So Lord may graciously help me
I would turn your prayerful attention to Genesis chapter 3 and verse
6 Genesis chapter 3 and 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. We have before us the account
given in the word of God of the fall of man. And it's very, very
important, these chapters at the beginning of Genesis, because
they set the scene really of the whole of the world as we
know it today. We read that the world was created
by God and that everything was very good. But of course, if
we look around today and see what's going on, and in the animal
kingdom too, we see that there's much that is not so very good. And we realise that there has
been a change, and this is recorded for us in Genesis 3. And it is very important for
us today to realise that the things that happened then are
happening as it were even today. Satan is still going around to
deceive. That has not changed. You see,
we read at the beginning of chapter 3, now the serpent was more subtle
than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. We don't actually expressly read
in Genesis that it was Satan, but drawing links from other
scriptures we can see that it was. If we look in Revelation
12 verse 9 it says, and the great dragon was cast out. That old
serpent called the devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole
world. So there we have a clear reference
of this serpent. It was, as it were, representing
Satan and his hellish hosts. So the serpent came, you see,
to speak with Eve. God had made Adam and then had
formed Eve out of the rib of Adam. And we read together those
few verses in chapter 2 where we read that God had said that
they could freely eat of every tree in the garden, but not of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So there was a
clear command from God regarding these things. But we read, Now
the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which
the Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, yea,
hath God said. It's the first recorded words
that we read of Satan. The first recorded words. Yea,
hath God said. Questioning. The Word of God. Now that's not changed today.
Nothing is new here. This is going on today in your
life, in my life. People will be asking, God said. Is that Bible really true? Has he really said these things?
Did he really mean that there would be everlasting a judgement
for those that are outside of Christ? Is there really only
one way to be saved? Is there only really one hope
in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Yea, hath God said. This is Satan's tactic back in
jealousies and nothing's changed. He is a deceiver and he started
off, you see, by questioning. He didn't start off by a direct
denial. I think if he had have done,
started off with a direct denial, you see, Eve would have realised
that this was definitely wrong. But he starts off with a question. So he sowed doubt in the mind
of Eve as to what God had really said. Yea, hath God said ye 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. If you compare
that very closely with what was actually said in Genesis chapter
2, we realise that there was a toning down of Eve, of what
God had really said. You see, Satan would ever try
and make it that God is a hard taskmaster, and that he is worth
serving, He gives, as it were, more returns than God will. He
is better to be served than God is. And you see, that is what
he would ever do. And to minimise God's goodness
is his great work. To minimise the goodness of God
so that you, instead of thinking that God is good and his laws
are for your eternal welfare and for your eternal blessing,
He would make you think that the laws of God are better off
disregarded. More happiness is to be found
in turning away from God's laws than keeping God's laws. And
this is ever what he would do. But Eve, you see, misquotes,
so there's a distortion here of the word of God. Eve says
this, and the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the
fruit of the trees of the garden. What God had actually said, of
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. There was
a freedom, there was a bounty. He'd had all these trees, there
was as it were thousands of these trees and you may freely eat
of all of them, apart from this knowledge of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. In other words, there was a bounty
of God given to Adam and Eve. But you see, Eve was, as it were,
Not seeing the bounty as much as she should have done. 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. Well we don't
read that in Genesis 2, nothing about touching it. But he seemed
to be exaggerating what God had said. You shall not eat of it,
neither shall you touch it. And then the third distortion
was here, lest you die. Well, God didn't say, lest you
die. He said, you shall certainly
die. Thou shalt not eat of it, for
in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. You see,
there was a distortion. So it started off with a question
from Satan, doubting, has God really said this? Eve then not
quoting what God has said correctly. Now this is important for us
today you see. The word of God is known as the
sword of the spirit. Well, you see, if we don't quote
the sword of the spirit right, we're not going to get the effect,
are we? It's like having a blunt sword, or a sword that's not
working right. Well, you're not going to do
much damage, or you're not going to be able to stand against your
opposition with a blunt instrument, are you? Well, therefore we need,
you see, the sword of the spirit, we need to know the word of God,
and we need to quote it correctly, otherwise we're going to, as
it were, give give room to Satan to twist further what God has
said. So then we move on. And the serpent
said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. So Satan now
moves on from questioning, doubting the word of God, to an outright
denial of the word of God. God has said that there would
be death following eating of this fruit, Satan you see says
you shall not surely die, direct opposite of what God had said.
Now who was right? and who should be followed. Who
was Eve cosying up to at this time? It was Satan. There seemed
to be, as it were, an allegiance being formed between Eve and
this serpent. An allegiance, a comradeship,
a friendship was building up here. She was, as it were, on
friendly terms with Satan. And in a sense, though this is
the fall and that's a one-off as it were, event, the fall of
man. Not to be repeated in one sense,
but in another sense. The deceit that's going on from
Satan is an ongoing thing. You think of the Lord Jesus himself. Was he free from the temptations
of this subtle serpent? No, he was not. We read after
he was baptised, he was taken into the wilderness to be tempted
of the devil. the second Adam. And what a blessing
for you and I this morning that that second Adam didn't fall
as the first Adam did. When he was commanded to make
the stones to be bread, that he did not follow Satan's guidance. When he was told that if he bowed
down and worshipped all the kingdoms of the world would be his. Satan
told him The second Adam, you see, he
stood where the first Adam fell. And you see, the whole of the
human race is represented in the federal head of Adam, as
in Adam all die. So you see, if we are in Adam,
which we are by nature, by being human beings, we are in Adam.
We all come from the loins of Adam by natural generation. If
you trace it back, Well, therefore, you see, we've come
under this original sin. But, you see, if we're in Christ,
in that second Adam, then all in the second Adam will have
life. And so it's a vital necessity
to be in the second Adam. We all most certainly are in
the first Adam. But the vital question is, have
we an interest in the work of Christ, that second Adam, which
came to reverse all that the first Adam brought about in the
fall. And then we come on, you see,
to the sixth verse, which is our text. 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. You
see, it's rebelling against God. There was a union building up
between Satan and Eve. She was trusting him. In fact,
she was trusting his word above God's word. She would rather
listen to his evil dictates than what God had said. And we today
need to really be aware of that, each of us. in our lives. We are surrounded with much satanic
influence. The world, the lust, the pride
of life is constantly giving us instructions of how we should
spend our time, what we should do with our money, what we should
do with our lives, what's really important to do with our lives
and what will bring us the greatest fame and glory. Are we listening
to them? Or are we listening to the Word
of God? The Word of God that says repent
and believe the Gospel. Repent from your sin, turn aside
and have union with Christ. Lay up treasure in heaven. Well,
the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was
pleasant to the eyes. She was taken in with it and
a tree to be desired to make one wise. And she took the fruit
thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband, and he
did eat. So there was a partaking of this
forbidden fruit in complete now defiance. So we had the doubting
first of Satan, casting doubt on God's word. Then we had the
distortion that took place with Eve distorting what God had actually
said, not a true quote. And then Satan comes back and
denies what God has said, a straight outward denial now, not just
a doubt. But then we have Adam and Eve walking in defiance to
God. Defying what God had said. God
had said thou shalt not eat of it. And Eve and Adam, based on
the desirability of this. That's the thing. It was desirable.
So they thought, pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired
to make one wise. And you see that's one of the
tacks of Satan today still. You see, if you don't try it
you don't know, he would say. If you don't try all these paths
of sin, how do you know whether they're good or whether they're
not? Well, you see, Adam and Eve would have been far better
never having tried this forbidden fruit. It didn't enlarge their
ability, it rather ruined them. And so will many of the things
which Satan, well all of the things that Satan would encourage
you to do in terms of breaking the Ten Commandments, you're
only young once and all these sort of statements that he would
bring to your attention so that you can, as it were, debaunch
yourself and act as the world would act and break the Ten Commandments,
the righteous standard of God's law. The woman, you see, she saw this
and she ate and her husband ate. So they both defied the Lord. And their eyes of both of them
were opened and they knew that they were naked. So this knowledge
only brought them shame. Shame was the outworking, you
see, of this extra knowledge that they thought they were going
to gain. It brought them shame. We read later on that they were
afraid. It brought them fear. So instead
of, as it were, being able to, as it were, enjoy the presence
of God in the cool of the day, now they were in fear. And when
the voice of God walked in the garden in the cool of the day,
Adam and his wife, hid themselves from the presence of the Lord
God amongst the trees of the garden. In one sense it's just
foolishness, isn't it? And yet that's us by nature,
isn't it? We're hide amongst the trees of the garden thinking
that somehow the one who formed the eye won't see, the one who
formed the ear won't hear. But it was foolishness. How would
they hide this from God? And yet they tried. And yet we
try, and yet we try and hide, as it were, from God, instead
of exposing ourselves in all our foulness and asking God for
mercy. And Adam and his wife hid themselves
in 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 a Christian? Conviction. You see, God, as
it were, would bring Adam to that place of confession. He
wants to bring Adam to confess his sin. He wants to bring Adam
to realize his guilt and not, as it were, to carry on. And it's interesting, you see,
that God asks Adam a question, where art thou? And Adam says
that And he said, I heard the voice in the garden, I was afraid
because I was naked, and I hid myself. And God 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 gavest to be with me, she gave of the tree
and I did eat. So there was a question given
to Adam, two questions, to bring him to, as it were, start to
think about his guiltiness. And then of course God also then
asks Eve, what is this that thou hast done? And the woman said,
the serpent beguiled me and I did eat. So Adam was asked two questions,
Eve was asked a question. But you'll notice that Satan, the serpent, was not asked
any questions. And the Lord God said unto the
serpent, because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all
cattle. There was no questions asked
of the serpent. All God said to the serpent was
to curse him. Now God could have justly done
the same to Adam and to Eve. But he didn't. He asked them
a question. As it were, there was, here you
see, when Jesus started his ministry, his first word was repent, for
the kingdom of God is at hand. Repentance, turn and let the
wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts,
and let him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy upon him,
and unto our God, for he will abundantly pardon. You see, there
was to be a way of salvation, as it were for mankind, which
was denied from fallen angels. Why was this? We cannot explain.
But there was never a salvation for fallen angels. And God would
have been perfectly just if there was never a salvation for human
beings either. And yet, you see, there is the
Gospel to be preached. And the Lord's 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 thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
And we have that, don't we? Snakes, they slither along on
their bellies. How they used to get around,
as it were, before the fall, I'm not sure. But clearly this
was a curse, that they were cursed. But then in verse 15 you see,
we have what's really known as the first gospel promise. But it wasn't spoken to man,
it was spoken to Satan. But as it were, human beings
were able to overhear what was said to Satan. This is God speaking
to Satan, and I will put enmity between thee and the woman and
between thy seed and her seed. I remember for many years, as
it were, having being told that this was, as it were, the gospel,
a first gospel verse, but when we think about it, it doesn't
sound very amazing, does it? And I will put enmity between
thee and the woman. It doesn't sound much gospel
in that, does there? Well, I think we have to see
it this way. What was going on with Eve and
Satan at the beginning of chapter 3? There was a build-up. of a relationship between Eve
and Satan. There was a union, there was
a fellowship, there was a comradeship being formed between Satan and
the woman. There was that agreement, and
they were in agreement against what? Against the Lord. and against
his anointed. There was this unholy alliance
being formed. And then, you see, this is man
by nature. After the fall, there is an unholy
alliance between them and Satan. One of our hymn writers picks
it up like this. There is a period known to God
when all his sheep, redeemed by blood, shall leave the hateful
Ways of sin, union with Satan. Turn to the fold and enter in
at peace with hell, with God at war. This describes Eve, doesn't
it? They were at peace with the prince
of darkness, Satan, but they were at war with God. Bunyan
wrote his Here's an allegory, the Holy War, based on this,
that Mansoul, you see, since the Fall, was overrun and in
control by Satan. And what he dribbled out of Hart
Castle was what Mansoul did. But you see, there was to be
this attack made by God on Mansoul. and was to bring man's soul back
to God from the dark paths of sin. And I believe this is what
is being mentioned here in verse 15, and I will put enmity between
thee and the woman. There would not be this comradeship,
there would not be this unholy agreement anymore between Eve
and Satan, and between every child of God who comes to realize
their state by nature. They, as it were, need to put
off the old man. They need to no longer be in
league with Satan. no longer listening to his dictates,
no longer desiring the things that he would have us do. There's a promise here then,
God's promise, that God actually spoke to us and we overheard,
that God spoke really to Satan. I, this is God's work, will put
enmity between thee and the woman. This unity that was there was
going to be broken. There was another unity spoken
of in Psalm 2. Psalm 2, if you read Psalm 2,
it says, Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain
thing? The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together, an unholy unity. against the
Lord and against his anointed. This is the powers of darkness
forming, as it were, in agreement against God. And you see, this
Psalm 2 was quoted by the apostles in the New Testament and directly
applied to Christ. And it's enlarged here that it
was Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Jews and the Gentiles. Those four people, as it were,
four classes of people, were not really in union generally. They were at each other's throats,
it seems, a lot of the time. But there was a time at which
they came into great unity. And that was the events surrounding
Calvary. There was a unity then. Pontius
Pilate and Herod we read then were made friends. Oh, they were
good friends then. What were they doing? The kings
of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord. and against His anointed. Let us break their bands asunder. Let us cast away their cords
from us. Oh, we get rid of this Son of
God. We'll sort that out. We'll get
rid of this one who they called the blasphemer, this Jesus of
Nazareth, against the Lord and against His anointed. Who's in
control? Psalm 2 is beautiful. That's the heathen raging. The
people imagining the vain thing, and we have it today, don't we?
And there's such an unholy unity against breaking God's laws.
You think of the nations of the world with homosexuality. It
seems that there's an unholy union in much of the West to
encourage such a practice and to legalize it and to say nothing
wrong against it. The kings of the earth have set
themselves, the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and
against his anointing, saying, let us break his bands of thunder
and cast away their cords from us. What's going to happen? Who's
really in control? Verse 4 of Psalm 2, he that sitteth
in the heavens shall love the Lord, shall have them under his
wing. Then shall he speak unto them
in his wrath, and vexed them in his sordid pleasure, yet have
I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. This is God's work,
you see. This is the fulfilment of that
first gospel prophecy. And I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head. The
head of Satan shall be bruised. And we read that it was bruised.
It was certainly bruised at Calvary, wasn't it? But Satan thought
that he was gaining the day. It seemed that he was putting
together to death the Lord of life and glory. It seemed that
he was triumphant. Oh, it seemed such an unholy
unity going on at Calvary. No wonder the disciples, as it
were, their faith was so tried. It seemed that we thought that
it had been He that had redeemed Israel. Yeah, their faith was
severely tried at Calvary. And yet, the Lord Jesus took
them by the hand. Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things and to have entered? into his glory. It was a perfect
fulfillment of Genesis 3. And I will put enmity between
thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel. Satan bruised the heel of the
Lord Jesus. We think of his two natures,
his divine nature and his human nature. As it were, the lower
nature, his human nature, oh how it was bruised. It pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He was bruised at Calvary. But
you see he was the seed of the woman. Not the seed of the man,
was it? Mary was a virgin. She had never known man at that
time. And therefore you see that The
one who was going to break this unholy unity, and going to be
the deliverer of his church, was going to be the seed of the
woman. So we have this account then, and 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, and she took of
the fruit thereof, and did eat. and gave also unto her husband
with her, and he did eat. But you see the Lord came and
it's interesting that this verse 15 precedes actually the curse
given to man. After verse 15 we have the following
verses where the Lord speaks unto the woman and he said, I
will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow
shall thou bring forth thy children and thy desire shall be to thy
husband and he shall rule over thee. And then he speaks to Adam.
But both of those verses are preceded by, verse 15 comes before
them basically, and verse 15 is, and I will put enmity between
the woman and between thy seed and her seed. So God promised
that this unholy league was going to be broken up. by the Lord
Jesus. He was going to come and break
that unholy unity. He was going to come and capture
man's soul. But man's soul would not continue
to be under the governance and the dictates of Satan and his
hellish hosts. He would no longer be used, man's
soul would no longer be used to dishonour God. but that man's
soul would be conquered and that man's soul may have truly, or
should I, Bunyan put it, would be the ruler of man's soul. In other words, the Lord God
would be in control. And therefore we read in Romans
that sin shall not have dominion over you. Yes, there would still
be the remnants of sin until we pass from life into death,
leave this world. We read there that sin should
not have dominion. We are not to continue to listen
to Satan. We are to resist him. We are
to know the Word of God like we have in the Bible. And of course the Lord Jesus,
when he was tempted, he used the Word of God to defeat Satan. He quoted the Word of God correctly,
accurately against Satan and overthrew him. And Satan, we
read, left him for a season. No doubt to come and dog him
and to seek to tempt him and put him off course more times
in his earthly life. Well, we have this then, what
God has done. God has given this gospel promise,
and I will put enmity between the woman and between thy seed
and her seed. It shall bruise thy head. Satan
was going to be bruised, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Just
the heel, not the head. It was going to be a pain, a
tremendous path for the Lord Jesus. but it was not going to
ruin his deity. He was going to rise. His human
nature was going to rise once again from the dead and to sit
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He was going to
conquer. We read that in Psalm 2, Yet have I set my King upon
my holy hill of Zion. You see all the powers of darkness
gathering around Calvary. to against the Lord and against
his anointed. And we see it today, I believe,
in a great measure against the Church of God. Powers, as it
were, of evil are ganging up, as it were, to overthrow the
Word of God and what God has said, and what God has said we
should do in our lives. The powers, as it were, are against
us. And yet, is it not a tremendous
comfort to look up, he that sitteth in the heavens, Shunath. He's perfectly in control. In
all our difficulties, in all our sadnesses, God is in control. So we have before us this fall
of man and we need to understand how important it is. We need
to realise that this affects everything after this event. That now the world is cursed
and now the The thorns and thistles, as it were, come up in our lives.
Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upwards. And we are
not then, which is a very common way of looking at it, is to see
the difficulties in this life and reflect negatively on God,
that this is how God created it in some way. No, God created
everything very good but after the fall you see there was a
curse placed on that which was very good and therefore it's
no surprise then that what we see today is not always very
good because of the fall. But today you see we still have
battles to be fought. You and I in our daily lives
need to resist the devil. And we need to take lessons from
Genesis 3, if you like, of how not to do it. How not to resist
the devil. Eve did not resist the devil.
She became the devil's friend. She sided with Satan. She listened
to his dictates. She listened to the rubbish that
he spoke. And she reflected, you see, badly
upon God. And as I said in Romans 12, we
read that I beseech you therefore, brethren, that you present your
bodies a living sacrifice unto God, holy, acceptable, which
is your reasonable service. But Satan will constantly tell
you that it's an unreasonable service, that it's unreasonable
to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your mind. But how reasonable is it to serve
Satan, to be with him in eternal Damnation. What sort of a payment
is that? What sort of a reward has Satan
got to give you? Well, if we rightly understand
it, it's an awful reward. It's wages that we wish we'd
never had. It's a reward that will be to
our everlasting destruction. Oh, how vitally important. to hear these words of the Lord
Jesus, repent and believe the gospel. Repent everyone from
his evil way. Yes, we've fallen in Adam, so
therefore we are subject to original sin. As in Adam all die, so in
Christ shall all be made alive. Romans 5 picks this up very much. Speaking of the two Adams, The
first Adam being the one that we read of here, falling in the
fall, taking of the fruit. But the second Adam being the
Lord Jesus. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, well all the race of humans were made
sinners, so by the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous. All those in Christ, you see,
shall therefore partake of his righteousness, just as we partook
of the original sin in Adam as our federal head. So we, if we
are in Christ, will partake of his righteousness. We will have
imputed to us his righteousness because if we are in the Lord
Jesus Christ. So what a necessity to see the
beauty of the Gospel even here this morning. The beauty that
in this black picture painted in Genesis 3 of the fall that
we may realise that there was hope. But as we sang in our opening
hymn regarding the covenant What happened in Genesis in the fall
was not unknown to God. He did not have to invoke Plan
B after the fall. God, we read, knew regarding
this because we read that the Lord Jesus is the Lamb slain
from before the foundation of the world. So before there was
ever a sin committed, If there was a saviour, if there was one
who had agreed, as it were, with the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit, to willingly come to pay the price of sin, that there
should be a way whereby sinners who were by nature enemies to
God, who had rebelled against His commandments, who had rubbished
His claims, could be made right with God, could come into a union
with Him, so that they should be more secure than was before
they fell. Well may the Lord make us each
partakers of the spiritual life and though this is a sad chapter
it is sad to see how Satan was used to tempt Eve and Adam and
to spoil the world as we know it and yet What a mercy that
there is a Gospel, that there is a way of salvation, that there
is a way whereby you and I who are sinners, who do fall like
Adam and Eve do daily, that there is a way whereby we can come
and confess our sins because He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. May
the Lord add His blessing.