I please God to bless us together
this morning as we meditate in his word. Let's turn to the book
of Genesis, chapter three, and we'll read verse four. The book
of Genesis, chapter three, and reading verse four. And the serpent said unto the
woman, ye shall not surely die. This chapter in God's Word, I
suppose, has in it two most important elements. And it sets before
us, firstly, the terrible sin of Adam and Eve, which brought
sin into the whole world. It was there for a most tragic
and most terrible occasion. But then also we read in this
same chapter the wonderful hope that the Lord set before Adam
and Eve. And there would be one who was
the seed of the woman who would indeed bruise, crush the head
of Satan. So this third chapter in Genesis
is really a very important chapter for us. And there may be the
question, in our minds, well why was this allowed to happen? Surely the Lord could have stopped
Satan coming into the garden. He could have stopped Adam and
Eve partaking of the fruit and therefore there would have been
no sin. Well the Lord in his gracious and sovereign will purposed
that this should occur so that there would be a people that
were saved, people that were delivered, people that were blessed,
people that would have great cause to praise and glorify their
God. And surely as we realise the
Lord loves to be praised and worshipped, if there had been
no deliverance from that sin, then there wouldn't have been
the same element of praise that would come forth from human lips. But we see, do we not, the wonderful
and great plan of salvation. The Lord ordained that this should
occur, and the way of deliverance should come to pass, and the
only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, should come into this
world to save his people from their sins and not because of
any good in themselves not because they could say they were any
better than Adam any better than Eve they would realize that left
to themselves they would be no better at all and therefore what
reason we have to thank God for his great grace for his favour
towards sinful men and women. How wonderful it is to think
that the Lord has looked down upon us, has had mercy upon us,
has remembered us in our lowest state, and has come and touched
our hearts and shown us his great love. Now, what a mercy then
today if we have the evidence in our hearts that it's true,
the Lord has looked upon us, The Lord has loved us, and the
Lord has blessed us, and he has gone to repair a place for us
where, through his wonderful love and mercy, one day we should
be found in glory, praising our God for his mercy and favour
toward us. Well, it's set forth, isn't it,
in this chapter, that wonderful way of redemption. But we have
here, in these words really, words which we should always
recognise as being important, realising that the devil has
not changed. The devil is still as evil today
as he was in this occasion in the Garden of Eden. And perhaps
we might think today he's even more urgent and endeavouring
to come and to deceive the Church of God. If we look around today,
surely we see that the devil appears to be loosed at the present
time. He's going around deceiving so many people. He's causing
so many difficulties, so many problems. And we recognise that
he knows his time is short. And therefore he's making every
effort, as much as he can, to destroy the Church of God. Well, we can be thankful to believe
that he will never be able to destroy the true Church of God. But it doesn't mean to say he
won't be allowed to cause havoc and cause many to turn away from
the Lord God and to be found serving him, those who were never
really blessed with divine grace. The Word of God is for our instruction. And we can recognize how the
devil was so deceitful. He knows the true situation. He knows what is true and what
is wrong. And he wants you and me to believe
a lie. The thing he does not want us
to do is to believe the Word of God. He does not want us to
believe that. And it's shown so clearly in
this chapter how that Adam and Eve had been told what they could
do, what they could eat, and what they could not do not eat.
And they knew and Satan knew. And Satan's aim of course was
to bring sin into the world. He'd already rebelled in heaven
and been cast out with all his followers. And therefore his
aim now was to destroy the human race. Well, left to himself without
any saviour, he would have destroyed the human race. There would be
no hope for us today were it not for the saviour. But let
us notice how he comes to Eve. Mark said, why didn't he come
to Adam? Well, he came to Eve. realising
perhaps that she was more likely to succumb. And we're told that
as the devil came, he said to the woman, yea, hath God said,
and we should always be on our watch. When the devil comes and
he speaks and tempts us in like way, as these words, hath God
said. Hath God said. He just raises
that question. It would seem a very mild way
really to come to Eve. He didn't go in a big lot of
bluster and try and attack her. No, he came in this very simple
way, hath God said. And he comes today in the same
way. and tempts us, and says, well,
hath God said, hath God said that you shouldn't do that, you
shouldn't go there, you shouldn't think that, you shouldn't say
that? And of course, the next statement really, is he comes
and says, well, there's no harm in anything like that. And very
quickly and very easily, we fall into the trap that Satan lays
for us. Remember, he's very subtle. He's very subtle in the way he
attacks us. Yea, hath God said, ye shall
not eat of every tree of the garden? He's asking the question.
He's asking the question. Hath God told you that you shall
not eat of every tree of the garden? There's all these trees
here, as God said, you shouldn't eat of them. It again seemed
a very, very modest way of approaching Eve. Now, we should realise that
Eve knew what was right. And today, we know, because of
our conscience, because of the Word of God, that which is right. We know before God that which
is right and that which is wrong, and yet we have this great adversary
of our soul who is doing all he can to detract us from the
truth of God and to pretend that it's not very important. In actual
fact, we can ignore it if we want to. And that's really just
what the serpent was saying to Eve. yea hath God said ye shall
not eat of every tree of the garden now the woman remembered
what God had spoken and perhaps you and I may remember what God
has spoken to us what we should do and what we should not do
and the woman told the devil 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." It's a very clear
instruction, wasn't it? Not only she was told, they were
told not to eat it, they were also told not to touch it. And
again, as we think of that word of instruction, how necessary
for us today. We think, well, we won't get
involved in this, really, we'll just kind of, we'll just perhaps
sample a bit of it, we'll just try it out. And what are we doing? We're touching the forbidden
thing. We're touching the unclean thing.
We perhaps often think of this as eating of this fruit, which
of course was totally wrong, but often we do not notice the
relevance of the Word of God which tells us neither should
he touch it, not touch it at all. Yes, there was a temptation,
there was a tree, there it was to look at, but not to be touched
and not to be eaten. So we think of in our lives today,
and many things perhaps, we foolishly touched we put our hand to, thinking
there's no harm in it, just trying it out, just seeing what it's
like. Well, let us remember these solemn and great and true words
to Adam and Eve back in the very beginning of time, when they
were told with regard to this particular tree. Now we don't
have any particular tree, we may have a particular tree, but
there may be many trees, as it were, in our lives today that
we are not to touch. And of course, we might think
the evil trees, they come all around us today, don't they?
They enter into our homes very easily. With the advent of the
internet and things like that, it's so very easy to find that
there are things there which we should not touch, we should
not look at, we should turn away from. And yet, there is that
temptation. The devil will say, There's no
harm, you can just have a look and just see what it's like.
Well, we are warned by the Word of God in words like this. Ye shall not eat thereof, we
mustn't partake of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And that was a very strong word,
wasn't it? Because they were told that if
they did, if they ate or touched, The result would be that they
would die. Well, Eve wasn't afraid to tell the serpent that truth,
that the Lord had said, if they did those things, they would
die. And what was the devil's response? Well, my friends, it's the same
response as we have today. Ye shall not surely die. Ye shall not surely die. Now
who was Eve to believe? God or the devil? And who do we believe? God or
the devil? Or who do we follow? The Lord
or Satan? Remember that God had said, If
it was touched or eaten, they would die. The devil says, you
shall not surely die. What a temptation. What a temptation,
therefore, was put before Eve. And no doubt, she weighed up
the position. As it were, with God on the one
hand and the devil on the other. And we would think perhaps there
would be really no situation, no real case there, no development. It was quite clear who was right
and who was wrong. You might think, well surely
Eve would, as she had remembered the truths that she would now
tell Satan, well, you've heard what I've said and therefore
depart from me. But no, we see the power of Satan. Because the devil added to this
just to encourage her. The devil does things just to
encourage us to sin. He makes it attractive. He makes it more attractive.
He produces a solution that will make it very pleasant to actually
operate under. And therefore he comes and he
says, for God doth know. See how he puts this in front
of her. He doesn't cut God out. He puts
God into the equation, as though to add weight to it, as though
to encourage her to walk opposite. to the truth of God. And so the
devil says, For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing
good and evil. Well, see how subtle the serpent
is. So he gradually leads her down
the road. He gradually entangles her. in this situation, gradually
encourages her to do that which is wrong, to disobey the great
truth of God. That's really what he was aiming
at, to make her disobedient to the word of God. My friends,
how easy it is today. The devil wants us today to be
disobedient to the Word of God. Just ponder such a truth. Think of that in your minds.
Think in how many instances, perhaps, the devil has made us
disobedient to the Word of God. We followed his advice. We thought, well, I can ignore
that, I can be disobedient in that, It's not very important. It's relatively only something
quite small. And although this, of course,
was a tremendous sin, in fact, the appearance of it was quite
small, wasn't it? She wasn't to touch. She wasn't
to eat. really naturally relatively small
things but my friends what a terrible consequence and what a terrible
sin it was and we should realize that today we cannot escape if
we sin we cannot think we can somehow get out of it if we sin
we've sinned against God and therefore this woman was now
pondering the position. There she was, between God and
the devil. She'd heard what God had said,
and now she'd heard what the devil had instructed her in,
and how the devil had really said, well, God of course hasn't
told you all the truth. He says, well, If you actually
eat this fruit, you'll be very wise. You'll understand things
much more. Well, the devil tells lies. And he tells lies today. And
he will continue to tell lies right down to the end of time.
And how you and I need to be very careful as we're confronted
by him. Never think, never think that
we are able to be stronger than the devil. We should only be
strong against the devil by the power of God. And if we come
to these temptations, and we will come to temptations, be
sure of that. Because the devil's aim is to
overthrow us. Don't think there's some secret
path that you won't be tempted. You will be tempted, we will
be tempted. And we will need the power of God to keep us. We'll need to pray that the Lord
will deliver us from temptation, that he will not lead us into
evil, that he will be around about us to help us day by day. And so this woman was now in
this position, in this, we might say, quandary. Should she resist
the devil? Or should she submit to the devil? Should she listen to what he'd
said? Was it reasonable? Or was it
possible that she could indulge herself and still get away with
it? Well, we see that she now looks
at the whole situation. And she looks at the tree, and
she sees it's good for food. Well, there may be things you
see in our lives which might be good for us in one sense.
It might benefit us perhaps. We might think in our natural
life. We might be able to be involved in it. It might advance
us. But is it right? Is it in accordance with God's
will? Or are we involving us in something which is against
the Word of God? And so here she was, pondering
the situation, looking at the tree, and saw it was good for
food, not only good for food, it was pleasant to the eyes.
Again, how many things may be pleasant to our eyes? Pleasant
to our eyes, and we think, well, that would be very nice to have
or be involved in. What are we really doing? We're
lusting after things which are forbidden. Lusting after things
which are forbidden. And so, here she is there seeing
good for food and it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be
desired, to make one wise. Again, great temptations, aren't
there? For us, if we think, well if I was involved in that, I'll
be much better, I'll be able to do this or do that, and I
need some extra help and some extra guidance and some extra
wisdom, and therefore instead of committing our way unto the
Lord, who is able to do for us far more exceedingly abundantly
than we can ask or think, we're left to ourselves, to our own
natural mind, our own natural sinful way. And here was this
woman now as an example, as a tragic example to the church of God
today. A tragic example of where she
was in this time of temptation. And here she is between, as it
were, life and death, heaven and hell. That's the great difference
of the position that she was in. Here she was then, standing,
as it were, on the edge, which way? Should she go? Don't think
that Eve's the only person that's been there. My friends, we're
all found in this position. With the devil trying to put
us over onto his side. Put us over onto his ground,
that's what he wants. Put us out of the way. Put us
into that broad way which leads to destruction. So here was this
woman looking then, and seeing how pleasant it was, a tree to
be designed and one that make one wise. So with all those things
stacked up on one side, and as it were, the devil was blinding
her mind and her comprehension to the great and important truths
that God had told her, which was that if she partook of it
or touched it, she would die. faced with the alternative. You see how the devil was so
subtle, bringing before her all these signs of attraction. And what did she do? She gave
in. She submitted to the power of
Satan. Let us remember these words are
here for our instruction. Perhaps Never more so than the
day in which we live. A day of tremendous temptation. Tremendous evil all around us. And she took the fruit thereof
and did eat. And not only that, she came and
gave to her husband. Gave to her husband and what
a sad situation there. We see that Adam didn't question
it, did he? He didn't say, hold on a minute,
this is wrong. He saw that his wife was doing
it, so he thought, well, if she's doing it, I can do it. Again, remember, it's not what
other people say or do. It's what God says. It's what
his word says. That's the way that you and I
are to follow. Not whether other people are occupied or other
people engage in such situations. That is irrelevant, really. The
great thing is, are we doing the will of God? Are we following
the way of God? And gave all herself unto her
husband, and he did eat. What have they done? they'd sinned. The hymn writer has it right.
O thou hideous monster sin, what a curse hast thou brought
in. All creation groans through thee. Isn't it true? Here was on this
tragic day in the history of the world, Adam and Eve those
two humans that God had created, living in that place of wonderful
bliss and happiness and purity in the Garden of Eden. And in
a moment of time, the whole thing was dashed, the whole thing was
banished, the whole situation was destroyed. Sin had entered
into the world. 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. Now, let's go back. What did the devil say? Ye shall
not surely die. Eve had told Satan what God had
said, And God had said that in the day they ate of that fruit,
they would die. You shall not eat of it, neither
shall you touch it, lest you die. Well, the devil said, you
shall not surely die. We may say, well, they'd taken
the fruit, they were still standing on their feet, they hadn't died
physically. But what had happened, they had
died. They died spiritually. They were
now dead in trespasses and in sins. They had now no ability
to recover themselves. They were now left in that condition,
eternally lost. No hope. What God had spoken
was so true. In the day they ate thereof,
they would die. There was no way of coming from
that position. Because in the second chapter,
we read these verses. In the 16th verse, and the Lord
commanded the man saying, 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." And so here they were now,
Adam and Eve, in that place of death. They would of course also
die naturally in due course, but the effect of this sin was
that they had died spiritually. They were now spiritually dead. And so what the devil had said,
was completely wrong. He'd pretended, he'd said to
them, he told them this great lie, ye shall not surely die. And yet, they had come to that
situation and they had died. And they were not aware of it. But they were aware of the effect
of that sin because they realized they were naked. And you see,
how sin adds to sin. How sin adds to sin. Here they
were then now, when God came and walked in the garden and
called their names, did they rush up to him? Did they come
to him to talk to him as they had done? Oh, they're now afraid. They're now afraid. Sin's entered into their heart.
They're afraid. And they come and they tell the
Lord, I was afraid. And they say, because I was naked.
They gave the game away, didn't they? They gave the game away. They hadn't been afraid or embarrassed
previously because they were naked. Because they were pure.
Their desires were good and holy. There was nothing unrighteous.
But now, what a change. And of course, God very quickly
interrogates them. And they weren't able to stand
up to the interrogation. They made every excuse, didn't
they? How easily you and I can try and make excuses. You shall not surely die. So
the devil, devil, you're wrong. I will die. I have died. I am dead, spiritually. And so as the Lord comes and
questions first of all Adam, and Adam blames his wife. And
then Eve, and Eve blames the devil. They don't confess that
they were guilty. We try and pass the blame. You
know how easily we try and do that, don't we, today? We try
and pass the blame. We try and make excuses for our
wrongdoings, for our disobedience. We try and make excuses. The
truth is that excuses do not stand with God. You and I cannot
make excuses to God. We can make excuses to our fellow
beings, but not to God. Because God sees us through and
through. He looks right through us. He looks right into the deepest
recesses of our heart. Nothing is hidden from Almighty
God. He sees us exactly as we are. May we not therefore be
left to try and make excuses, but it's good, you know, if we
can come and fall down before God and confess our sins. Well, how merciful God was, how
gracious He was to Adam and Eve, and how kind He is to the whole
Church of God in granting to them the great and glorious promise
we read in the 15th verse. And he says, I will put enmity
between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.
It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Wonderful prophecy, that there
would be that seed of a woman who would in due time come and
would be used to squash, to bruise the head of Satan so that he
would not be able to ultimately be a conqueror. And many, many
years had to pass before the fulfilment of that. We are blessed
today, aren't we? With the great truths contained
in the New Testament, Israel traversed the world for several
thousands of years. without the revelation, in real
terms, of the Saviour. How they would have had to, I'm
sure, have laid hold of a truth like this. How it would have
been, no doubt, passed down through the generations. Sure, it was
a word that Adam and Eve would never forget. Without such a
word, they were eternally lost. But here was a word of hope, a word of encouragement, a word
of favour. Surely it's not dissimilar today,
is it? When we find ourselves in a situation
where we've listened to the devil, we've fallen under his snare,
we've fallen into the pit which he's prepared for us. and yet
then to come and to realise we have a gracious Saviour who looks
upon us, remembers that we are dust and
directs us to Himself, directs us to the great and glorious
plan of salvation. What does it do? Does it not
make the Lord Jesus Christ a precious reality to us. Do we not then
see what a wonderful sufficiency there is in the sin-atoning death
of the Lord Jesus Christ? That sin-atoning death which
cleanseth from all sin, all sin washed away in the precious blood
of the Redeemer. So although We find that we have
been like this, dead, dead, spiritually dead, yet to know that we have
received the wonderful gift of eternal life. The Lord has looked
upon us. The Lord has had compassion upon
us. The Lord looked upon Adam and
Eve here. You know as you read on further in this chapter, Adam
and Eve had tried to cover their nakedness with fig leaves. That wasn't very adequate, was
it? What did the Lord Jesus do? And unto Adam, also unto his wife,
did the Lord make coats of skins and clothe them. Now they were
naked. The Lord clothed them. Isn't
it wonderful to think And here was the gracious Lord at this
time of such enmity against God insofar as they'd sinned and
disobeyed his word, yet in love to their souls he clothed them
with the skins of animals. And it gives us a wonderful picture
because in order for those skins to have been obtained, they were
the skins of animals, The animals were slain. And what had happened? Well, the blood had been shed.
Right back, you see, from this very beginning, indicated to
us the great plan of redemption. Without shedding of blood, there's
no forgiveness, no remission. And here it was in this wonderful
occasion, the Lord giving them these coats of skin. And again,
what does it signify? Sure it signifies they were clothed
not with their own clothes and those fig leaves, not their own
righteousness, but my friends, a blessed and glorious righteousness
of the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. So what a picture we
have, don't we? What a wonderful chapter this
is really, this third chapter of Genesis. The tragedy of it
and yet the wonder of redeeming love. how God set before Adam
and Eve this great and glorious way. And so thankful we should
be today, that we have this great and glorious way of salvation. And don't think, you know, you
and I will avoid such temptations. The Lord Jesus Christ himself,
when he was revealed as the Son of God, when he came up out of
the water, having been baptised by John the Baptist, and the
Lord came and said, this is my beloved son, hear him. The revelation that here was
the promise being fulfilled. Wonderful truth that it was. And so may we today be found
looking to this great and glorious saviour, the one who can save
to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. Thankful we
should be that we have a great God, but think of Him, then the
Saviour then, immediately after He came up out of the water and
He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted
of the devil. There He was, after 40 days,
into the wilderness, tempted of the devil. And we recognize
and are thankful for his great and glorious responses that he
gave. How did he respond to the devil? Those temptations, and they were
very real temptations, he responded by quoting the word of God. And my friends, as you and I
today will be tempted by the devil, don't think you won't
be. Realize you will be. My friends,
study the Word of God so that we have the right answers. When the devil comes to us and
says, hath God said? Remember the first words he spoke
to Eve, hath God said? My friends, the Lord was able
to answer the devil from the Word of God. And so you and I
today, we're able to come and we're able to answer the devil
by the Word of God. And we can say yes, The Lord
hath said, this is the word of the Lord. This is the truth of
God. This is what I desire to follow
and not to be led into these evil and wrong ways. Well, what
a kind and gracious God we have. And we should not therefore submit
ourselves to the devil. We are told to submit ourselves
unto the Lord. Never easy. because our nature
goes after the things which are attractive to our own hearts
and minds. This is why Eve was led this
way. She relied on her own nature
and attractiveness and turned against God. And we need to be
very aware the devil uses the same tactics today. He brings
before us things which are attractive to us. And he says, well, this
is all right. Hath God said, well, you needn't
worry about that. But oh, bless God, if he gives
us this grace to resist the devil, that he may flee from us. We
read in the last chapter in Ephesians about taking unto ourselves the
whole armor of God. My friends, don't think you and
I can get along without it. We need the whole armour of God.
And we need God to give us grace to lay hold of it and to put
it on. Because we live in a day when
the devil goes about, he's roaring around, trying to defeat us,
trying to destroy us. And my friends, let us realise,
we have a God who is greater than the devil. a God, a glorious
God, a great Savior who conquered sin, death, hell, and the grave. Remember those great words. And
we are more than conquerors through Him. We're more than conquerors
through His shed blood. We're more than conquerors through
His great and glorious resurrection. And we can be thankful today
that this same Jesus is now in glory, and the Father's right
hand there to intercede for our prayers in our time of need,
when we are tempted to be able to come and commit our way unto
the Lord, to seek for His help, to seek for His grace, and don't
forget the gracious words, He giveth more grace. Well, may
we continue to prove it. May we continue to bless God
for his great salvation. May he be warned by the solemn
occasion way back in the history of the world when Adam and Eve
were tempted by the devil and listened to his evil words and
because of that fell into that original sin. May God give us
much grace to turn away from the devil. Amen.