We are we began Friday night
with the having the fourth Friday Children's classes I Encourage
you if you can come to that it would be every fourth Friday
if you have little ones 19 and under bring them and I teach
them in the back there and anybody is welcome to come. The adults
set up here and watch a sermon on video while I teach the young
ones. But then I teach the same message
again on Sunday morning, every fourth Friday, every fourth Sunday.
So what I did is I started with the acronym TULIP. You all are
familiar with that, total depravity. You spell tulip, you know, and
it's total depravity. The U is unconditional election.
The L is limited atonement. The I is irresistible grace. The P is perseverance of the
saints. So I began Friday night with T, tulip. And we're going
to try every fourth Friday to go through each letter. So today we're looking at total
depravity. Now, total depravity basically
means that all men come into this world totally dead and trespasses
and sins under the curse of the law in need of redemption, regeneration
and grace. We're totally ruined by the fall. Now to see that, we need to go
back to the garden and see what happened in the garden. And after
God made man in His own image, created the world, everything
in it, and Scripture says in Genesis 2.8, 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's pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of
life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge
of good and evil. Look at verse 15, And the Lord
God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress
it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the
man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat. Everything was free. There was
an abundance that God had given Adam, and everything was free
for him to eat. Verse 17, But of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it. For
in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. God created
man to serve Him. To worship and serve Him. God
is the authority. That's what we see here in this
one commandment that God gave Adam. He's the authority over
man. He's to be honored. He's to be
worshipped. He's to be served. He's to be
glorified. That's responsibility of every
man that comes into this earth. That was Adam's responsibility.
The Lord God had done everything for him. He had every reason
to serve God out of gratitude. The Lord God had given him life.
He created a body and given him life. He had created a bride
for him and brought that bride to him and married those two.
He had given him this garden and given him all these things
freely to eat. giving him a profession to dress
the garden and take care of the garden. And the Lord God would
have freely provided for Adam. He would have had everything.
He had communion with God. And that would have never been
broken. There was no sin. There was no fear. There was
nothing to be shamed of. And he would have been forever
in God's favor if he had not sinned. God gave that one command
because God made man to glorify Him. It's interesting that in
the garden, it was one command by which we perished. Just one
command. And in the church today, there's
just one command by which we're saved. Believe on Christ. That's it. Believe on Christ
and thou shalt be saved. We died by one command. will
be saved by one coming. Next I want you to see the devil's
methods here. It says Genesis 3 verse 1, Now
the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which
the Lord God had made. And I'm convinced the serpent
is just a description that God's giving of the devil. He calls
him the serpent in other places. The devil is more subtle than
any beast of the field which the Lord made. The Lord made
the devil. He was an angel that God created
and he rebelled against God in heaven and he was cast out with
a host of angels. He was cast out. You can read
about it in Isaiah 14. But he has ministers now in this
world who are false apostles Deceitful workers transforming
themselves into the apostles of Christ. Very tricky. Very
subtle. Appearing to be the apostles
of Christ. And it says, no marvel, Satan
himself is transformed into an angel of light. And I wonder,
as I was preparing this, I never thought about this, I wonder
when Paul said Satan himself is transformed into an angel
of light, I wonder if he's telling us how he appeared to Eve. making her think he was a messenger
from heaven. That's certainly how he appears
through his false preachers. Making us think he is a messenger
from heaven. The devil is tricky. He's subtle.
Notice here, he said unto the woman. He didn't come to Adam. He didn't come to the man first.
Eve, the woman is described as the weaker vessel. She was created
from man to be a help meet for him. And he came to her. He didn't come to the man. He
came to the weaker vessel. Because he knew that if he could
trick Eve, he could get Adam. Because of Adam's love for her,
if he could get Eve, he'll get Adam. And I'll tell you, that's
even the way that the world operates. When I was writing music, they
used to always tell us, write to the woman. She's the one that's
buying the records. You get her, you'll get the man.
And that's how this world operates. That's how the devil operates.
That's why his preachers are described as the sort that creep
into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins.
Led away with different lusts, never learning, never able to
come to the knowledge of the truth. Religion always appeals
to women. Always appeals to women. The
devil's trick is to ask a question concerning God's Word. to get
you to debate with Him over God's Word. Genesis 3.1, He said unto the
woman, Gay, hath God said you shall not eat of every tree of
the garden? Just a question. That's just
a question. 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, God
has said you shall not eat of it. Neither shall you touch it,
lest Peradventure, perhaps you might die if you do. He not only
got Eve to debate with him, but you know, when you start debating
the Word of God, you have to do two things. You have to add
to it and you have to take from it. And that's what Eve did here. The Lord didn't say, you should
not touch it. She added, and the Lord didn't
say, lest you die. The Lord said, in the day you
eat, you shall surely die. Less means you might. She took
from it and she added to it. And that's what happens when
we're tricked into starting to debate with men about the gospel
and about what we believe. That's what you're apt to do.
Listen to this and learn from this, brethren, especially you
that preach. You don't have to answer every
question that men ask you. You don't. It's very simple to
get on the email and write, I don't have time, reply, send. That's good enough. You don't
have to answer every question. And you shouldn't. We shouldn't
answer every question. Most of the time people don't
ask questions for information, they ask it just so when you
hush they'll tell you what they know. Never debate the Word of
God. Then look, Satan uses his preachers
to do what he did here to speak contrary to God's Word. He said
in verse 4, The serpent said unto the woman, You shall not
surely die. That's direct contradiction of
what God said. God said, In the day you eat,
you shall surely die. The devil said, No you won't.
No you won't. How many times have you heard
a preacher stand up and he reads a text And you read what he's
reading and it's clear as a bell what it says. I mean, you can't
make it say otherwise than what it says. And yet he gets up and
explains that word away. It doesn't mean this. God doesn't
mean this literally now. You know, it explains it away. Blames it away. And then look
at this, the devil beguiles, he tricks with a message that
makes you think that if you obey God, then God's keeping something
from you. He's keeping you from having
an open mind. Keeping you from being free and
wise. Verse 5, he said, God does know
that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open.
And you should be as God's, knowing good and evil. Young people will
have friends that will tell you, don't believe that stuff. Don't
believe what you're hearing down there at that church building.
If you believe that, you're not going to be free to do the things
we do. You're going to be closed-minded.
Your eyes are not going to be open. You're not going to be
open-minded. They're saying if you obey God,
God's going to keep you from experience the good things. He's
going to keep the good things away from you. And that appeals
to the flesh. That appeals to the flesh. That
appealed to me when I was lost in sin. I can remember thinking,
I don't want to stop being able to have fun with my friend. The devil beguiles with a message
that appeals to the lust of the flesh. Look at verse 6, when
the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that appeals to
the lust of our flesh, to the belly. And then he appeals to
the lust of the eyes, and she saw that it was pleasant to the
eyes. And he appeals to the pride of life. She saw it was a tree
to be desired to make one wise. And so she took the fruit thereof
and did it. What did John, we're coming up,
our next passage in our John, 1st John series is this. Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world,
this is it, the lust of the flesh, she saw it was a tree that was
good for her belly. The lust of the eyes, she saw
it was pleasant to the eyes. and the pride of life, she saw
it was a tree to make one wise. That's all that's in the world,
and that's not of the Father, but that is of the world. And
the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth
the will of God shall abide forever. Look at the garden. If Adam had
done the will of God, he would not have died. If you do the
will of God, come to Christ, believe on Christ, It means you've
been born of that ever-living Word that never dies. And it
means you have eternal life and you'll never die. He that does
the will of God will never die. You go after this world, the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life,
it's perishing and you'll perish with it. But do the will of God
and you'll never die. But I fear, Paul said, lest by
any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so
your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ. This is the devil's motive. He's
trying to get us to turn away from Christ. From trusting Christ
only and believing Christ alone and trusting He alone is enough
to save us from our sins. What did Eve do? First thing
she did, she gave ear to the tempter with his questioning
word. God says, leave him alone. Don't become curious and listen. That's what she did first. She
gave ear to the tempter. And then what did she do? She
debated with him. She entered into debate with
him. In doing so, she altered the word of God. And how did
it end? She disregarded God's Word altogether. And that's how it ends. I've
seen it happen. They gave ear to the tempter,
and then they start looking in God's Word and trying to make
it say what it don't say. And next thing you know, they
disregard it altogether. Now look, Adam was a representative
man. Whenever she took of that fruit
and ate it, nothing happened. Nothing happened. Yes, she sinned. She was in the transgression,
scripture said. She did sin. And God, I suppose God would
have killed her if Adam hadn't have eaten. Because she did sin
and God said, you will die. But she was not the head. So
nothing happened to anybody else, nothing happened to them when
she ate. Adam's the head. He's the representative.
Look at this. And she gave also unto her husband
with her, and he did eat. And then the eyes of them both
were opened, and they knew they were naked. Adam was not deceived. He was not tricked. Adam knew
what was going on. He knew fully what was going
on. When Adam ate, he transgressed against God. And just like God
said, they died. He died spiritually. He lost communion with God. His
heart became enmity against God. He died spiritually. And he died
in that he was guilty before God. He had transgressed the
law of God. And he began to die physically.
Right then is when sickness started. And the body began to deteriorate
right then when he ate that fruit. He disobeyed God. And if not
for God's grace, he would have died eternally. What does sin make us do? Well, let me say this first.
You know Romans 5.12. As by one man sin entered into
the world, by one man. Whatever God does is right and
God made Adam the head, the representative man. He represented all who shall
be born of Him. That's all of us without exception. And by one man sin entered the
world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men. For that all have sinned. We all sinned in that first Adam. We all sinned in Him and death
passed upon us because of it. Legally and spiritually we died. Now, what does sin make us do? Look at Genesis 3 and verse 7.
Here is what sin makes us do. This is our heart as we come
into the world because we have been born of Adam's corrupt seed.
This is our heart right here. The eyes of them both were open
and they knew they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves aprons. You know, before it says whenever
God created Eve and brought her to Adam and he married them,
male and female, that needs to be stated in this day and time
because God considers it perversion for male and male and female
and female to be together. And this is God's first union
was male and female. When He created them and brought
Eve and married them, it says they were naked and they were
not ashamed. They were not ashamed at all. There was no sin. And
sin is what makes you ashamed of your nakedness. That's right. You remember that. Next time
you're getting out of the shower, when somebody opens the bathroom
door and you try to tell them to shut it, just remember, it's
because you're a sinner. That's why. Because sin makes
you see nakedness as an evil thing. And you have wicked imaginations. You're sin. And so, after they
sinned, they saw they were naked. And they were ashamed of it.
You know, men... The Scripture says in Romans
2 that men who don't even have the Word of God, they have the
law written on their heart. And they know what's right and
wrong. And men will by nature try to
hide and cover up their sin or become religious to try to fix
it. That's the nature of man. It's because he has a consciousness
that he's a sinner and that he needs an atonement, needs something
to cover his nakedness. And so the first thing they did
is They tried to cover their own nakedness because they knew
they were guilty. One day, I was behind my parents'
house and I was duck hunting. I used to love to duck hunt.
It was huge in Arkansas. If you didn't duck hunt in Arkansas,
you weren't in Arkansas. Stuttgart, Arkansas is where
Riceland Rice is made. That's the duck capital of the
world. They have the world duck calling competition there. So
everybody in Arkansas duck hunting. One day I was duck hunting and
I was by myself. My partner didn't show up. And
I had seen these ducks going down behind this big log out
in this big open break. And I slipped up there, crawled
up behind that log, looked up, and there was, you couldn't have
put another duck in that hole. There was ducks and they were
still coming in it. And I just, I was just licking my lips. I
thought, man, this is going to be great. And I jumped up over
that log and I shot three times. And I believe, I told the children
you could shoot three ducks at that time, I believe you could
only actually get two. And only one if one was a hen.
And I raised up and shot three times and three hens fell and
like three or four drakes fell. I ended up with seven ducks.
And you could only shoot one hen. I had three hens. And the
second I did that, I was alone, I hadn't seen the soul all day,
I hadn't been around anybody. The second I did that, I felt
like there was somebody behind every tree in that bottom looking
at me. It scared me to death. That's
a federal offense. It's a federal offense just to
have one hen or too many. So I was afraid. When Adam took
that fruit, immediately, they knew they were guilty. They knew
they were guilty. And they went to try to cover
it up. They tried to make their own covering. That's salvation
by works. That's what every sinner is religious
by nature. Nobody had to tell them to do
that. God didn't tell them to cover their nakedness. They knew
they needed to do it. And they started trying to do
it themselves. Their hearts became enmity against God. Look at Genesis
3.8. And they heard the voice of the
Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Any other
time before this, this would have been a pleasant thing for
Adam. The Lord God walking. The voice of the Lord walking
in the garden in the cool of the day. Adam would have went
right to it. But look what he does now. And Adam and his wife
hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees
of the garden. And the Lord God called unto
Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard
thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked. I was afraid because I'm ashamed
of my nakedness. And I hid myself. Before sin entered in, there
was no fear. Men weren't afraid of... He wasn't
afraid of God. And there was no shame. He wasn't
ashamed of his nakedness. And now that's all his heart
is. And that's all our heart is as
we come into this world. We're afraid of God and we're
ashamed of our nakedness. The nakedness of sin and guilt
before God. But rather than come to God and
confess his sins, what does a sinner do? Blame somebody else. Look at what Adam did, verse
11. And he said, Who told thee thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten
of the tree whereof I commanded thee thou shouldest not eat?
And the man said, The woman whom you gave me, she gave me of the tree and I
did eat. So God, it's your fault and it's this woman's fault.
It's not my fault. And the woman, the Lord God said
unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the
woman said, The serpent tricked me. And I didn't eat. You know
what you see going on in politics today and in this whole world,
this country's whole attitude? It's somebody else's fault. It's
somebody else's fault. It was my conditions I was raised
in. So it's my mom and my dad's fault.
It was how they raised me. Or it's the gun's fault. Or it's the drug's fault. Or
it's somebody else's fault. It's the other party's fault.
Everything is somebody else's fault. Man by nature won't confess,
it's just my fault. That's all. My fault alone. That's,
we're sinners by birth and by choice because we all died in
Adam. That's why we're self-righteous
by nature, that's why we hate God by nature, that's why we're
afraid of God by nature, that's why we blame others by nature.
We all died in Adam. Now, the good news, Adam was
a type of Christ. He was a type of Christ in representation. in the fact that they both were
head. They both were representative
men. Christ is the only other man that came into this world
with no sin. The only one. Adam and Christ.
Because they are the only two representative men. Christ represented
all who shall believe on Him. That's just a way I think it's
easy to understand what representation means. All those that would be
born of Adam, sinned in Adam. That's who He represented. And
all those that shall be born of Christ, have and shall be,
that's who Christ represented. Because He brings them to believe
on Him. Listen to this. As by the offense
of one, judgment came upon all men. Is that all men without
exception? Well, in this case it is because
all men are born of Adam. So yes, it was all born of Adam.
The judgment came upon all men to condemnation. Even so, by
the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men who
Christ represented unto justification of life. And there it doesn't
mean all men without exception. Because all men We're not in
Christ. God didn't choose all men. Christ
didn't die for all men. And the Holy Spirit doesn't regenerate
all men. Not all men are saved. God saves His people. And that's
who Christ represented. God shows us this in the first
call of grace in the garden. The Lord, verse 9, the Lord God
called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? Adam was
not seeking God. He was running from God. And
I'll tell you where God's going to find you. If He comes to anybody
here and saves you by His grace, He's going to find you running
from God. But He's going to call you and He's going to make you
confess your sins just like He made Adam to confess his sin.
Where are you Adam? What have you done? He's going
to make you confess what you are to Him. And you don't have
to go to a preacher and confess your sins. You don't have to
go to a priest to confess your sins. You can go to God and confess
your sins. And that's who He's going to
bring you to. And then He's going to strip away all our fig leaves
and bring us to rest all in Christ. And He's going to clothe us in
the righteousness of Christ. Verse 21, it says, Unto Adam
also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins. You know what that pictures? He took one that was innocent
and slew him in their place and made coats from that their skin
to cover that nakedness. Christ Jesus the Lord is the
just one. He came forth holy, without sin,
the Son of God and He went to the cross. God laid the iniquity
of His people on Him and He made Him a curse in our room instead.
And Christ was slain as the substitute in place of His people. And then
He clothed them. He not only made the coats, He
didn't make the coats of skins and hang them up over here and
say, now Adam, Eve, y'all, there's some coats if you want them.
He made the coats of skins, stripped them of their fig leaves and
put those coats of skins on them. Our Lord Jesus sends the gospel
to His people and declares this glorious good news and the Spirit
of God enters in and He regenerates us and He brings us irresistibly
to the feet of Christ. and causes us to believe on Him. And because Christ has made His
people righteous, established the law for us through faith,
God imputes to us the righteousness of Christ. And that's Him clothing
us in Christ's righteousness. He creates a new man that's righteous
and holy. And He imputes righteousness
and holiness to us. And one day, He's going to make
us drop this flesh and He's going to create a new body that is
righteous and holy so that when He gets done, we'll be completely,
thoroughly made the righteousness of Christ by Christ. It'll all
be the work of the Lord Jesus. And that's what God's showing
here. He goes on in Genesis 3.15 and says He's the seed of woman.
He promises He's coming. The devil's going to bruise His
heel, but He's going to crush the serpent's head. That's what
Christ did on the cross. Justifying His people from all
our sin. That's right. And it was grace.
It was grace even when, you know, the Lord said, verse 22, Behold, the man is
become as one of us to know good and evil. This was a picture
of He had become as one of them. When God had come to Him and
robed Him and brought Him to behold Christ, He had become
as one. He had become as Christ. He had
been born again in the image of Christ. And now, lest He put forth His
hand and take us over the tree of life and eat and live forever,
Therefore God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till
the ground from whence he was taken. That was an act of grace. That tree of life represented
Christ. It was a picture of Christ. And
if a man took it, he ate it, he could live. And so now to
prevent him from doing that himself and taking that fruit himself,
God sent him out and he put flame and sword around that tree of
life to keep it. And that's a picture of once
He's brought you and me to grace, to Christ by His grace, not only
will He keep us trusting Christ, He won't allow us to use our
own hands to try to get life for ourselves now. He's going
to keep you from your vain works, keep your conscience purged,
keep you turned from vain works, and keep you trusting Him. And
by that, through that sword of the gospel, He's keeping the
way of the tree of life. He's keeping us looking to Christ,
the tree of life, constantly, and to no one else. So, this
is how it is with us. We did the sinning. We did the
sinning. Adam sinned. Adam made a covering. Adam ran. Adam hid. And God did
the saving. He found him. He sought Him,
He found Him, He brought Him to confess His sin, He gave Him
faith, He clothed Him in the garments of one slain in His
place. That's how it is with us. We did the sinning, God does
the saving. And there's just one commandment
by which we're saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on Him. Believe on Him. I pray you do that today. Alright,
let's stand together. Our Father, we thank You for
this word. We pray now You bless it to the hearts of Your people.
Bless it to the young people. Bless it to our hearts, Lord.
Make us to talk about these things with our children. Make us to
ask them what they've heard and what they've learned and to tell
them what we've heard and what we've learned. Ask them, Lord.
Make us ask them. Lord, keep us believing on Christ
and trusting Him alone. We ask this in Christ's name.
Amen.