Recently I spoke out of James 2 and spoke of a covering and a nourishing of the saints. And then we had church at the farm and we were back to our roots and it was good to contemplate the early beginnings of this church. It was good to be reminded of the confidence that God had worked amongst each one of us. And it was good to be reminded of the evanescence of our life, the evidence of our God in the life of our church. And it was a childlike confidence in his gospel alone for every one of our needs. For comfort, for assurance, to energise us, to strengthen and grow our faith, to teach us, to guide us, to protect us, to shield us, to correct us, and especially to restore us when we fall. We, the church, we were made through individual convictions of sin, righteousness, and judgment, just like we saw in John 16, and both individually and collectively we were made to trust the gospel for everything necessary to live in this world. And at the same time, to be sustained in absolute perfect righteousness before our holy God, no matter what happens in this world. And that then influenced everything about this church, this faithful church of God. And throughout time, that foundational truth, that singular, undefiled, foundational truth of the gospel, as it was delivered to us, has more than proven itself. And it still is proving itself. What an amazing gospel we have. We just believed. We didn't have evidence, but we've had years of evidence, and I expect more to come, Lord willing. So if you turn in your Bibles to Genesis 9, I just want to have a very brief and very simple look at this covering that I mentioned and just expound on it a little bit. I want us to consider the difference between the religion of the natural man, the religion of Satan, and the provision of God in the covering of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I'd also like us to consider how the church of God encourages, refreshes and revives the saints in this world by that very same covering. So let's begin in prayer. Heavenly Father, if we're to learn anything, it must come from your hand. You must send your spirit and you must open our understanding. Father, you promised as you gather us together that you would be amongst us and you would bless us and teach us in spirit and in truth. So I pray, Father, that you will guide the hearts of your people. And for those that would sit opposed to you or those wouldn't know you yet in unbelief, I'll pray in your mercy, you'll just enlighten us. Just cause your word to take root in your heart and to flourish. And bless us and comfort us and grow us and all the things that you do with it. Father, thank you that you show us our frailty and you cause us to lean heavy upon the saviour. our Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we pray in his name and always for your glory's sake. Amen. Okay, so we have, I want to give you two examples of this covering. I want to start in the Old Testament at Genesis 9 verse 20. And it says, And Noah began to be a husbandman. This is after the flood. And he planted a vineyard. And he drank of the wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent. He knew the Lord, but how often do believers fall? It'll probably shock us to realise that we fall in everything, in every way, all the time. And before our God, we are naked. You see, we always are tempted by that Pharisee within us. You know, this is as much a picture of the wine of Babylon, isn't it? We fall in sin. We become drunken with our own pride and righteousness sometimes. And we're uncovered. Verse 22, and Ham, the father of Canaan, He saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers without. I looked up the meaning of ham and it means hot or warm in regard to emotions, anger. Ham's a great picture of the law. When men stand in the law, they stand alone before God. And the law only exposes sin. And Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it on both their shoulders and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. And their faces were backwards and they saw not their father's nakedness. I'd encourage you to read 1 John. It talks a lot about love, especially 1 John 4. And the foundation of that love is actually forgiveness. We have to absorb these things. That one brother, Ham, he was angry and he exposed his father's sin. What a picture of the religion of Cain. What a picture of man. What a picture of the religion of Satan. And what was he doing? He was exposing others. And that's part of that covering of ourselves. The other two, Shem and Japheth, It's interesting, Shem's name means breath. And Jebeth's name means to make room for. The Lord does have purposes for these names, but they represent the church, don't they? We forgive as we've been forgiven. And what do we do then? We take a covering. garment and what's that covering? It's that all-sufficient gospel that we stand in and that we walk in. So before we go to the New Testament, just turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 61 and we'll grab that on the way through. Because let's just have a look at what this garment really represents and how we how it's possible for us to apply it to others effectively as a faithful church of God. Isaiah 61 reading at verse 10. The Lord says, or he says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God. For he hath, it's past tense, he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me, again past tense, with the robe, singular, of righteousness. As a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels. We're trophies of his grace. Verse 11, for as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, So, in the same way, the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. He's the one that grows these fruits in us. Fruits for the service of his church. And this is all the outworking covering of us. Okay, let's get going. Galatians 6.1, let's just have a look at that. I have mentioned it recently and there's a few reasons why I'm using it. It's an encouragement to the church in regard to dealing with their fallen brothers and reviving their faith by the testimony of the gospel. But I've chosen this one because you only have to turn back a couple of chapters and And in dealing with Peter's fall, Paul gives us a practical illustration of how we can restore each other. Galatians 6.1, he says, brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fall, and I'll tell you now, if you know about it, he's naked before you, if you know about it. And even if you don't, you know about it because we all fall short of the glory of God. And he goes on to say, you which are spiritual, this is to believers, you know the saving grace. To those who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness. considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. We know ourselves to be the chief of sinners. We understand something of the offence of our sin to our God, and the difficulties, the impacts it has in this world, especially on the people we love. Do you see, this is the purpose of our church. regarding the saints of God. We remind each other of the grace that we have in our Lord Jesus Christ. We take that complete and comprehensive covering And we encourage each other to rest in our great God and upon his great provision in his blessed Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And we encourage them to do that by simple faith. This is our mission here on earth. And amazingly, this is how we honour our God at the same time. This is how we feed and how we clothe the sheep of God's pasture. It's with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all sufficient covering. We're gonna sing again and then I'll come back and look at Genesis 3 and a little bit more about that covering. 59, sorry. I thought we could just read through a little closer regarding the nature and the importance of this covering I was talking about. I think it's just best we read through and I'll make some comments as we go. Now the serpent was more subtle, first one, more deceptive. We know from John's gospel he's the father of lies. He's more subtle than any other beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, yea, have God said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? There's a start of false religion right there, isn't it? Using confusion, he begins with doubt and he introduces unbelief, Satan's greatest weapon, which attacks the character of our God. Verse 2, And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, that's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the representation of the law. Of that tree, God has said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Did you notice that? The woman's lied. She begins to lie in her confusion. See, this is the influence of the subtlety in our confusion. Verse four, and the serpent said unto the woman, you shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day that you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. He lies to call God a liar, and now suggests that God's withheld something from his people. And then he suggests that it's something these people can get by themselves. See, false religion grows quickly. It infiltrates everything, it affects everything that it comes in contact with. And it has a comprehensive and very, very eternal impact It is spiritually that yeast that we've heard of. 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 I want you to notice Hear how weak the will of man is and how vulnerable we really are, all of us in ourselves. You know, Adam and Eve were a best shot at this. Verse seven, 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. Turning straight to human wisdom and works, And so they cover their own sin as best they can. But the law was there. They had the law, according to Romans 2, they had a conscience that either excused them or condemned them. It brought the conviction of sin. And why? Because they were to meet God. We all must meet God. And if it's not here, It will be in eternity. Look at verse eight. 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. And that's false religion, isn't it? It's Satan's infection. It hides from God. And it hides amongst the provisions of God. Is that familiar? People hide amongst the doctrines of God all the time. They hide this lie and it infiltrates us. Verse nine, and the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, where art thou? God knew where he was. And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked. He was naked before, but now he has this knowledge he's ashamed. And he's afraid to meet with God, and he's aware of his sin before a holy God. And I hid myself. And like I said, that's what people do. They hide themselves in these things. And he said, who told thee that thou was naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree? Whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat. And the man said, the woman whom thou gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat. Again, this is how false religion covers itself, isn't it? It blames God. It blames others, and all it's doing is trying to cover itself. Verse 13, and the Lord God said unto the woman, what is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me, and I did it. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, And above every beast of the field, upon my belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou leave all the days of thy life. And there's a whole number of sermons in just that and these punishments and we have to leave them today. But I'd encourage you that you need to understand the nature of these punishments and how they relate to the crimes. To understand much of the scriptures, it helps greatly as we read through the scriptures. But next in verse 15, we have a declaration of the gospel from a spiritual perspective. The Lord says, and I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed and it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruised his heel. The wills and shalls of God are promises, but this is a promise of a gospel victory. The victory of our Lord Jesus Christ. A victory over Satan, over sin, and over death. And it was a finished work from eternity. comprehensive spiritual victory. And unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee. Again, it's for another time, but we have to realise that Eve represents the church and she was deceived. He represents the weakness of our flesh, and he ate willfully. Just look at verse 17. And unto Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast 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 shall thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat of the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. God frustrated Adam in every avenue of his life, in all endeavours. We are all destined to fail if we approach God in the law. And we were destined to fail from the beginning. Verse 20, and Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. And unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin. and clothe them. Now this is a further explanation of the gospel that we heard in verse 15, but it's how it relates to us practically here in this world. This salvation is through the death of a lamb as a covering, as a sacrifice for the sins of God's people. It was provided for by God. It covers us. It shields us. But this sacrifice is just an illustration of a completely comprehensive covering of all our sin in our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 22, and the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand. We're dealing with a sovereign God always here. Lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground, oh sorry, sorry, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man 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. This sword represents the comprehensive judgment of God. It will examine every aspect of everyone that approaches it, to depths that we don't even know about ourselves. It'll examine every one of your thoughts. every one of your words, every one of your deeds, and even every one of your emotions from every moment of your life. Every single moment as one complete package. And this is the package that men bring before the Lord. and it's examined by this sword, but it's one complete testimony of your life. If you wish to approach God this way, as we read in Galatians 5 and James 2, you're bringing an assessment before God of every single thing about your life. So from then on there were two ways to approach God. That's what emerged here. Two religions. Let's read on into Genesis 4 a little bit and then we'll get close to finishing. And Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived. and bear Cain and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. She expected it was the seed from Genesis 3.15. Human wisdom. And she again bear his brother Abel and Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. He was earthy. And as we'll see, Abel was concerned with things above. And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground. It was earthly and he brought it as an offering to the Lord. Now this ground was cursed. We just read about it in Genesis 3. So anything that he could bring the Lord was a gift of grace from God for a start. but it represented his work and his wisdom and something that had come from a cursed creation. This is what he offered in exchange for his own sin, more sin. And Abel, well, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock. and of the fat thereof. See, these firstlings were, there was a bigger picture in this than what Cain was bringing, wasn't it? This was a picture of the innocence of that lamb, that lamb of God that would die in his place, that had died in his place spiritually already. And it was fat, and there was fat involved in this. That fat was exposed before the Lord in a sacrifice. This was a picture of something completely different. And while this sword examines every jot and tittle of our lives, the saints of God have something very, very different to bring before our holy God. We bring the complete testimony of the life of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. And we come by his precious blood. And our sins are hidden from this great sword because they're completely gone in our Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering. He accepted it. That's what that means, he accepted it. But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. God had rejected her and it's an eternal rejection. All men will approach God in one of two ways, either the way of Cain or the way of Abel, and they'll all testify of one of two ways of salvation. One's of God and one's of Satan. Both contradict each other. One brings sin before God to appease God's wrath against sin. What an insult. It rejects his son, it rejects the only offering that can really save souls. It blasphemes his holy name. But the other man, he brings God's righteousness to God. Believers bring the comprehensive covering of Christ's righteousness, imputed, imparted to us by the gospel through faith, which God grows in us. One of those amazing fruits. And the faithful church simply encourages faith in others. We compel, we remind, we encourage, and in all of it, we're always lifting up the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is all salvation. Turn in your Bibles to Romans 8. See this covering was applied to the chosen children of God before the foundation of the world. It was finished. We're talking about something that's finished. We're talking about something that's fully sufficient, doesn't need any help. Something that's fully secure. Something was revealed in time at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Just as you're turning there, I just want to read a couple of things. In Revelation 13, we see how secure this covering is. This was a lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Do you realize that even before we fell in at him? We were covered by the first Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, the real Adam. How complete is our covering? 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, He, for He, God, God the Father, hath made Him Christ to be sin for us who knew no sin. Our sins transferred to Him in this incredible union we have with Him. And there's a purpose that we might be made. Do you think if God makes something, it's not gonna be made? To be made again by God, the righteousness of God in him. We come in union with our saviour. You're only ever in union with our saviour. How comprehensive is it? 2 Corinthians 1.20. For all the promises of God in him are yea, they're yes. And in him, amen, they're yes and they're finished in Christ Jesus. And there is a purpose in that. Unto the glory of God by us. So I just want to finish, and I'll just read Romans 8 from verse 31 to the end. And I'll just pray to the Lord, I'll just cause your ears to hear what's been read here, and how complete, how comprehensive, how sufficient this covering is. Because it's a matter of life, eternal life and death to us. It says, what shall we say to these things if God before us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Do you need righteousness? Do you need sanctification? Do you need patience? Do you need more love? All things. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? And those accusers, that accuser that comes with the law, those ones that trouble us and buffet us and suggest that we're not being faithful. It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again. There's an acceptance of his sacrifice in his resurrection. You can read about that in Romans 1. He's risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? And each one of those we can describe from the history of any church of God, any faithful church of God. But look, nakedness. Remember this started in Genesis 3 with our nakedness. We saw it with Noah. We know it in ourselves. But it doesn't stop this love of Christ. It doesn't separate us from that love of Christ. We don't have to work to get it back. As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things We are more than conquerors through him that loved us, not through the law, through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. May our great God strengthen our faith such that we're able to strengthen one another. Let's pray. Heavenly Father again these are things that only you can do and we just Lay ourselves before you and pray that you will guide us and direct us and grow us and strengthen us and prepare us for what will come this week. And in all things that happen in our lives, please, Father, please use them to bring us back to yourself. Use them to refresh our souls by your presence. Don't send us away from your presence, Father. Draw us near to yourself in our Saviour. Send your Spirit and move mightily in amongst us and strengthen us in faith. Cause us to know the wonders of that covering here in this world through experience and then to just continue to understand them more and more and more in eternity. Father, we thank you that you love your people with an everlasting love. and we pray you just cause us to just know something of that wondrous mercy in our Lord Jesus Christ. Pray in his name, Father, again always for your glory's sake.