All right, let's take our Bibles
and turn back to the book of Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter
3, we looked at this chapter last time, and I want to continue
in our study. We looked at the first five verses.
I'd like to look at verses 6 to 8 today. Adam and Eve, his wife, are in
a garden. planted by the Lord, and they've
been created, innocent, upright, and sin, as yet, has not entered
into the world. Now, in our first study, we saw
that Satan approached the woman and he questioned God's Word
by asking Eve, yea, it's in the first verse, Hath God said you
shall not eat of every tree of the garden? He said, did God
say that you couldn't eat of any trees of the garden? And
she responded, and she said, verse 2, 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 has said you shall not eat
of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Now, in the
next verse, Satan said to the woman, and what he was actually
doing, he was calling God a liar. He said, refuting God's word
and penalty promised for disobedience, he said, you shall not surely
die. Satan was telling Eve that by
eating the fruit, of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, she would receive things that only God could perceive,
and she would actually be like God. He said in verse 5, God
doth know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall
be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Eve is being tempted. Temptation is not sin. The Lord was tempted. The scripture
declares concerning sin and temptation in the book of James chapter
1 verses 14-15. Here's what's going to happen. Temptation itself is not sin. James chapter 1 verse 14-15,
every man is tempted when he's drawn away of his own lust and
enticed. Like I said, the Lord was tempted,
but the Lord didn't sin. But every man is tempted when
he's drawn away, enticed, verse 15, but when lust hath conceived,
When he yields to that temptation, it bringeth forth sin, and sin
when it's finished bringeth forth death. So Eve is being tempted. God has spoken to her husband
Adam, and Adam told his wife what God said, but Eve is not
perceiving the significance of God's sovereignty. perceiving the significance of
the tree, which was the tree that set forth the demand of
God's righteousness of keeping the law. He told her, he said,
you eat of that tree, you're going to die. And Eve was blind
to her danger, and being found in that position, she did the
unthinkable. Now, this book is a mysterious
book. Now here was a place where sin
was as yet not found. And the scripture says in verse
6, And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and
that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make
one wise, She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave
also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." Now, Satan has
now tempted Eve the same way he tempted the Lord Jesus in
the wilderness. According to 1 John 2.16, the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
And I will be the first to say that it would be wrong for us
to try to imagine or attempt to show the rationale of Eve's
mind. Evidently she gave some credit
to the enticing statements of the devil, the serpent. That
the eating of the fruit, obviously in her mind, she thought that
it would have extraordinary results Making them like God Himself.
That's what Satan told her. God does know when you eat of
the fruit, you'll be as God's. Same word as God. And would also have the fullness
of the knowledge of good and evil. You will know, Satan told her,
how to choose. You will know what's good and
what's evil and how to choose good and refrain from evil. You'll know how to do that. You'll
think as God thinks. You'll be as God. And in one moment, before Satan
enticed her, she declared, unto the devil that God had said of
all the fruit of the tree that's in the midst, you shall not eat
of that one tree. Now, how amazing this is that
she looks at that tree. This is what verse 6 says. And
when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, she looks
at that tree, having heard the enticing words of Satan, and
concluded in her mind that the tree was good for food. She saw that the tree was good
for food. Now, how did she perceive that? The scripture declares that she
saw and she saw that it was good. She saw that the tree that God
had forbidden was good to eat. Now, I want to say right now
for not only those of you that are here, but for anybody that's
listening to this message, I'm not here to be novel. I'm not here to be cute. I'm
not here to be clever. I am here to set forth as clearly
as I can perceive God's word to be truthful. in what is set forth in these
scriptures. And found in some wording of
what Eve did. It said she saw, she saw that
the tree was good for food. And I'm going to say as Robert
Hawker, I've read often, if any of you read Robert Hawker you
know that often he'll make a statement and he's made a conclusion based
on the tense and the sense of the Scriptures. And he'll say
something like this. He said, I don't speak decidedly,
but I speak praying that the Spirit of God might be pleased
to teach us from these Scriptures. So I'm going to just say that.
I don't try to speak decidedly, but I'm going to pray that the
Spirit of God might be pleased to reveal to us. But I will tell
you from these wordings, and I do find it very, very important
to read these words and look up the meanings of these words
that we can understand what's being said. The word saw, when
it says, and the woman saw. Now, three different sources.
I would always recommend, as I've always told the folks here,
please go look these things up. Please take a concordance. Get
you a good Strong's or a Blue Letter Bible or a Vine's concordance,
which is the three that I went to. to find out exactly what
that word saw means. The word saw, it means actually
from Vine's expository dictionary. Again, I'll tell you this. I
don't speak Hebrew. But I can read. And I can read a definition. Vine's expository dictionary,
it sets forth that the word saw, it means to see with the eyes.
It means to observe. It means to ascertain or to know
something for certain or to make sure of by experience. Blue letter Bible has a meaning
of that word saw. It means to be exhibited to. Strong's has a definition continuing
in these, I mean, you know, it means to see literally or figuratively
and then it uses this word. causatively. That is, something
that is acting as an agent or a cause to bring something into
being. Now I'm going to give you an
illustration, then I'm going to tell you what I think happened
right here. I read, I heard years ago, that the tomatoes, the plant,
the tomatoes, were thought to be, for years, they were thought
to be poisonous. I read where tomatoes were brought
from the Americas back to Europe, back in the 1500s. And they always
thought in Europe and elsewhere, I suppose, that tomatoes were
poisonous. People would plant them and they
would use them as decorations and ornaments in their yards,
but they would not eat them. Why? Because they thought they
were poisonous. A man named Colonel Robert Johnson, on September
the 26th, 1820, I looked this up just to make sure
that I'm saying this correctly. It says, once and for all, to
prove how good tomatoes were, stood on the steps of a courthouse
in Salem, and I think that was in New Jersey. and bravely consumed
an entire basket of tomatoes without keeling over or suffering
any ill effects. The people saw causatively, that
is, with a cause. They saw by an example, by an
experience, that tomatoes were good food. They saw it. They
saw it. It was more than that they just
looked at it, but there was a demonstration to them that tomatoes were good
for food, that they were not poisonous. Now, to make application
for what I'm saying here, the serpent said unto the woman,
when she said, God said if we eat of that fruit, We're gonna
die. Satan told her in verse four,
you shall not surely die. I was listening to a message
that was preached by Brother Henry Mahan. He made this statement,
and when he first made it, I thought to myself, well, okay, so I went
back and looked up where he was coming from. What he said, he
said, I believe that what happened, he said, Satan, as a demonstration,
took of the fruit and ate it in front of the woman. Satan,
who was a fallen creature, he didn't go any farther than he
was. He was already a fallen creature. He fell out of heaven.
He ate of the fruit and the word used right here, when the woman
saw That is, she beheld by example. She beheld with a cause. She saw through an agent and
deducted from watching Satan, probably, and I'll say this,
that's what I'm talking about when I say, I'll let the Spirit
of God lead us, but I can tell you what the word means. She
saw something and concluded something by seeing it. Just like those
people that watch Colonel Johnson eat tomatoes. She saw, and it
says, and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
she saw that this creature, Satan, the serpent, she saw that he
didn't keel over. And not only did she conclude
then that the tree was good for food, she saw it. And I've often
wondered, when I read that, I thought, how could she look at it and
conclude that it was good for food? God told her she was going
to die. How did she conclude that? Well, based on the word
saw, when she saw that the tree was good, that it was then pleasant
to the eyes. Now what happened now? She saw
that it's good for food and she's concluded that it's not harmful. And then, seeing that the tree
was good for food, she now deducted it was pleasant to the eyes.
It was at that point that it had no adverse effects on Satan,
on serpent. It was then delightful, when
it says pleasant to the eyes, it was then delightful, charming,
and satisfying to behold. It was pleasant to her eyes,
and now it whetted her appetite. That which God had forbidden,
that which God had told her, you're going to die if you eat
this. Satan says, you're not going to die. You're not going
to die. And by her seeing, by an experience, by an example,
that tree obviously produces fruit. that is good for food. And now in her deceived and beguiled
mind it was, the scripture says, a treat to be desired to make
one wise. Now she was obviously persuaded
by the eating of that fruit, by that example, whatever it
was, wherever it is, and I'll be the first to admit that if
there was another way that God was pleased to allow her to see
by example, but it could be very plausible that that's what happened. I'm not saying it is, I'm just
saying that's what the word means. I'm saying that she saw And an
example was given, something that she beheld that proved something
to her in her deceived mind. Now she's seeing that this is
a tree to be desired to make one wise, and now her obvious
ignorance, she said, well obviously I'm ignorant. Satan had told me that I wouldn't
die, and I can see that didn't happen, obviously. And now it's
one that's now pleasant, to her eyes, and now a tree that is
desired to make one wise. The scripture says that after
she coveted and lusted after, the scripture says she took.
She took of the fruit and did eat. And obviously, nothing happened. Nothing happened. She didn't
feel, the scripture didn't say that she felt any adverse effects,
but she was not the one that God had spoken to. He had spoken
to her husband. Adam was the representative of
mankind. He was the first Adam, not Eve. Nothing happened. She was not
the representative. Satan wasn't the representative.
And the scripture says, and she gave also unto her husband, and
it says with her, and he did eat. Now the word with means,
and this is one of those where I looked at that and I kind of
wondered the significance. It means equally with, and it's
from a root word that means to associate with. Some say that
he was actually standing there, some say he wasn't, and I could
not conclude from the wording of the Scriptures whether he
was or whether he wasn't. But whether he was there when
she ate, or whether he came up after she ate, or whether she
went and found him and related the story, it's hard to say.
But the Scripture declares that Adam, who was created upright,
that means straight, level, correct, and proper. He did eat. Adam ate with his eyes wide open. Eve was beguiled. She was fooled. She was tricked. Adam took that
and he ate that fruit in absolute disobedience. He knew exactly
what he was doing. He was not deceived. He was not
fooled. He wasn't beguiled. He knew when
he ate it, he was disobeying God. He knew he was. And the
scripture says, and he did eat, and the next verse says, and
the eyes of them both were opened. And they knew that they were
naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves
aprons, or things to gird about. It was not until Adam ate that
their eyes were opened. Not when Eve ate, not even if
it was that Satan ate. It wasn't, no. It was when Adam
ate. Romans 5, 12 says, wherefore,
as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin,
so death passed upon all men, for that in the margin, in whom
all have sinned, for that all have sinned, in whom? Adam. 1
Corinthians 15, 21, 22, for since by man came death, by man came
also the resurrection of the dead, for as in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Satan had told Eve
that their eyes would be opened. The eyes of their understanding
would be opened. But what he promised was not
what they experienced. He had promised them paradise,
and now they're plunged into the discovery of their folly
and sin. He said, God does know in the
day that you eat thereof that you're good and evil. Yeah, they
now know good and evil and they know that good that was promised
them was not to be had by their rebellion. Now they know that
what they've done is not good and the evil that they never
thought that they would be associated with was now inescapable. They
know what good is. Good is obedience to God. Sin is transgression of the law.
The law was found. You say, well, the law wasn't
until Moses. No, God gave the law. He told
them, he said, in the day you eat thereof, you're going to
die. That's law. And now they realize that by their disobedience,
now their eyes are opened to the fact that they've been deceived.
Or Eve was. Adam knew it. And what they've
done is exactly what God said. In the day you eat thereof, you're
going to die. And now they're walking around
physically, but they're dead spiritually. And some of the
effects of that death from what is being said right here. He
said the eyes of them both were open. They knew that they were
naked. Their eyes were open to this
fact that externally, yes, they were naked before, but now what
they're seeing externally is actually something that is internal. For the first time now, they're
ashamed. They're ashamed. You know how
you wouldn't even dare want to go out and someone see you, you
know, without clothes and stuff. and guilt, and you know, they
now, they've been deceived, they've lost peace, peace with God, they've
lost comfort and communion that they had with the Lord, they've
lost their innocence that they formerly possessed, they were
innocent, He was created upright, and now, they're naked. Their outward neckiness proves
that they've lost their purity. And now they're dead spiritually. And they in their spiritually
dead mind and heart must now in their minds do something to
remedy the disaster. We're in trouble. We're in trouble. So what do they do? They do the
first thing that they now think. Now here's the beginning of free
will. Immediately. They had depended
on God and now here's the first thing they do. They now have
sewn fig leaves together and made themselves aprons, things
to gird them. That's the natural man's mindset
from the fall. free will. Man thinks that he
can cover himself. Man thinks that he can cover
his guilt, cover his spiritual nakedness, by doing something. Just something. Baptize, reform,
speak in tongues, pray through, whatever, join the church. But
the problem is, a man that is dead in trespasses and sins,
he's in need. He needs life. Why? Because he's dead. He needs a new heart. Why? Because
now his heart's carnal. Carnal heart enmity. He needs
to be reconciled to God. Why? Because what he's done is
he's separated himself. Your sins have separated between
you and your God. He needs peace now to be established
now because there's no peace now with disobedience. The wages
of sin is now taking its toll and he needs righteousness before
God. All he's got now is filthy rags.
And he needs his sin debt to be paid. And there's no way he
can pay it for himself and live because the wages of sin is death. That's, you know, I'll pay my
wages. Well, you're going to die. That's
the way it's paid. So he can't please God. Now, he's already displeased
Him. And he's in a mess. The man's in a mess. And then
an amazing verse, which reveals two things, is set forth in verse
8. I was going to try to go through
verse 13, but I'm going to stop in verse 8. The scripture says,
now here's what they, Eve has been beguiled, she comes to her
husband and she gives him, and with his eyes wide open, he eats. Their eyes are open, they realize
now, we've lost everything, we've lost it all. And the scripture
says, here they are, they've made aprons, sewn them together,
and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden
in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the
garden. Now, as I said, there's two things
that I see in that verse of scripture that I want us to touch on. First,
the depth. to which man fell. The latter part of that verse
reveals that when they heard the voice of the Lord God walking
in the cool of the day, here's what they did. Adam and Eve hid
themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees
of the garden. Now, as we just considered, That
which God said would take place, took place. God doesn't lie. God's word is not going to return
void. His counsel is going to stand.
They both died spiritually. They're dead in trespasses and
sins and they manifested the deadness of their souls for the
first time in their life. I don't know how long it was.
I've heard people say they think that they They failed the day
that they were created? I don't know. Maybe so. I don't
know. But, as long as they were in the garden, for the first
time, they did not desire to be in God's presence. They lost
the joy of the Lord and the comfort of His fellowship. Now that's
something that's got to be restored. The joy of the Lord is my strength. The psalmist says. Now, their
sins, having separated them from God, they don't want to be where
He is. Now, is that not the same reaction
of man by nature today? Man by nature does not want to
be where God is preached. Now, it's an amazing thing, you
take a lie, being preached, a false gospel that gives honor and glory
and praise, unto man, and I'm telling you, you can't keep them
out. Man, you'll pack them out. They're
just, you know, they're mega, mega churches, and they're just,
you know, everything is wonderful, and great, and God is good, and
He's got a wonderful plan for all of you, and He loves everybody,
and stuff. But you let the glorious gospel
of God's free grace, sovereign grace be preached, where God
is God, and man by nature don't want to be there. He finds no
joy in it, no peace in it, no comfort in it. Men are not born
with a heart that longs for company with God. Why? They love darkness
rather than light. They don't want to face the One
by nature. Man hates a God that's sovereign. He hates a God that does as He
willed in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth. They hate God who declares, and it is. They wanted
it explained to them. Brother Scott said, I don't explain
it, I proclaim it. This is God, this is the way
it is. And they hid themselves. And somehow man thinks by just
ignoring it, it's going to be okay. It's going to be fine. So they lost. They lost the joy
of the Lord. They lost the joy of His fellowship. And they lost their confidence
in God's willingness and ability to supply their need. What did
they do? They made themselves aprons.
Genesis chapter 2 verse 8 and 9. The scripture declares that
the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he
put the man whom he had formed and out of the ground made the
Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, good
for food, tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the
tree of knowledge of good and evil. God planted a garden and
put man in it. And out of the ground the Lord
made everything to grow, every tree that was pleasant, good
for food. And the scripture declares that
the Lord had given man, this is Genesis chapter 1 and verse
30. Here's what God says, to every beast of the earth, to
every fowl of the air, to everything that creepeth upon the earth
wherein there is life, I have given every herb for meat, And
it was so when God supplied everything. The Scripture declares today
to God's people, My God shall supply all your need according
to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. But now man, fallen, dead
in trespasses and sins, feels because He's now guilty and he's
got shame. I can't depend on God. He doesn't
want to depend on God. He doesn't want to have anything
to do for God and he believes that he must provide for himself.
But all he's done is expose his ignorance. So they hid. They
hid. Scripture says of the fallacy
of that thought, Isaiah 29, 15, Warned of them that seek deep
to hide their counsel from the Lord. and their works are in
the dark. And they say, who seeth us? Who
knoweth us? Man's guilty and he knows he's
guilty. There's a conscience in man. He knows right from wrong.
Of all he longs to do is compound his guilt. Isaiah 30 verse 1. Woe to the rebellious children,
saith the Lord, that take counsel but not of me. And that cover
with a covering. And here it is. That covering
of false religion. I can cover my nakedness before
God. I can do something, and God doesn't
know. Woe unto them that take counsel, but not of me, that
cover with a covering, but not of my spirit. Whenever the Spirit
of God comes in power to God's elect, He comes and He regenerates
them, robes them in the righteousness of Christ, gives them faith to
believe. It's not of my spirit that they may add sin to sin. So in the fall, man fell in his
rebellion. He lost that innocence, he lost
that joy, he lost his dependence upon God, he lost the realization
of God's omniscience. What does that mean, omniscience? That means God knows and sees
everything. God knows. They thought they could hide
themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees,
and they didn't consider. Proverbs 15.3 says the eyes of
the Lord are in every place, beholding evil and good. And I'll tell you another thing
Adam lost. He lost wisdom. He lost wisdom. He lost understanding. Christ is our wisdom. But I want
you to look at something that I saw, Genesis chapter 2 verses
19 and 20. And out of the ground, 2, 19
and 20, out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of
the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam
to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every
living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names
to all cattle, to the fowl of the air, every beast of the field,
but for Adam there was not found in help, meat, for him." Now,
think about this. Who named the animals? Adam. Adam did. God gave Adam wisdom
and understanding to name and whenever these animals were brought
to Adam, That's a cow. Why did he name him a cow? Because
he did. God gave him wisdom. That's a
giraffe. That's a giraffe. That's a mouse. That's a rabbit. And here's this
man that had God given wisdom and understanding to name these
animals, the fowl, every beast of the field, and this man thought
now that the trees of the garden would fool God? Man has fallen, but the thing
is, that's the evidence of one dead in trespasses and sins. He loses all ability to comprehend
by God's Spirit, because life's not there anymore. God and His
relationship to the Lord. But in closing, I want to say,
I said there was two things. The first thing is how far did
man fall? But in that 8th verse, one other thing, and I'm going
to touch on this, and then Lord willing, this is where I'm going
to pick up next time. It says, they heard the voice
of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. They heard the voice. Here is
grace before grace. You know because we know what's
going to happen. You know that God is going to
put a curse on the earth. He's going to curse Satan. He's
going to tell man that what he's going to do for the rest of his
life by working. But God is going to cover them
with skins of animals to preach the gospel to them and show them,
even in the fall, there's the first gospel message preached
in this book. Lord willing, we're going to
look at it later, not today. We'll look at this, but you know
what God's going to do. But here's the amazing thing.
Sin had separated between Adam and Adam and Eve had no desire
for God. But God in His infinite mercy
came to those that wouldn't come to Him by nature. They heard
the voice of the Lord walking in the cool of the day. And here's
these fallen creatures of the dust, hiding, thinking that they're
hiding from God, and in themselves, truly in themselves, they are
totally, completely without hope but it is God who now is searching
them out. Yes, they are dead in trespasses
and sins. And by the grace of God, they
heard the only thing that can afford them any hope, the voice
of the Lord. You said, Can a sinner dead in
trespasses and sins hear the voice of the Lord? Well, I can tell you this. I
know Saul of Tarsus was going on the road to Damascus and breathing
out threatenings and God Almighty stopped him. And he said, Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me? And what did he say? Who art
thou, Lord? Who are you? Who are you? And
God revealed Himself to him. Can a dead sinner hear the voice
of the Son of God? Obviously so. The dead are going
to hear the voice of God in the resurrection. Those in the grave
are going to hear the voice. When God Almighty calls, He calls
powerfully. They heard the voice of the Lord
God walking. The Lord said in John 10, 27,
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. Here
is the good shepherd who seeks out his sheep, the one who will
not leave his own unto themselves, the Savior of sinners, who will
soon take them, cover them, show them mercy, by expelling them
from a place that he's not going to allow them to stay so that
they might not eat of the tree of life and stay in that state
forever. I just told a secret on a message
that I'll preach later. But anyway, that's OK. That's
all right. Here is the marvel, marvel of man's fall in the garden. Eve was deceived. Adam did it
with his eyes wide open. He knew it. I'm telling you,
we often, you know, we'd like to believe that we're always
deceived and fooled and we didn't know anything about what we were
doing. Well, I'm just afraid that's
not the case. How many times have we known good and well?
How many times, you know, we'll do it. I'm not saying we're never
deceived. I'm sure we are. I'm not trying to fool or something
like that. It's called trespasses. Trespasses. The effects of sin.
But how many times have we done just exactly what we knew was
the wrong thing to do? How many times have I, I'll go
ahead and confess it, how many times have I found myself confessing
things that I'd confessed before? I just, I'm trying to learn,
don't ever promise God you'll never do that again, because
I'm gonna tell you something, that'll come back to bite you,
I'm telling you. How thankful I am that the Lord
who would not leave His own to Himself came and they heard Him
coming. They weren't looking for Him,
believe me. No sinner is ever looking for Him. No man seeks
after God. The shepherd, he's going to find the sheep. I pray
that the Lord bless this to our hearts. I pray that we behold
something of His glory and seeing exactly what, how was she deceived? How was it that Adam rebelled?
He did. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in trespasses and sins, came, saved us, loved us for
Christ's sake and our eternal good.