to leave. I don't want to leave. Kind of
like Angelina when we left. To come home, she said, I don't
want to leave paradise. That's kind of what Adam was
saying. I don't want to leave paradise. And so therefore, in
verse 24, he drove out the man. He drove him out. Why do you think God did that? I believe I got the answer. If he had stayed in the garden,
there would be no preacher to preach the gospel of God's saving
grace to anybody. God drove him out because if he doesn't come out
and declare to people that the seed is coming, the seed of the
woman is coming, He's gonna destroy the head of the serpent. Salvation's
in Christ. If he hadn't done that, we wouldn't
be believing the gospel tonight. The gospel would have remained
in the Garden of Eden. You remember John chapter one,
there was a man sent from God whose name was John. The Lord
sent Adam out. After all, Romans chapter 10
says, how shall they hear without a preacher? There's going to be many people
that will come forth from Adam. How are they going to hear? How
are they going to hear of the fall of Adam? Except they hear
it from his lips. How are they going to hear about
the seed of the woman is coming? Bless the name of God, a Redeemer
is coming, a Savior is coming. God promised He'd be born of
a virgin. He'll be the one whose head,
the head of Satan He will bruise, but His own heel will suffer
in the conflict. the Savior who will redeem sinners. How will they hear except Adam
tell them? That's why God forced him out. And it was an act of mercy on
all of Adam's family that he go forth and tell them the gospel. And the Lord had said, I'm gonna
put you out of the garden. But right here at this, once
you get out of the garden, that's where I want you to worship. And it was the pattern, the pattern
of the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat that Joe read
to us about in the book of Exodus. God said, that's where I'll meet
you. That's what he told Israel, that's
where I'll meet you. And the Lord tells Adam right
here, this is where I'll meet you, where the cherubims are,
where the flaming sword is between the cherubims at the altar. That's where I'll meet you when
you bring to me a blood sacrifice, that's where I'll meet you. And this was all brought to more
reality in the tabernacle. Notice that last phrase of verse
24. And he placed at the east of
the garden of Eden cherubim. He placed. The word is he tabernacled. Huh? He dwelt. You know who's there to be worshiped? The Son of God. He's right there
to be worshipped. He tabernacled right there. At
the east of the Garden of Eden, there were cherubim and a flaming
sword, which turned every way, not to keep people away from
the tree of life, but to keep the way, to keep the way open. There's a way to God, there's
a way to worship, there's a way to forgiveness, there's a way
of righteousness, and God keeps it open. As you think about the Old Testament
history, especially Israel, in the book of Exodus, in fact,
you can go all the way over to what, 1 Kings chapter 18, You
remember when Elijah, he squared off against the false prophets
and they had an offering. They prayed that fire would come
down from heaven and never did. And Elijah said, just douse my
offering with water. And you remember what happened?
Fire came down from heaven and devoured the sacrifice, the stones,
the altar, the water, all of it. And this is how God showed
that He accepted the sacrifice that was brought at the appointed
place, and according to further on in verse 3 of chapter 4, in
the process of time, at a specific time, the end of the week, they
would come to worship at a particular place, an altar, and that worship God by bringing
a blood sacrifice. So I'll get a little bit into
chapter four. And of course, Cain was born. Eve, when she conceived and bare
him, she said, I've gotten a man, it's the Lord. It's the Lord. Boy, was she wrong. It was the devil. For you see, Cain was the child
of the devil. There are two different kinds
of children in this world due to a division that God made before
the world began. You remember what our Lord said
to those self-righteous Pharisees? You are of your father, the devil. He has his children. and the
works of your father you will do." That division between the
family of Satan, the offspring of Satan and the offspring of
our Lord Jesus Christ was a division God made before the world began. And it's that way forever. And Cain was a child of the devil. So Cain and Abel, come to this
specific place outside the Garden of Eden, but right there as it
were at the border. And Abel brings the firstling
of his flock. How'd he know to do that? Because
he heard a preacher. He heard his daddy. His dad preached
salvation by substitution. by an innocent animal dying in
the stead of the guilty. You know, when I was young, I
never heard anybody talk about substitution as being Christ
dying in my stead. They just kind of said Christ
died for sinners. Well, he did die for sinners,
but that's not the whole of it. He died in the stead of sinners. That's the difference. You see
there, In every religion, practically, they claim to be evangelical. They say Christ died for sinners.
Yes, he did, but now let's state it the way Abraham stated it
to Isaac. He said, that ram called him
the thicket will die in your stead. You see, God's not gonna
kill two people. for sin, if he's gonna save somebody,
his son has died for them already. They can't die. Tell you what,
if you're talking to somebody about the things of God, just
ask them this, is there anybody in hell for whom Jesus Christ
suffered, bled, and died in their stead? It just gets right to
the heart of the matter. Stop beating around the bush.
Well, Scott Richardson said, it's time preachers stood on
their hind legs and just told the truth. Tell it like it is. Christ died in the stead of his
people. And there's nobody in hell Christ
suffered, bled, and died for. There would be an injustice to
the justice of God. So in the process of time, Cain
brings The fruits of an earth that God had cursed. That took a lot of audacity,
didn't it? And he put them all up on the
altar. What do you call that? Cornucopia,
is that what you call that? Here they all are. I bet they
look good, too. I bet it's tomatoes like you
ain't never seen before. Big old sweet potatoes and just
all kinds of good stuff makes our mouth run just thinking about
it. And Cain brought him up there
and laid him on the altar and backed up, waiting for the fire
of God to devour him, showing that God accepted the works of
his hands. God wouldn't have anything to
do with it. As it says here in verse five, but under Cain and
to his offering, God did not have respect. God did not regard
it. God did not look to it. It did
not please God. It did not satisfy God. It's
the works of a man's hands, which he grew out of a ground that
God himself had cursed. And then Abel, who was a shepherd,
Now Cain was a farmer. There's nothing wrong with being
a farmer. That's fine. But just don't bring your produce
to God thinking that'll stand for righteousness before him. That'll satisfy him. And here
comes Abel. Now he was a shepherd. And he brought a victim, an animal. And that animal He offered as
a sacrifice to God, picturing the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And then he and his family backed
off a little bit. I think they probably had families
at this point, just like Cain and his wife did. Cain and his
wife, he probably said to his wife and his kids, if he had
kids, I expect Cain said, now stand back now. I don't want
you to get singed. when the fire falls upon my offering. Let's hold hands. Or let's raise
our hands. I'm sure it's some kind of religious
ritual that Cain did. But no fire devoured his offering. And Abel brought his, that flaming sword that turned
every which way. Remember God, our God, is consuming
fire. He consumed that sacrifice, that
sacrifice that Abel brought, and Cain got mad as a hornet. See, Abel looked past that animal
that died. He looked past that animal to
the Lamb of God, to the seed of the woman. And Hebrews chapter
11 says, he brought that offering by faith. By faith. Cain's was a bloodless offering
and a faithless offering. And God wouldn't have anything
to do with it. And Cain got mad. And the Lord said, now Cain,
if you do what's right, You'll be accepted. But you see, Cain,
he's a man who loves the world. He thinks the sun rises and sets
on him. He's full of self-righteousness.
I brought my best to God. He wouldn't have it. And he got
hot. Told his brother, said, let's
go for a walk out here in the field. on trying to disguise his anger
and his murderous intentions. And he got out there way out
of sight of everybody else. And Cain killed his brother. And just to give you a final
thing, look at verse 16 of chapter four. And Cain went out from
the presence of the Lord That place of offering, that place of the altar, he left
that. That religion of substitution
and satisfaction, he had no interest in that kind of religion. He's
a works monger. I'll tell you what, Cain's got
a lot of relatives today. They're worksmongers, too. Have
no need of a smitten, wounded, bruised, crucified Savior. They don't need the grace of
God. No, just ask Him. Oh, they'll say in passing, I
do, but really, it's the works of their hands. That's what to
count on. And I tell you what, God's not
gonna have anything to do with their offerings, and God's not
gonna have anything to do with them. We're only accepted in the beloved,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Adam was a preacher. Isn't that
something? He was a preacher of the gospel.
And God sent him forth. It says there in Romans chapter
10, how shall they preach except they be sent? And God sent Adam forth to preach. And I'll tell you what, I listened
to him. I listened to Adam's gospel, don't you? It didn't
originate with him, but he told it, he preached it. By the time
Adam was an old man, it's said that he had thousands and thousands
of children and grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.
After all, he lived over 900 years. And all of those who knew the
gospel learned it from him. Adam was a preacher. Well, Joe,
come lead us in the last song