Right, brethren, let's turn in
our Bibles to Genesis 3 for our Bible lesson. Let's ask the Lord's blessing
this morning. Our Father, we thank you for
this day. We thank you for gathering your people together. And Lord,
we pray now you would come and and be the teacher. We pray you
teach us in power and in spirit, in our hearts, that you'd show
us your honor and your glory, and you'd bring every knee to
bow and confess you as Lord and Savior of your people. We thank
you, Lord. We ask you to forgive us of our
sins. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. All right. How did sin enter the world?
How did sin enter the world? How did death enter in? How was it that God had to send
His Son to save His people from our sins? Why is that? We get the answers to those questions
here in Genesis. Now, let's begin in Genesis 1,
just a minute, verse 26. We saw last time God created
Adam after his image. Verse 26, And God said, Let us,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let us make man in our image,
after our likeness. And then in Genesis 2 and verse
7, The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living
soul. And then God made Adam a bride,
from Adam's wounded side. It's a very beautiful picture
of Christ and His bride. Genesis 2.18 says, And the Lord
God said, It's not good that man should be alone. I'll make
him a help, meat for him. And verse 21, it says, And the
Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and
closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God
had taken from man made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my
flesh. She shall be called woman, because
she was taken out of man. And therefore shall a man leave
his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and
they shall be one flesh, and they were both naked. And the
man and his wife were not ashamed. Now we come to verse 15. It says in Genesis 2, 15, it
says there, 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, Now this is God's command to
Adam, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. 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." Now, first of all, it was Adam's
responsibility, it was Adam's duty to God, his Creator, to
obey God. It was his responsibility, it
was his duty to obey God. Now, that's true of you and that's
true of me. And it was especially true of Adam. God gave Adam one
command, just one. He put him in that garden. He
gave him one command. And Adam was to obey that command.
And God told Adam what the consequence would be if he didn't obey it.
He said there, it says, the Lord God commanded the man. He has
that right. He commanded the man. And he
says, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, 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. So the first man, Adam, as we
see him here, he has no sin. He's in a perfect environment.
He's got nothing to sway him. And he has one law. He has one
law. Now man's not an independent
creature. We're not independent. Man was
created by God. God created us. And so a man
has an obligation to obey God. That's the obligation Adam had
here. Now the truth of the matter is,
with all men in this world, we're either the servants of God or
we're the servants of sin. But we're going to be ruled by
somebody. We're either under the rule of God or we're under
the rule of sin. One of the two. Paul said to
the Romans in chapter 6, he said, Know ye not that to whom ye yield
yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye
obey? Whoever you yield yourself to
as your master, that's the one you're in servitude to. Paul
said, either of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness,
unto God our righteousness. So we see here, Adam's got no
sin and he's got a responsibility to obey God. Alright, now here's
the second thing. Satan enters and he puts a question
in the mind of Eve. to beguile her. Genesis 3.1 says,
Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which
the Lord God had made. The Lord God made the serpent.
He made the serpent. He actually created Satan. He was a created angel. And he
fell. And he fell. So you got two creatures
that God created. So what we know here is this
didn't happen by accident. This didn't take God by surprise.
God was in control of everything taking place here. He made everybody
involved here. Alright, now watch this. And
he said unto the woman, this is what the serpent said unto
the woman, Yea, hath God said, You shall not eat of every tree
of the garden? 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
hath said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch
it, lest you die. And the serpent said unto the
woman, You shall not surely die, Now, is that what God said? God
said, you die. God said, if you eat this, you're
going to die. This other comes and says, you won't die if you
eat it. Now, try the spirits. That's
what the scriptures teach us. Anytime you hear somebody speak,
especially if they're saying something in the name of God,
take it to this book and see what does God say. And if it
doesn't match up with what God says, throw it out. Because here's
what the Scripture says. To the law and to the testimony,
if it's not according to this Word, it's because there's no
light in them. They're not speaking by the light
of Christ, by the light of God. They speak in their own Word
if they're not speaking according to this Word. This is the Word. Verse 5. He said, You won't die
because God knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your
eyes shall be opened. That was true. God knew that.
God did know that. He said, And you should be as
gods, knowing good and evil. They would have some understanding
of good and evil. But look at this. 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. Now look how backwards
this is. God never said there was something
wrong with the tree. He never said there was anything
wrong with the tree. Not at all. The wrong's not in things, brethren. The wrong's not in things. Couches
don't make people lazy, guns don't kill, and forks don't make
people fat. It's the person using them. The
problem's in us, not in the thing. The problem wasn't in the tree.
The problem is in disobeying God. There's where the problem
is. All right? She saw this. Now, the reason
it was wrong to eat of that tree is simply because God said it
was. That's the only reason. But notice, when Eve ate of this
tree. Now look here, it says that she
ate. She took it and she ate. But
when she ate of that tree, nothing happened. Nothing happened. Now you keep that in mind. We're
going to look at that just a minute. You know, just a minute. But
nothing happened when she ate. But now look. Now Adam enters
the picture, verse 6. And she gave also to her husband
with her, and he did eat. Now something happened. The eyes
of them both were open, and they knew they were naked. When Adam
ate, He transgressed God's law, and they both died spiritually. In their heart, they lost communion
with God. God separated Himself from them
so that now they're on their own. They're dead in their sins,
spiritually, in their heart. And not only that, he transgressed
God's law, so he became legally condemned, a transgressor of
God's law. And they began dying physically
that moment. And not only did they do so,
but all mankind did so. Now look at Romans 5, and I want
you to hold your place in Romans 5. Verse 12, Wherefore, as by one
man, Adam, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and
so death passed upon all men, for that in Adam all have sinned. All have sinned. See, Adam was
the head. Adam was the head. He was the
representative of all mankind. Now, of Eve, he was the representative
of Eve, and he was the representative of everybody that's going to
come from Adam. Adam was the legal representative
of all men. Every man was in Adam. They were
all in Adam. You and me and everybody was
in Adam when he was in that garden because we're his seed. We're
going to come from him. Seemingly, we're going to come
from him. We're his children. We were in
him. In him. And therefore, what Adam
did, his people did in him. We did it in Him. And so, all
are going to be born of Adam. And since all would be born of
Adam, every person would be born of Adam's seed, a natural generation,
and therefore all would have Adam's nature. You have the nature
of your father. I have the nature of my father.
My father has the nature of his father. And you go all the way
back to Adam. That's where we got it from.
We got that nature from Adam. from him. And so Adam's sin,
legally, as well as his death spiritually, passed upon all
men. Passed upon all his posterity,
all his generation. It passed upon them all. Legally,
our standing before God was as transgressors because Adam transgressed. And then spiritually, our first
nature that we had when we come from our mother's womb is corrupt
in sin because we got it from Adam. Now be sure to understand
this. Adam is the only man that sinned to become a sinner. You
and I sin because we are sinners. Adam was without sin. Adam transgressed
and he became a sinner. You and I come from our mother's
womb conceived in sin from our father's corruption. And therefore,
we come forth from our mother's womb speaking lies because we
are sinners. You understand that? That's the
truth. Now, here's the result of sin.
Back in our text, Genesis 3, 7. Genesis 3, 7. Here's the result of sin. The
eyes of them both were open, and they knew they were naked,
and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. Nobody
had to teach them this. God didn't come to them and teach
them this. They came forth, as soon as they sinned, as soon
as Adam sinned, as soon as death entered in, they automatically
knew, I'm naked before God. I'm naked before God. And they
were. They were sinners now. And that's
what this nakedness represents. They're sinners now. And they
know it. And nobody had to teach them,
you better do something to cover that nakedness. You better do
something to cover your sin. Nobody had to teach them that.
They automatically saw their nakedness and became self-righteous
religionists just automatically. Let's make some fig leaves and
cover ourselves. You don't have to teach a man
to be religious. I'm trying to get folks not to
be vainly religious. I'm not trying to get folks just
to go to church and just to do moral deeds and all those kinds
of things. You don't even have to persuade
a man to do that. We all come forth by nature trying
to hide our sin and cover our nakedness with fig leaves. That's
what we all do. That's what we all do. We commend
ourselves and we condemn others. That's what we do by nature.
And sadly, we use God's Word to do it. Everything, all the
means God's chosen to use to teach His people truth, we'll
take those means and use those means as fig leaves to try to
cover ourselves. And that's the sadness of this
thing of sin and transgression. It makes self-righteous religionists
out of everybody. That's true of the man in church.
That's true of the man that's out there today just enjoying
his Sunday. It's true of both of us. Both
of us. All right, the natural heart became enmity against God.
Look at verse 8. They heard the voice of the Lord
God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Normally,
when Adam heard the voice of the Lord, he went and had communion
with the Lord, talked to Him, wanted to have fellowship with
Him. Because he could, he had no sin. Look what he did this
time. And Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the
garden. Well, why did they hide? They had their fig leaves. Their
fig leaves weren't enough when God came. And you'll find out,
when God comes, your fig leaves won't be enough. They hid themselves. Look, and they hated each other. Look at verse 12. When God came
and said, What have you done, Adam? Listen to the answer. The
man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave
me of the tree and I did eat. God, it's your fault. And it's
this woman's fault. But he didn't blame himself,
did he? That's sin. That's the transgression. That's
sin. That's what we are. Now, God
shows us in the fall the one reason for the present condition
of all mankind. It's not our environment. It's
not our circumstances. The one reason sin exists in
every person the world over is because in Adam all sinned. In Adam all sinned. Now, here's
the good news. Let's go back to Romans 5. Adam
was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. I heard a man preach on the fall
one time and his title of his message was, How to reclaim that
which Adam lost. And his message was, it was a
moral story. You just do the opposite of what
Adam did and you can get back everything Adam lost. That's
not true. You and I can't do a thing to
get back what Adam lost. We come forth dead and we don't
know how to be alive or to make ourselves alive, nor can we.
And we just want to hide from God, call ourselves righteous,
and blame others like Adam did. But now here's the good news.
Adam was a type of Christ. Look at Romans 5.14. At the very
end of the verse there is what I want you to focus on. He spoke
of Adam's transgression and he says who? Adam. He says Adam's
transgression who is the figure, the type, the picture of him
that was to come. He was a type, a figure of Christ
who was to come. How was Adam a figure of Christ?
Well, just like Adam was the head of everybody he represented,
Christ was the head of everybody he represented. Before the foundation
of the world, God gave him a people. God gave him a people. And Christ
entered covenant with God to save that people from their sins.
And so he came forth as the federal head and representative of all
who are going to be born of him. Just like Adam was representative
of everybody that's going to be born of him, Christ is representative
of everybody that's going to be born of him. And so he comes
forth. Now look here. Look here. When we read all in the scriptures
in connection with Adam, it means all whom he represented. And
when we read all in connection with Christ, it means all whom
he represented. That's how Adam was a figure
of Christ, by representation. By representation. Alright? Now
understand this. We didn't have anything to do
with becoming condemned sinners. There's good news in that because
we don't have anything to do with becoming righteousness either.
And if you find out how great a sinner you are, you'll find
that to be great news. We didn't have a thing to do
with becoming condemned sinners. Adam did it all. Look at Romans
5.18. There's a parenthesis between verse 14 and verse 18. So we're
going to jump down to verse 18 and take this and then we'll
come back and get to parenthesis. Look at verse 18. Therefore,
let me read verse 12 and then I'll read verse 18. Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned. Verse 18. Therefore, as by the
offense of one, Judgment came upon all men to condemnation. By the offense of one, by Adam,
judgment came upon all who Adam represented. Likewise, we don't
have a thing to do with being made righteous. Now watch this,
verse 18. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of
life. By Christ alone, By His obedience,
this free gift of God's grace and life and justification came
upon all men who Christ represented. It came upon them all. Now, in
case somebody thinks that Christ represented the whole human race,
let's turn over to John 10 real quick. Hold your place in Romans
5 and look at John 10. I just want to make sure you
understand this. You see, there's a problem here
with righteousness. Righteousness has got to be established.
So, Christ has come to do that, and when Christ does that, He's
doing it for somebody, so that sin can't be charged to them
anymore, because He's making them righteous. That's why we
say Christ didn't die for everybody, or else everybody would have
been made righteous and justified from their sin. So, Christ is
doing this for a particular people. Now, look here. Listen to Christ
tell you this Himself. John 10, 11. John 10, 11. He says, I'm the good shepherd.
The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. Look at verse
15. As the Father knoweth me, even
so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. Look at verse 26. He says, But
you believe not... He's speaking to some Pharisees
here, self-righteous men. You believe not because you are
not my sheep. You're not my sheep, as I said
unto you." That shows you that there are some who are sheep
and there are some who are not. And He's laying down His life
for the sheep, and He's justifying them, and He's making them righteous.
And therefore, in time, He's going to call every one of them
and give them life. Look down here at verse 27. Not any of
them is going to be lost. John 10, 28, My sheep hear My
voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give unto them
eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any
man pluck them out of My hand." That's who the sheep are. Who
are God's sheep? They're those who will never
perish or be plucked out of Christ's hand. Now that tells us it wasn't
everybody that's His sheep. It's just those that He's going
to save, certainly, and make righteous. Those are His sheep.
Now go back over there to Romans 5. You and I weren't present
physically when Adam fell. We were in him, in his loins,
and we stood in him as our covenant head. And so when Adam sinned,
we sinned. Well, in the same fashion, we
weren't in Christ when Christ... His people weren't in Him when
He obeyed God. When He went to the cross, we
weren't in Him. I mean, we weren't physically with Him, but we were
in Him. We were in Him. So that whatever He did, we did.
Now look here at verse 19. as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners. Look at that word made. They
were made sinners. So by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. Now get this, Adam's sin didn't
put you on trial. Adam's sin didn't make it so
that now if you do something you can be made a sinner. No,
Adam's disobedience made me and you a sinner. Well, Christ's
obedience didn't make it possible that if you do something you
can become righteous. Christ's obedience made His people
righteous. That's what He's saying in that
text right there. They're made righteous by what
He's done. Listen to the scripture. Hebrews
10.14 says, By one offering He has perfected forever them that
are sanctified. He did it. And He did it by His
one offering and He did it forever. It said, Hebrews 1.3 says, when
He had by Himself purged our sins, put them away completely,
gone, never to be remembered by God. When He by Himself purged
our sins, then He sat down at the right hand of the Father.
The only future aspect of Christ's finished work is this. He's going
to come to those for whom He died and let them know what He's
done for them. That's why it says they shall
be made righteous because there's some yet that haven't been made
righteous as far as their experience of this grace. But He's going
to come to each one of them and let them in on it because He's
done it for them. Sin can't be charged to them
and they've got to be saved. Now, if we had nothing to do
with being made righteous, then why did God give the law at Mount
Sinai? Because you know, if you stand
under self-righteous preachers, they're going to be telling you
this. They're going to tell you now what you're going to have
to do. The reason God gave the law is you've got to go back
to that law and you've got to work and work and work and make
yourself holy. That's not why God gave the law.
That's a shocker to a lot of people, most in religion today,
but that's not why God gave the law. Look at Romans 5.20. We're
going to bow to God or we're going to bow to men? We're going
to say amen to what God says or amen to what men say. Look
at Romans 5.20. Here's what God says. Moreover,
the law entered that the offense might abound. That's why the
law entered. The law entered that the offense
might abound. God gave the law so that when
He makes you hear it in your heart, because you can't hear
it until He makes you hear it in your heart. When He makes you hear
what the law says of you in your heart, The offense, the offense
of that one transgression that Adam committed back there in
the garden abounds to you. You see the heinousness of it
and you see you were in Him and there's where you tried to take
God off His throne. And you see it. And you see that
applies to you. That applies to you. You know,
the Scripture says this in Romans 3.19, I gave this to you Thursday
night, but I'll give it again for those that weren't here.
It says, we know that whatsoever the law says, it says to them
who are under the law, and here's the reason it was given, that
every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before
God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, by your works to the law, you won't be justified. For by
the law is the knowledge of sin. Now, he said that the offense
might abound and that you might have a knowledge of sin. Both
singular. Both singular. It was only one
transgression that made us guilty. It was only one offense that
made us guilty. And Daniel said Christ came and he put an end
to the transgression. He put an end to that transgression
that Adam committed in the garden for his people. That's what the
last Adam did. Paul said, he who knew no sin
was made sin. Not sins, sin for us. Sin for us. That's what, he was
made the transgression. Yeah, we got a lot of sins that
we've committed ourselves. But by putting away the sin,
the transgression, he put them all away. All away. As great
as our sin was, grace is greater. Look here at Romans 5.20. Where
sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Much more. Sin overflowed, it abounded,
it contaminated us in every way. But the grace of God in Christ
abounded more than that. In justification, in regeneration,
in sanctification. It's all in Christ and by Christ.
He's made unto us righteousness and sanctification. Justification
and holiness is what Christ has made unto us. 1 Corinthians 1.30,
that as it is written, He that glories, let him glory in the
Lord. You got nothing to glory in. I got nothing to glory in.
But we got every reason, if He saved us, we got every reason
to glory in Christ alone. He did this work. Verse 21, "...that
as sin has reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." Let
me ask you a question. Has sin reigned over you unto
death? Well, if you can answer yes,
that's true. And God's taught you that truly. That sin has
reigned over you unto death. Then let that be a witness to
you. God's using even our sin to bear witness of His grace.
And He says there, grace is going to much more reign over you.
You sin reigned over you, grace is going to reign over you more
than that. Giving eternal life that can never be taken away.
Because everything Christ did is eternal. He's the God-man.
He's the God-man. Look, look now, here's some differences. Back up to verse 15. Not as the
offense. Now here we see some differences.
So also is the free gift. Now the offense and the free
gift are not all the same. He said, For if through the offense
of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift
by grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto
many. He's saying just what we just
saw. It abounded much more than the offense abounded. Now verse
16, And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift.
For the judgment was by one offense to condemnation. It was just
one offense that brought us into condemnation. That's what I just
showed you. But now look, the free gift is of many offenses
unto justification. Christ didn't only put an end
to the transgression in the garden. But the Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all. Every sin of his people, beginning
to end, was laid on Christ. So that by one offense we became
transgressors. And all these offenses we committed
since we came forth transgressors, they all We've taken in this
lump of sin and laid on our Savior so that when He bore it, He put
an end to it for His people. And so many transgressions are
forgiven, many sins are forgiven, many offenses are forgiven unto
justification. Now you remember this. Remember
when Eve sinned and nothing happened? Eve sinned and nothing happened.
Here's the good news of Christ our Head. Nothing happened to
Eve when she sinned because Eve wasn't the head. Adam was. And
Adam represented her. So whatever Adam did counted
toward her. Here's the good news. Here's
the good news. When the believer sins, it does
not change anything before God. Nothing. Because Christ is our
representative. And what Christ did is what counts
toward us. Not what we do. Do you know how
good of news that is to a believer? Isn't that good news to you?
If any man sin, the word is when we sin, because we do it all
the time. We have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for
our sin. That's right, that's why God
is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, because we have an
advocate with the Father, and we stand in Him complete. complete. Now then, verse 17, For if by
one man's offense death reign by one, verse 17 says, much more
they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. There's no possibility
about it. Sinner You died, sin reigns over
you. Let me tell you how you can tell
right now if sin reigns over you and if death reigns over
you. You're finding fault with my message right now. You're saying, I don't think
that's how it is. Because you're dead and you can't see. I hate
to say it. I'm not apologizing for it. And
I hate it so, but that's so. The reason, the natural man receiveth
not the things of God, And he cannot because they're spiritually
discerned. And until God gives you eyes
to see, you're calling this bitter and this is really sweet. And
what we now see, the believer now sees as what is really bitter,
you're calling that sweet. Your will and your works and
your doing. You're going to go to hell with
your doing. I want Christ doing. I want Christ
dying, and there's where I'm going to stand and rest right
there. Right there. You can't add anything
to it. You can't take anything from it. I was going to go on
and show you back in our text in Genesis, but I'll just end.
He called Adam. He found Adam. He called Adam.
He stripped Adam of his fig leaves, stripped Eve of her fig leaves,
and He clothed both of them with the skins of an innocent one
that died in their place. That's what God's doing through
this gospel right now. I pray He'll strip you of your
fig leaves and make you to know Christ and cover you in Christ's
righteousness through faith in Him and make you rest there.
That's rest. You come back the next hour and
we're going to see how that's rest. All right? Amen. Let's
stand together. Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you, Lord, that you've not left anything in our hands. As we became sinners, so we become
righteous by the doing of another. Thank you, Lord. How we do praise
you and honor you for your wisdom. Even in the death and the corruption
of our sin and how we were made sinners, You've shown us a figure
of how we're made righteous by Christ. What wisdom! What wisdom! Lord, we pray now You will strip
all Your people of their fig leaves. Pray You'll call them
to Yourself and cover them in Christ's righteousness. We thank
You, Lord. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. for our visitors in case you
didn't.