It's good to see everyone this
evening. Thank the Lord that we're able to be here this rainy
night to read his word together. Turn with me in to Genesis chapter
3. Genesis chapter 3. Give me just a moment. This book, God's Word, we call
the Bible, is divided into 1189 chapters.
That's a lot of chapters. The Genesis chapter three is
the sorriest chapter in this whole book. Somebody might be
quick to say, well, wait a minute, Neil. How about the gospels that
recorded the Lord's death on a cross? No, to the believer, the cross
is a blessing to us. We rejoice in the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Our sins died with him on that
cross. And we're thankful. We rejoice
in it. Paul said he rejoiced in it. Now it's not that way
with the world. They could care less. So there's
no sorrow in the cross for them. But in Genesis chapter three,
there is great sorrow. Why is it sad? Well, here's the
text, Romans chapter 5, 12. Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned. Now when he's talking there in
that passage about death, of course we know we're gonna go
through spiritual death, but the Lord told Adam in the day
that you eat thereof, you're gonna die. But he didn't die
physically, did he? He died spiritually. That's the death. Now, we know
the story. God had commanded him, in the
day you eat of that fruit in the midst of the garden, the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you're gonna die. But
what did Adam do? He let his wife talk him into
doing it. She was deceived. But let's remember,
Adam walked into that sin with his eyes wide open. It was God
that gave him personally. Thou shalt not eat. God didn't
say that to Eve. When God put Adam in the garden
to dress it, that's when he told him, you'll not eat of it. So
Eve got the word, as it were, secondhand from Adam. It was
Adam that sin against the Lord. He was the one that was given
that command. Now, no sooner had he ate, had
both of them ate of that fruit of the tree, and the scripture
doesn't tell us what it is, but no sooner had they ate of it,
that sin itself blossomed. It came forth. Their conscience
was wakened. All of a sudden, they saw their
nakedness. And what happened? They become afraid, the scripture
says. They were ashamed to the point
they hid themselves from God. And man's been running from God
ever since. That's the truth. And the consequences of it was,
when God confronted them with their sin, what did they do?
Adam blamed his wife. He blamed God, the woman that
you gave me, trying to free himself from that sin. And of course,
we know Eve blamed Satan, or the serpent. But just how evil,
how evil was that sin? We think, well, we went out there.
If you went out in your neighbor's yard and picked a piece of fruit
off of one of these trees without asking, that's sin. But, you
know, humanly speaking, we think, well, that's not too bad. But
how bad was this sin that they committed? Well, all of a sudden,
in just a few short years, it went from eating of a fruit to
his very first child becoming a murderer. Now think about that. How bad is that? A murderer. And it was just like I said,
a few years. So there was something awful passed on from Adam to
all of us. Something that we do not fully
see, this thing called sin. It's in all of us. And sadly, and I'm speaking for
myself, I don't see the full depth of it. Why is that? Because this sin
lies so close to us. It's within us, it's part of
us. We can't get away from it. So what was the consequence?
What was the consequence of Adam's sins, Adam's transgression against
the holy law of God? Galatians 6, 7 says this, and
we need to get this into our mind. Be not deceived. God is
not mocked, for whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap. We see this throughout scripture.
You notice in that words, he makes no distinction between
anybody that's ever lived that is living right now, all of us.
We reap what we sow. We see this in the scriptures.
Israel came out of Egypt, The Lord says 10 times they tempted
him, and he punished them every time. You can call it chastisement,
but it was a sore grievance upon him. A lot of people died in
his chastisements. They sowed, they reaped what
they sowed. And that's the way with believers.
Look at King David. King David stole a man's wife
and had that man killed. And the Lord says, the sword
is never gonna depart from your house. He says, your neighbor's
gonna rise up against you. And he was talking about his
son. His son actually wanted to kill him. That's the depth
of this sin that dwells, brothers and sisters, in us. Now I wanna
take the text from, begin to read here the effect of that
sin. and what we suffer today because
of it. Look at verse 17. And after he had committed this
sin, and the Bible says the Lord in mercy clothed them in skins,
and you think about it. When Satan and the angels disobeyed
God and rebelled against him, scripture says hell was created
for the devil and these angels. But it wasn't so with man. He
let man live. He clothed him, actually. He had mercy. But in verse 17,
he says, and to Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto
the voice of thy wife, and has eaten of the tree of which I
commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is
the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat it.
eat of it all the days of thy life. Verse 18, thorns also and
thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the
herb of the field. Verse 19, in the sweat of thy
face shalt thou eat bread. Thou return unto the ground,
for out of it thou wast taken, for dust thou art, and of dust
shalt thou return. Brothers and sisters, is this
not what we are involved in today? Is it not what we experience
day in and day out? Only it's so much more experience,
and most of us in here are pretty old. We've lived a long life.
We see, we see the effects of that sin that we have inherited. There's a natural inclination
in all of us to sin, not to good, Not the good, no good whatsoever.
There's none that doeth good, no, not one, the Lord said. But we have that natural inclination
to sin. And sadly, I say this again,
we just don't see it like we ought to. This is something I
really think we need to meditate on, and meditate on it heavily. Because, you know, most people,
That guy over there, he's a sinner. He's a murderer, he's a thief,
blah, blah. We don't see the sin as it is,
the very small things day to day that we commit. And it's true that the Queen
of Sheba told Solomon when she went to sin that the half's not
been told about his riches and his glory. But I'm telling you,
brothers and sisters, the half's not been told us about sin. When
you think about God himself, the just one, the holy one, putting
men in hell forever. Let that just sink into your
mind a little bit, forever. What have we done? What have
we done? What have I done? What have we
done that would cause men to be put in hell forever with no
relief? Oh, that's a scary thought, that's
a scary thought. God have mercy on us who are
sinners. Now in verse 22 of our text,
and the Lord God said, behold, the man has become as one of
us to know good and evil. He became God, or he thought
he was, what a God he was, and I'm saying little gee God, what
a little gee God he became. full of fear and shame. And that was just the beginning. That was just the beginning for
him. It's not what they thought it was going to be. It was not
what they thought it was going to be. They thought they were
going to be gods, at least Eve did. Like I said, I think Adam,
he certainly had to have some reluctance in thinking about
what God told him. And I'm sure he went through
his whole life remembering remembering what he'd done, especially when
Cain slew his brother Abel. My goodness, how that ought to
have brought the full realization to that man what he did. But we're the same way today.
Things are upside down in this country. We're going through
strifes and struggles and temptations. We go through trials and troubles.
Not to mention our bodily afflictions. Most of us in here are old. We
all got problems. We got problems. It's the effect
of sin. It's what we've done. It's what
we deserve. Whatsoever a man soweth, that
he's gonna reap. And that's what we're reaping.
We're reaping the effects of sin. And then he goes on in that
text, 22, and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also
of the tree of life and eat and live forever, Let me ask you
a question. How many of you in your condition
right now, with all the trials and troubles and your body afflictions
and your ailments, how many of us would want to live forever
in the condition we're in right now? No, not me. No. Can you imagine never dying
in this present condition? Going through all the struggles
you go through every day, dealing with things that you don't want
to deal with, But you have no choice. Live forever? Nope. God in mercy. Here we're about
to see God's mercy in not allowing us access to that tree of life. In verse 23 it says, therefore
the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the
ground once he was taken. Verse 24 says, so he drove out
the man. Notice in 23, he said he sent
him forth. But in 24, he says he drove him
out. That means to cast out. That means that word drove out
carries with it a certain amount of force. And I can see old Adam
going out. Depart. If you read the text
on drove, it has something to do with divorce. a man writing
a bill of divorcement for his wife. We're done. Leave. Get out. God broke fellowship with Adam
because of his sin, and he broke fellowship with all men because
of our sins. He drove out man, he went out
in shame, with his tail between his legs like a dog when he's
reprimanded. That's just what it come down
to. Oh, well, Adam, I can picture him now looking back and thinking,
what have I done? What have I done? Here I thought
we were gonna be gods. Here I thought such and such
was gonna happen. And now I'm out here tilling
the land. And scripture says, and he placed,
it's this verse, let me, same verse 24. I'm just looking
at my notes here. And he placed at the east of
the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned
every way to keep the way of the tree of life. Cherubims,
represent the holiness of God. You recall in the tabernacle,
there was the holy part, and then there was the most holy,
where the ark was, and the mercy seat was on top of that with
cherubims covering it, representing the holiness of God. And the
high priest had to go in there once a year and sprinkle blood
seven times on that mercy seat. are those cherubims covered,
representing again. And if you read in the building
of the tabernacle, they put, and I can't tell you what cherubims
look like. Scripture doesn't clearly detail
it to us, but they put them all over the inside of the tabernacle.
It just wasn't in the holiest of holies. I guess maybe in the
curtains and so forth, they wove such things in it from what I
can read in scripture. But they do represent the holiness
of God. And then he says, there was a
flaming sword that turned every way to keep the way of the tree
of life. The flaming sword being the justice
of God. The justice of God. Brother Baram read in Psalms 97, Sunday, and there
was a verse there that struck me. It brought this point out.
It says this, In Psalms 97 too, clouds and darkness are around
about him. Righteousness and judgment are
the habitation of his throne. There's the cherubims and there's
the flaming sword that was put on the east side of Eden. Now
it was put on the east side because the scripture says in chapter
four that Adam and his wife went out east of Eden to the land
of Nod. But he was not allowed to even
come back to that. Matter of fact, it says it turned every way.
There was no way that Adam was going to get back in there to
have access to the tree of life. It was guarded by God's righteousness
and God's justice. Now, As I read this, I got to
thinking, this very text puts a knife to the heart of free
will. Man no longer has access to the
tree of life of himself, he doesn't. Now let's remember, when he was
in the garden, God never forbade Adam from eating the tree of
life. It was there for his taking. I'm not so sure He said that
the tree was in the midst of the garden, but I don't know
if he pointed it out directly or not. But Adam had a free will
then. He could have went and aided
that tree, but he didn't. He'd rather have the tree that
he was forbidden. And that's the nature of us all.
You tell a man that he can't do something, we have laws in
this land that people don't listen to. They don't want. You tell
a man he can't do something, And I guarantee you, he's going
to try to do it. That's the nature of us all. That's what we were
born with. We were born with this idea that
we're free. We're not going to listen to
God. He can't rule over us. We'll not have that man to rule
over us. No, but yet there was no access at this time. And there
never has been since. I don't care what people say.
They have a free will. Problem is, their will's in bondage,
and they don't realize it. But, bless God in his mercy, he didn't
leave us in that condition. Ephesians 2, verse 4 begins,
but God, but God. It's though, as he said, well,
I've got something better planned, but God, I'm gonna overrule what
you've done, and he did. In the eternal counsels of God,
he determined that he was not gonna destroy the race. For God
so loved the world, in John 3, 16, we all know it by heart.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. He so loved his creation. He so loved his order of man. He spent a lot of work preparing
this earth for us, for Adam, He prepared everything in that
garden in the earth that that man needed to live and to walk
with God. And he loved it, he loved it.
But in Christ, he loved the special people chosen in him before the
foundation of the world. He so loved those people. And
I know people get, when they get to think and interpreting that
this world, this word world means, well, just everybody in general,
but we've got to remember that scripture
must be interpreted with scripture. The Lord says, I pray for those
that thou hast given me. I pray not for the world. So,
you know, there's a contradiction there, but loving the world was
loving those that he had chosen. Hebrews 12, 24, it says, and
to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, new covenant. We have the old covenant given
on Mount Sinai, thou shalt not, but this covenant here he made
with Adam was the old covenant. You shall not, that was a covenant.
As long as Adam obeyed, everything's gonna be fine. That was a covenant,
but here, Our Lord Jesus Christ, he's the mediator of a new covenant. One that we have no part in.
One, thank God, I don't have to have a part in it. If it was
dependent on me, I'd have been in hell a long time ago, and
really, that's where I belong. That's where we all belong. For
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And
to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood
of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel, the
one who Cain slew because his sacrifice was accepted with God. But still, it's a better covenant.
That was a covenant of works, sacrificing the sheep, the goats,
the lambs, all representative of the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ on the cross. on behalf of his people. It was
a new covenant made before the world began, and these covenants
in life can never supersede that covenant, never has. It was never
given to supersede it. Galatians 3.17 says this, and
this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of
God in Christ, the law, and this Garden of Eden law, Thou shalt
not, that's part of it. The law, which was 430 years
after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of
none effect. That promise between the triune
God, the God, Father, choosing a people, the Lord Jesus Christ
saying and agreeing, I will go and be a substitute for their
sins. I'll bear their sins and satisfy
you, the Father's justice. In Ephesians 2.5, it says this,
even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with
Christ. By grace, ye are saved. And here's
the third part of that trinity, that covenant. the Holy Spirit. He does the quickening. He says,
I will draw them. That's work of the Holy Spirit.
God gives us a new heart. The Holy Spirit takes the heart,
gives us a new heart, and applies the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ to our hearts. Are we guilty of sin? Yes. What man isn't? David said, My
sin is ever before me. Does anybody in here say, well,
I forget all my sins? No. We remember our youth. How
many times have we heard Marvin stand here and say in the pulpit,
speaking of himself, not revealing what he did. Nobody wants to
tell us what they've done. I don't want to tell you what
I've done. But I'm guilty. Paul said, I'm the chiefest of
sinners. Well, every believer. You all
say the same thing. I do. I'm the chiefest of sinners. I don't want you to know what
some of the things I've done. I don't want you to know what
I thought. Thoughts that you said, where did that come from?
Where did that awful thought come from? And it's a constant
thing. We're ever struggling with this
old man. Thank God there's a new man that
he's given us a new heart to believe. Isn't that a wonderful
thing? believe what he says because
he's given us a heart to believe. We just didn't arbitrarily one
day decide to make a decision like these false preachers talk
about. Oh, no. Our decision is to sin. That's our decision. We're in
bondage to sin. That's a fact. That's a fact.
We're born hating God. Scripture tells us that. There's
nothing in us. There's nothing, there's none
that doeth good. No, not one. God looked down from heaven upon
the children of men to see if there was any that done good.
They've all gone astray. There's none that doeth good.
No, not. So he has quickened us together
in Christ. And we look back and we see,
as we get older, and you people, you brothers and sisters who
are getting old, the older you get, the more you see this thing
called sin. Like I said earlier, we don't
see it for what it is. I wish I did, because I think
that how can you fully appreciate, how can I fully appreciate what
Christ has done unless I can see what I really am, the depth
of it? And so that's what I pray for,
and I'm sure you do too. Lord, show me what I am. Lord,
show me what I am. Let me see. Lord, I know I'm
weak, but how weak am I? How weak am I? Open my eyes,
open my understanding, Lord, that I might see that Christ
has paid it all. He's done it all. When he cried
out on the cross, it is finished. Brothers and sisters, it was
finished. Redemption was accomplished by
him. And now he sits at the right
hand of the throne of God in heaven, ruling this world. He's ruling this world. And one
day, on Judgment Day, he's gonna be sitting on the throne and
he alone is gonna be the one that's judging us. He alone. And these people that blaspheme
his name and speak derogatory things about the Lord Jesus Christ,
what a sad day it's gonna be for them. This is gonna be the
sad day, the real sad time. We haven't experienced it yet,
but certainly it's coming. With that, I'll close. I pray
that that was a little bit of help to you. Pray that God would
bless us. Amen.