Open your Bibles to Genesis chapter
3. I'm so honored to be here and
so thankful for this congregation. You stand for the gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace through the Lord Jesus. So thankful for
the one who is your shepherd, brother shepherd. And I thank
God for his gifts that are used for the glory
of God. He's blessed me so much. I appreciate his friendship.
We've been friends a long time, and I'm thankful for him and
his dear wife. And I'm thankful for brother
Tim James and his wife. We met in the early seventies. And I can still remember the
first Wednesday night. Nancy and I went into Rosemont
Baptist Church in Winston-Salem. They were looking for a music
director and somebody to kind of lead the youth. kind of be the assistant to the
man who was the pastor there. And we went in and it went well,
and then we got home and I said, you know, I enjoyed being there,
but there's this red-headed guy. I said, did you see him? I said,
he's like a hippie. He even had facial hair. She said, yeah, I met him and
his wife. Well, you can see who influenced
who. But we became really good friends,
the best of friends, and we have been so for nearly 40 years.
And I'm thankful anybody would be
my friend for 40 years. In fact, did anybody be my friend
at all? I'm very grateful. I was reading early this morning one of the old writers on Genesis
chapter 3. And he said this, this Matthew
Henry. Matthew Henry said, the story
of Genesis chapter 3 is as sad a story, all things being considered,
it's as sad a story as is to be found in the Word of God." You know, in chapters, in the
first chapter and the second chapter, we see the wisdom of
God, the power of God, the authority of God. God who brought all things
into existence simply by the word of His omnipotence. See there our Savior, He's the
Creator. It says all things were made
by Him, and without Him wasn't anything made that was made. We read in the book of Colossians,
"...by Him were all things created that are in the heavens and in
the earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers. For all things were created by
Him and for Him." and by Him all things consist." He holds
everything together. In other words, He not only made
everything, He keeps everything going and moving in the direction
that He has already ordained. So that everything is moving,
everything is going toward the goal that He Himself has already
set. And all those things that are
working together to go toward the goal, He controls all those
too. Not only the big things, but
the minute things. What to us are insignificant
things, He rules all of them. So in chapters 1 and 2, everything
is beautiful. Everything is glorious. In chapter
1, with every day's creation. 1 through 6, each day's creation,
we see God's glories in His wisdom, in His might, and we're just
amazed. He spake, and it was done. He said, let
there be light, and there was light. Or literally, light be. And the lights came on. And they'll be on till He cuts
them off. He said, don't you worry about
the sun burning out. He spoke them into existence.
And He will maintain them. And then God made His crowning
work. He made man. And God looked at
everything he made, and you know what God said? It's very good. It's very good. We get into the
second chapter, you see God's provision for man. He provides
him with somewhere to dwell, put him in a perfect garden. and surrounded him with beautiful,
lovely living things, oh, what beautiful trees and flowers,
all kinds of vegetation and animals, brought the animals to him and
said, name them, name them. God gives him a wife. Chapters
1 and 2, joy, delight, wonder, amazement, All is well. We'll get to chapter 3, and as
Matthew Henry said, it's the saddest story in chapter 3 as
you'll ever read. And yet, and I appreciate what Matthew
Henry had to say, but I would just add this to him, and I wouldn't
be worthy to carry his Bible. This very chapter that he says
contains as sad a story as you'll ever read, it also contains a
message of good news, of glad tidings for fallen sinners. Yes, yes, here we have the beauty
and the peace of creation disturbed. Yes, we see its beauty stained. Jeremiah said in Lamentations,
how is the gold become dim? He says, how is the most fine
gold changed? Oh, look what's happened. However, against this dismal, very sad,
wretched backdrop, behold the God of grace, the God of mercy,
the God of love, who goes after the rebels. who lifts up the fallen, who
in His grace and mercy announces to them good news. You got yourself in this mess,
but I'm going to get you out of it. The seed of the woman, He's going
to come. He's going to straighten it all
out. And then he illustrated the gospel. Yes, it's a sad story, but it's
got a wonderful ending. A wonderful ending. For right
here in Genesis chapter 3 begins a marvelous river. A river that
runs all the way through the Scriptures. of God's everlasting
love for His covenant people, of God's salvation in the Lord
Jesus. This is a river of the life-giving
grace of God to vile, undeserving sinners. Yes. It is absolutely so that in Genesis
chapter 3 we have the subtle devices of Satan set forth. We have the biblical explanation
for all the world's great problems. It's sin. That's the reason. It's sin. Yes, here we have the
devastating effects of sin, the shame, the self-righteousness,
the blame game. Yes, here we see man's natural
unbelief and his natural embracing of salvation by self-effort. We're born that way. We're born
believing salvation by works. Surely, if you do good, God will
reward you. He'll give you life. But you've
got to do it. And then God will respond for
your good behavior. And the more you do, the more
you'll get. That's natural belief. We see salvation by self-effort
set forth here, but we see here God's gracious announcement of
the gospel. And we have in Genesis 3 an object
lesson given by the Lord Himself. whereby He teaches us what I
would refer to as the requirements of the gospel. You see, there will be no good
news for fallen sinners apart from these four requirements. And here they are. There must
be a substitute for sinners. The innocent. There must be an
innocent one found to die instead of the guilty. Substitution set
forth in this chapter. Secondly, satisfaction. Satisfaction made to God's offended
justice. God shows mercy. but not at the
expense of his justice now. God doesn't lower the standard.
He won't do that. There must be a substitute. There
must be satisfaction to his offended justice. Number three, there
must be a sacrifice for God. And make no mistake about it,
this sacrifice is for God. We reap the benefits, we're blessed,
but the sacrifice is for God Almighty. The sacrifice is not
for your acceptance or even for your rejection. The sacrifice
is for the Lord. You read in the book of Leviticus,
it's always the blood before the Lord. It's for God. Brother Scott Richardson used
to say, God had to do something for Himself before He can do
anything for us. And number four, this sacrifice
must be worthy and suitable and acceptable unto God. It must meet all the stipulations
and all the requirements laid down by God Himself. And it must
meet all the needs of the fallen. You hear me now. As you study
the Bible, you'll make no real progress in understanding this
book. until you understand something
about Genesis chapter 3. Because if you don't understand
the mess that we're in, you won't understand what the remedy's
got to be. If you don't understand how bad
off we are, then you will never appreciate the grace of God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. If you get started off wrong,
if you miss this, you're going to be wrong the rest of the way.
You'll be out of step the rest of the... When I was in high
school, I used to be drum major. I went in big tall hats, you
know, I had the baton. Get everybody started off on
left foot, you know, marching. And inevitably, when I turn around
and look back, have my little whistle. Oh, you should have
seen me. I have something. Blow my little whistle, shouting
out cadence, and somebody would be out of step. And you'd see
them trying, that's hard to get back in step. If you're out of
step in the Bible to begin with, you're going to be in a heap
of trouble the rest of the way. Let's find out what happened
in the garden. Somebody said three things modern religion
don't know. They don't know what happened
in the garden, don't know what happened at the cross, don't
know. And they don't know what happens
in the heart of a sinner in regeneration and the new birth. I'm going
to give you four things. Four things. I want you to listen,
see if you get these, and I know you will. First of all, here's
man and his sin. It's in verses 1 through 6. Man
and his sin. Now, learn this about man. Man is never independent. Man's
not an independent, self-governing creature. He didn't make himself. He owes his being and his existence
to God. Man was made to serve God and
glorify His Creator. Now, the Lord gave as a symbol
of His sovereignty and a man's responsibility, He gave one tree
of all the other trees, He said, one tree in the midst of the
garden, the fruit of which man was not to eat. Go back, I've
got you in chapter 3, but look back in the second chapter in
verse 16. The Lord God took the man, put
him in the garden, the garden of Eden, to dress it and keep
it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree
of the garden thou mayest freely eat." Hey, eat of all of them.
But, "...of the tree, of the knowledge of good and evil, thou
shalt not eat of it. For in the day thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die." Now notice the language. God didn't say,
if you eat, you'll die. He said, in the day you eat,
you'll die. You're going to eat, and you're
going to die. Didn't take God off guard, didn't
surprise God, didn't shock God. Listen, and I can't explain it. We talk about a lot we can't
explain. What did Scott say? We're not in the explaining business.
We're in the proclaiming business. God is the first cause of all
things. You have a problem with that? I don't have a problem
with that. And if God is the first cause of all things and
sin is a thing, this falls under that category.
And I know God didn't do the sinning. And yet this is all according
to His will. I hear people talk about, God,
isn't it amazing how men try to explain God as if they can
do it, like explaining God's will. They talk about God's will,
you know, this is His will of allowance. And this is His ordained
will. And I guess this is what he wants,
and then this is others what he's going to get. And I don't
find the Scripture dividing it like that. We just read about
the will of God. And this is under the will of
God here. You see, God's greatest glory is the salvation of sinners
through the Lord Jesus. by His blood and by His righteousness."
This is God's greatest glory. Well, in order for there to be
salvation and redemption, and reconciliation, all of these
truths that we hold dear, in order for there to be all of
these things, there's got to be the sin, there's got to be
the fault, there's got to be depravity, there's got to be
iniquity, there's got to be transgression. Does that make sense to you?
It's got to be. I know the heavens declared the
glory of God, and I know God is glorified in His works of
providence. You know, if something good happens
to us, we say, well, that's providential. Let me tell you something, if
something bad happens to you, that's providential too. Boy,
I tell you, that's providential. That car pulled out in front
of me, and I happened to just be looking, and I swerved and
missed. That's providential, wasn't it? Yeah, it would have
been providential if it had hit you and you would have died too. God's glory is seen in that. Are you saying God's maneuvering
everything and God is guiding everything? Exactly right. No
exceptions. No exceptions. But His greatest
glory is lifting a beggar from the dunghill and raising him
up to be a king and a priest unto God. through the death,
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's God's greatest
glory. And we're going to bless His
name forever for doing that. You see, what we're doing down
here right now, we're trying to praise Him. We do such a feeble,
poor job of it. We take another stab at it. But
there's going to come a day when we'll... You know what our song
will be in heaven? Worthy is the Lamb that was slain."
It's not going to be any different than what we're singing down
here. I tell you, if you enjoy this, oh boy, you just wait. It's going to be infinitely better
than this. But if you don't enjoy this,
well, you wouldn't be happy in heaven if the Lord was to let
you in, which He won't. If you ain't happy about this
redemption, Because this is what we're going to do in heaven's
glory. Bless the name of God. Praise Him. Worthy is the Lamb
that was slain, who has redeemed us to God by Thy blood. Salvation
to our God and unto the Lamb. That will be the song of the
elect in heaven. God put this tree in the garden. He said, now, don't eat of it. And what we have here in the
first few verses is man's willful rebellion against God. And you
know the story. Satan tempted, he beguiled, he
deceived our mother Eve. She heeded the voice of the tempter.
Then she began to make additions to the Word of God. Then she
tampered with the Word of God. Then she disregarded the Word
of God. And she ate. And then she gave it to her husband. Now listen, Eve didn't represent
anybody. And I don't know, maybe she said,
look, it's good, honey. Try it, whatever that fruit was.
But Adam, of His representative man. And He represented all mankind.
And in verse 6, the last statement of verse 6, He did eat. He willed
to eat. He willed to eat. You want free
will? There it is. There it is. Because it is literally, He willed
to eat. The reason He ate is because
He willed to eat. He didn't do it unwillingly.
He willed to it. And he fell. But his fall had
a devastating effect upon all mankind. Upon you and me. You quoted it the other night.
Wherefore, as by one man's sin entered into the world, and death
by sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned
in Adam. All sinned in Adam. Here's man and his sin. We died
spiritually right then through a representative. He is our federal
head. But now wait, there's really
some good news here. There's good news in this, we
fell through a representative. You know, Satan, the tempter. When he fell, it is said he led
one-third of the angels in rebellion against God with him. But he
wasn't their representative. They fell individually, one by
one. We fell through a representative.
Here's the good news. To be saved, we'll be saved through
another representative. And by the disobedience of one,
we became sinners. By the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus, the many He
represented are made righteous, even the righteousness of God.
That's good news. Man in his sin. Secondly, Satan
in his subtlety. Here Satan is mentioned for the
first time in the Bible. And you know the story. You've
read it. He deceived our mother Eve. I can't use words or language
that's strong enough to set forth the deceitfulness, the subtlety,
the awful power of this creature, the devil, Satan, the serpent,
the dragon of the abyss. Only fools speak of him in a
humorous way. This is the one who holds all
men captive by his will. Thank God he's the stronger man. Christ Jesus is the stronger
man who has bound him. He's bound him. It's written, the Savior said,
now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said signifying
what death he should die. The prince of this world should
be cast out. I know the death of Christ satisfied
divine justice, put away the transgressions of His people,
His death condemned our sin, His death brought in everlasting
righteousness, but it did something else too. It defeated the enemy."
He's talking about a while ago. He defeated him who had the power
of death. Satan has been bound. And I know
and realize He's not bound in every sense of the word. Certainly
His influence in this world is not bound, but He does not have
power over all men. There is a group over which His
power has been broken, and that group is the elect of God. And God uses Satan. to fulfill whatever His eternal
purpose is. God uses Satan like He uses the
fallen angels, like He uses the elect angels, like He uses the
lost, and like He uses the saved. God uses everybody. And you say,
oh preacher, I hope God will use me. You may be certain of
this. He is using you. He is using
you. to fulfill His wise purpose,
whatever that is pertaining to you. I don't know what it is. It may be for the glory of His
free grace. I pray that it is. It may be
for the glory of His infinite justice in damning your soul.
I don't know. But I'll guarantee you this,
He'll get glory by you somehow or other. Somehow or other. What do we know about Satan?
Well, I'll tell you this real quick, the sphere of Satan's
activity is the spiritual religious realm. I know we blame things on him,
adultery we blame that on him, blasphemy we blame that on him,
drunkenness and witchcraft and all those things. Hey, those
things just come out of an evil heart. The devil made me do it. No,
you didn't need any help. Satan's aim is to keep you away
from the gospel of Jesus Christ. He wants to come between you
and God. His goal is to keep you in trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ. His goal is for you to embrace
your rags of self-righteousness just a little bit tighter. Go ahead and memorize your Scripture
verses. Go ahead and join up. That's
okay with the devil. What he wants to make you do
is keep you away from Christ. So that you're religious, you
got a religious refuge, but it's a refuge of lies. And he does his greatest work
from the pulpit, In the seminaries? In the Bible colleges? And I
can tell you this, He knows the Bible better than you do. And you're no match for Him.
But I know one, that Satan is no match for Him. That's the
Son of God who crushed His head at the cross. Well, what about
the fall and its results quickly, number three? As soon as Adam
sinned against God, he began to suffer the consequences of
his transgression. His eyes were open. He wasn't
illuminated, but his eyes were open. And his eyes were open to distressing
things, evil things. They knew they were
naked. They felt things they'd never
felt or known before. They lost their innocence. Guilt
engulfed them, shame embarrassed them, fear terrified them. You know what they did? They sewed fig leaf aprons together
to try to hide their shame. And then look at verse 8, they
heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden of the
cool of the day, and Adam and Eve hid themselves in the presence
from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden.
They hid in the forest among the trees. Now these trees were
made on the third day, and they're good. At the end of the third day,
like every day, the Lord said, it's good. And then the last
day, He said, it's very good. Hey, these trees are good, but
they're not made for hiding behind. And men try to hide from God
today. There's a tree of baptism. That's
a good tree in its place. It's the believer's confession
of faith in the Lord Jesus. That's a good tree. Don't try
to hide behind it though. Morality is a good tree. Be moral. Yeah. Don't try to hide behind it.
Decency, all of these things. There are many trees in the forest
of self-righteousness. And when the general call of
the gospel goes out and people stir it up a little bit, they
run to the trees. What tree are you hiding behind? When they heard the voice of
God, they went running to hide in the trees. But let me show you something.
God in His gracious provision. Here's the first call of grace.
You know, in verse 8, really, to me in verse 8, here's the
general call of the gospel. They heard the voice of the Lord
God walking in the garden in the cool of the day." The general
call of the gospel. And they ran. But in the ninth
verse, here's the effectual call. And the Lord God called unto
Adam. Now remember, this is Eve's name
too. They're both called Adam right now. This is the effectual
call. The Lord calls His sheep by name.
He called unto Adam and said to him, where are you? God never
asks a question for information. And he said, I heard your voice
in the garden, I was afraid, because I was naked. I hid myself,
and the Lord said, who told you you was naked? Have you eaten
of the tree, Adam, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? And the man said, Here's the
blame game. The woman whom thou gavest to
be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat. The Lord
God said to the woman, what have you done? The woman said, the
serpent beguiled me and I did eat. The Lord said to the serpent,
and here's God's declaration to the serpent of what He's going
to do. Because thou hast done this,
you are cursed above all cattle, above every beast of the field.
Upon thy belly shalt thou go, thus shalt thou eat all the days
of thy life." And here's God's announcement. And He throws it
right in the face of the enemy. This is what I'm going to do.
I'll put enmity. I will put. I will appoint. I
appoint, I fix, I set enmity between thee and the woman, and
between thy seed and her seed. And it shall bruise thy head,
thou shalt bruise his heel." There's the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Here's that substitution and
satisfaction. And by the way, this is the Son
of God talking right here. And I know that because God will
not speak to nor be spoken to by any son or daughter of Adam
except through a mediator." This is the Lord Jesus Himself. This
is the Son of God speaking. And unto Adam, God said, "'Because
you have hearkened to the voice of thy wife, eaten of the tree
which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed
is the ground for thy sake.'" It's your fault. In sorrow thou
shalt eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles
shall it bring forth to thee. Thou shalt eat the herb of the
field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. Till thou
return unto the ground, for out of it was she taken. For thus
thou art, and thus thou shalt return." And then Adam called
his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living.
And then, watch this. Here's the gospel illustrated.
Do you want to know how God can be just and justify the ungodly? Right here. And unto Adam also
and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and He clothed
them. God stripped them of the fig
leaf apron. You reckon, you know Adam was
so smart. You reckon he ever figured that them fig leaves
once severed from the fig tree, he ever thought about this, that
they'll wilt? They'll dry up? I guess, look
what sin's done to us. This is a man who named all the
animals that God brought before him. And here he cuts off some
fig leaves and said, well, this will make a good covering for
me. Well, just wait a little while. Watch them wither and
get brittle and break all to pieces." Oh, God stripped them. And then
God killed innocent animals. Because you see, the wages of
sin is death. Somebody's got to die. And I'll
tell you what's instituted right here. And it runs all the way
through the Bible. If the guilty are to go free,
a suitable innocent victim has got to die in their stead. God's
justice has got to be honored, got to be satisfied. You see
here our Lord Jesus Christ? You see here His obedience unto
death, even the death of the cross. And God killed these animals. The first blood shed was by God
Himself. Satisfied His justice. Pictured
the Son of God. Robed our parents. We're robed
with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We're in His garments. Yeah, yeah. That's why we're
acceptable unto God. That's why God can look on it
with pleasure, with delight. Because we're in Christ. We're
robed in His righteousness. We're washed in His blood. This
is the salvation of sinners right here. Is it a sad story? Well,
yeah, it is sad. But man alive, the gladness overshadows
the sadness. And it is every bit to the praise
of the glory of His grace. Listen, let me give you this
and I'll quit. Why don't you come out from the
trees to another tree? The tree of the cross, the tree
upon which the Savior died. Come to the crucified Lamb of
God. There's salvation in Him, and
nowhere else either. He said, "'Barely, barely,' I
said to you, "'I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by Me.'" That's the way it is. That's the way it is. God bless you. Thank you for
having me. putting us up in a nice motel, and feeding us the food
that has been so wonderful, and the fellowship outstanding. And I appreciate you, and appreciate
you, Pastor. Thank you. Well, we appreciate both of you
cannot help but appreciate somebody who will tell you the truth.
And the only way that they can tell you the truth is to tell
you exactly what God says in His book. I was thinking about
that aborted infant cast out bloody in a field that Ezekiel
talked about. He shows what we are in ourselves
And God said, I passed by you and it was a time of love. And
she goes from that ugly, pitiful, cast out sight to being clothed
with beauty and known, known for her beauty. And He said,
it's because of what I put on you. those robes of righteousness
which I put on you. We do thank you, and we hope
that you'll stay with us today and have lunch with us. They
have a lot of good food. It's so good they had to seal
the door off to keep the odor out of here. We have plenty,
so please come and eat with us. Father, we thank You this day
for Your goodness to us. that you intercepted us and interrupted
us in our headlong, mad plunge to destruction, to reveal to
us that before the world began, you set your affection upon us.
You looked upon us in the Lord Jesus Christ and loved us, and
gave us to Him as His bride. And he in turn came in time that
he might accomplish that which as God exclusively he could not,
but took upon himself a body in order that he might die in
our room instead, and in that death accomplish all our salvation. Lord, we thank you that if he
finished it, which he said he did, And there's nothing for
us to do but to do as Brother Tim said, to praise Him and thank
Him and give Him glory. Him alone. We thank You for this
time that we've had together. We thank You for the food that
we're about to partake of. And we pray all these things
in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.