If I had but 35 minutes, maybe
40, left in my life to preach to you, if I just had one gospel
message, this would be the message. If I had but 35 minutes to convince
you, to compel you to bow to Christ, take sides with God against
yourself, This would be the message. I've titled this message in the
form of a two-word question. The title is, What Happened? What Happened? This message will
contain three of the most important questions you will ever face
in this life. And in the end, how you answer
these questions will reveal your eternal destiny. The first question. What happened in the Garden of
Eden? Now, I know to many this will
seem elementary, but to many it won't. There's many that have
never heard these things. What happened in the Garden of
Eden? Well, some will be quick to respond by saying, man sinned
in the Garden. And you would be correct. You'd
be exactly right. That's what man did in the Garden.
He sinned. But how did or does Adam's sin
affect you and me? That's what I want you to think
about. How are you and I involved in that sin? How did the fall
and disobedience of Adam affect you, and how did it affect me?
That's important to know. That's the first question. Remember,
I've heard it said, and it's so, if you're wrong about the
fall, then you're wrong about it all. Second question, what
happened on the hill called Mount Calvary? What really happened
on Calvary's cross? And some will quickly respond
and say, well, Christ died on Calvary's cross. And that would
be exactly right. The Lord Jesus did die on Calvary's
cross. And most everyone today seems
to know that Jesus Christ died on the cross. Even the average
non-churchgoing person could tell you that. Well, yes, Jesus
died on the cross. And it's true. Jesus Christ did
die on the cross at Calvary. But the question is why? Why
did God the Son come to earth, live, become a man? Don't let
me leave that out. What a condescension that was
for God to become a man. God became a man. He lived 33
and a half years on this earth. And what did He do? He endured
nothing but agony and suffering. That soul-separating anguish
of being forsaken of His Father on Calvary's cross. Why? That's a very good question.
What would cause the Lord of Glory, the Darling of Heaven,
God the Son, to voluntarily, I might add, come to earth, become
a man, suffer and die on a cross in the middle of two thieves
as though He was the worst of the three? What did the Lord
Jesus actually accomplish when He died on that cross? Why did
He die? And then the third question is,
what happens in a man and woman's heart when God reveals Himself
to them? What happens in the hearts of
men and women, referred to as the elect of God, the children
of God, when God gives them a saving interest in the Lord Jesus Christ? The answer that the majority
of folks would give is the sinner believes and their sin is put
away. And that's exactly right. But
why is their sin put away? What happened that made God put
the believer's sin away? I want to know, don't you? sadly
has reduced the salvation of the sinner to something that
the sinner does. You know that. I know that. We
all hear that kind of preaching. Only one thing wrong with it.
It's not so. It's not so. Salvation is of
the Lord. We say that all the time. Salvation
is by what Christ has done. Religion says do. The gospel
says done. Religion says work. The gospel
says rest. All my life in church, I was
given something to do, and folks still are. You say, well, how
so? Well, make a decision to follow
Jesus. That's something that the sinner
is told to do. Let go and let God save you.
You need to give Jesus your heart. You need to make Jesus Lord of
your life. God wants to have His way in
your life. Won't you just let Him? Every
single bit of that's wrong. All of it's wrong. Every single
bit. The only decision made in salvation
is the decision that God made to save His people from their
sins. That's the only decision that was made. God has mercy
on whom He will have mercy. Isn't that what the Bible teaches?
It's God who decides. It's God who determines to have
mercy on. And He has mercy on some. God
doesn't have mercy on everyone. You know how I know? Because
if He did, everyone would be saved. But they're not, are they?
And are folks lost because they won't accept His mercy? That's
ridiculous. No one has ever turned down mercy
that truly needed it. And I know this. If God has mercy
on me, it was His decision. It was His prerogative, and it
was His purpose to do so. We don't give our hearts to Jesus. God doesn't want them. They're
wicked and deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. And when God saves a sinner,
He doesn't take our heart and improve it, no. He gives us a
new heart. A heart that beats and pants
after Him. We don't make Jesus Lord. God
made Him Lord before the foundation of the world. Christ was brought
up with God. He was daily God's delight. He
rejoiced always before Him. It was God the Father that made
Jesus Christ Lord. We don't make Him Lord. He's
already King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And we don't let
go and let God do anything. If I can let God do something,
then I'm God. And you better get ready to deal
with me. If God wants to do something and can't, then I tell you He's
not God, because God does whatever He wants. Our God is in the heavens,
and He has done whatsoever He is pleased. God doesn't want
to do anything. God has never tried to do anything.
Our prayer is for God not to let us go and let us perish.
Lord, help me, save me, keep me. A true sinner comes to God
out of need. Haven't we figured that out yet?
Their need, not God's. God doesn't have any need. To
preach that God has a need is to preach a false gospel. It's not to tell the truth. God
doesn't have any needs. He's all-sufficient. He's sovereign. He does what He wills in the
army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And
none can stay His hand. None can question Him. None can
say, God, what are You doing? I'm God. I do what I want to. We come to God out of need. God
shows His people their need. Has God shown you your need?
Those that are well have no need. They have no need of a physician,
but a sick person sure does. The greatest obstacle that any
of us have in this life is that by nature and due to our sin,
we don't know that we're sick. Unless God shows us and God reveals
to us that we're sick, we don't even know. We don't know that
we're dead in trespasses and sin. Not until Christ, the great
physician, reveals to us that we are. Well, how bad a shape
are we really in, preacher? Are we beyond reformation? Are
we beyond help? Are we too far gone to be rescued? Are we too far gone to be remodeled? Well, actually we are because
we're dead in trespasses and sin. And the only way you can
help a dead man or a dead woman is to give them life. And I can't
give you life and you can't give me life. There's only One who
can. And He came to us. He came to
some because some need Him. Do you need Him? And that's the
problem in the world today. Nobody needs God. Let's just
call it what it is. Men and women today don't need
God. Everybody's doing okay on their
own. Seems that everybody's getting along just fine without God. Are they? Not very often, but
every once in a while. The Lord will send a man over
here with some trouble. And every once in a while, God
will send a woman over there some heartache. God sends this
particular person some trials, and God sends that particular
person some tribulation. And these certain men and women
begin to see that they're not in control of anything. They
see that their next breath comes from God. They see that their
next heartbeat comes from Him who has all things in His hand.
This book called the Holy Bible is clear about this God with
being the one with whom we have to do. This is the God that we're
going to stand before one day and give an account to. So let's
consider these questions. My 30-35 minutes is diminishing
quickly. Would you turn with me to the
book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible. The second chapter,
the second chapter in the Bible. Genesis chapter 2 verse 7. Genesis chapter 2 verse 7. And the Lord God formed man out
of the dust of the ground and breathed unto his nostrils the
breath of life and man became a living soul. But we could spend
30 minutes just on that. God formed man out of the dust
of the ground. That's what you and I are. Just
dust. In and of ourselves. It was when
God breathed into us the breath of life that we became a living
soul. And this confirms what Moses wrote in chapter 1 verse
27. He wrote that God created man
in His own image and the image of God created He Him. And here's
the problem. You and I are so infected and
so affected by sin that the ideal of perfection is just beyond
our natural comprehension. You know, we see something and
we say, well, that's pretty well perfect. But it's not perfect
at all. I say that about my grandchildren.
Well, they're just perfect. Well, they're not at all perfect. Matter of fact, you don't have
to be around them long to realize that they're not. But they're
perfect to me. But we're so infected and affected
by sin that we just don't know much about perfection. We're
plagued. We just can't grasp the holiness
and perfection of God. And we certainly can't grasp
how holy we must be in order to be accepted of God. We have
to be made perfectly holy. Remember what the Scripture says?
It must be perfect to be accepted. Adam was created in the image
of God. Adam was created holy and upright. Adam had no fear. Adam had no
fear of God. He had no fear of the animals.
He had no fear of sickness. He had no fear of disease. He
had no fear of death. There are a lot of folks right
now that are very, very concerned about this coronavirus. It's about all you hear on the
news. I don't doubt that some of you are concerned. Well, may
the Lord put you to ease. God is in control of everything.
And God is in control of the coronavirus. And I'll say this
without any reservation. If I get the coronavirus, and
if I die of the coronavirus, it was God that gave it to me.
There's nothing in this world that God is not in control of. This book is very clear about
it. The problem, the reason people don't know that is they don't
read this book. They don't open this book and study it. God encourages
us to do that. Study to show thyself approved,
a workman unto God that needeth not to be ashamed. Nothing in
this world God's not in control of. God has never been caught
off guard or caught by surprise. I can assure you that the coronavirus
didn't catch God by surprise. Everything comes to pass according
to His sovereign will and purpose, the coronavirus included. I know
I'm gonna die. I'm going to dive something.
Maybe it'll be lightning. But I'm not going to hide every
time there's a storm. You can't hide from the God of
lightning. Maybe I'll be killed in a car accident, but I'm not
going to stop driving and never leave the house. How I dive,
really that's God's business. And whatever He does will ultimately
be for my good and for His glory. That's what this book teaches.
And however I die, it was God that determined how, and it was
God that determined when, because this book says man's days are
determined. The number of months a man has
is with the Lord. It's God that has appointed men
and women their bounds, their limits, so that they cannot pass.
And this same God is the one who is working all things together
for the good of them that love the Lord, who are thee called
according to His purpose. Child of God, everything's going
to be alright. Even if you get the coronavirus.
I'm beginning to learn. that it doesn't profit me in
the least. The Lord said it won't add one
cubit to your stature, one inch to your height. To worry about
things that you cannot change and things that you have no control
over. Why do we do that? We complain
about the weather. What are you going to do to change
it? You can change the thermostat in your car and it'll get hot
and cold, but you can't change the thermostat outside, can you?
That's God's thermostat. Beginning to learn. Don't worry
about things you cannot change. And you can be assured of this,
and I can prove it from the Bible, the dispensing of all things
in this life is by God's sovereign and omnipotent hand. And that
includes everything. Coronavirus included and everything
else. But that's another message for
another time. We're told that Adam was created
in the image of God. He had no fear of sickness, disease,
nor death. He knew no fear, the same as
he knew no shame. He felt no guilt. Having no sin,
Adam was free from all pain and fatigue. As long as he obeyed
God, there was no fear of these things. No fear of death. Adam
had great wisdom. You ever thought about that?
He was given dominion over the fowls of the air, and over the
fish of the sea, and all the animals of the forest. And he
had authority over all God's creation. You can read about
that right here in the book of Genesis. He was a brilliant man. Only a brilliant man could do
that job. He named all the animals. He didn't give the same animal
the same name. Boy, I would have done that.
I'd have been like George Foreman. I'd have been naming them all
George, just like he did all his kids. George and Georgina
or whatever. Adam was responsible only to
God. Look at verse 8 here in Genesis chapter 2. And 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 is pleasant to the sight and
good for food, and the tree of life also in the midst of the
garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Look down at
verse 15. And the Lord God took the man,
speaking of Adam, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress
it and to keep it. And the Lord commanded the man
and said, 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 listen to me carefully. This
was God's law. This was God's covenant with
Adam. This was God's covenant with
man. It was a covenant of works. It only had one law. It only
had one commandment. God said, Adam, you can eat of
all the trees in the garden, from all the fruit, but there
is one tree you're not to eat of, lest you die. And if you
disobey this one commandment, you will die. And there's no
question about it. You see, that's what the law
is and that's what the law does. It enforces God's commandments. The law of God sees to it that
God's justice is executed. The soul that sins, it shall
die. That's what God's law says. If
you're a sinner, you're gonna die. The wages of sin is death. And God's justice will see that
it's so. As long as that forbidden tree
stood untouched and uneaten, it showed that Adam was in submission
to God's will and purpose. But as you know, and as the scriptures
reveal, Adam willfully took up the forbidden fruit and ate thereof. You know the rest of the story.
That's where our problem starts. When Adam sinned and disobeyed
God, judgment and condemnation and death passed upon all men
because all men sinned. First in Adam, sin came into
the world by one man. That's what the Apostle Paul
teaches. In Adam, all sinned. For as by one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin. You see what sin brought? It brought death with it. So
death passed upon All men, all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. There's none righteous, no, not
one. We're all grouped in the same category. Dead in trespasses
and sin. What happened when Adam fell?
How did it affect him? How did it affect you and I?
We died spiritually. Look at chapter 3, verse 7. And the eyes of them both, speaking
of Adam and Eve, were opened. And they knew that they were
naked. And they sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves aprons. Before Adam sinned, he was naked. But before he fell, he had a
pure heart. Nothing appeared evil to him.
He didn't know he was naked. He had an inward heart of holiness,
but after he disobeyed God, after he fell, after he broke God's
one commandment, he lost that holiness, he lost that righteousness,
he lost that purity, and he saw he was nothing. And for the first
time, he was ashamed. And he and his wife tried to
cover themselves. And the shame we feel today, friends, is because
of the fall, it's because of our sin. This is so important. I know I keep saying it. Please
hear me on this. Adam, as the first man, was our
representative. In the beginning, God never made
but one man. He created Adam. All men come
from Adam. All men were born from the seed
of Adam. I'm not going to get in a doctrinal
debate about where Cain's wife came from. Adam, as our federal
head, fell. We fell with him. And there was
charged to our account His rebellion and disobedience against God.
And some are going to say, Paul warned about it, some are going
to say, well, that's not fair. Why should I be punished for
what Adam did? He was our representative. He
was our federal head. You know, the Bible never claims
God to be fair. God claims to be holy. He never
claimed to be fair, did He? God is righteous and just. Everything
God does is right. And God doesn't do it because
it's right. It's right because God does it. Adam was our representative
and we fell in him. And not only are we guilty in
the sin that he committed, but because we inherited his nature,
we have ourselves sinned against God. And that's the reason we
know this shame. That's why our sin is so embarrassing
to us. That's why we don't want anybody
to know our sin. We're shamed of it. And that's
because we don't have a pure and perfect heart either before
God. Before the fall, Adam walked with God. Adam talked with God.
They had fellowship together. They communed as friend with
friend. And Adam's sin made him guilty.
And he hid among the trees. One who had walked with God and
talked with God now hid himself from God. Look at verse 8 in
Genesis 3. It tells us that. Look at it.
And they, Adam and Eve, heard the voice of the Lord walking
in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife
hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees
of the garden. Now how foolish is it to do that? Adam doesn't want to talk to
God anymore. Why? Because he's guilty. And he feels his guilt and he
doesn't want to face the Holy God. He hides like a criminal
in the trees. Do you know why? He was guilty. Do you know why you and I feel
guilt? Because we're guilty. That's
the reason we feel guilt and we don't want to face a God who
is angry with the wicked every day. Do you see that you're guilty? The law of God shows us our guilt.
That's why it was given. Not for us to keep, but to show
us our inability to keep. The law of God shows us our guilt. It shows us our sin. And it does
so that every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty
before God. If God ever shows you your sin,
you'll shut up. You'll shut up. You won't brag
on what you've done because it's all been sin and you see that.
Your mouth will be stopped. You won't try to defend yourself
anymore. You'll take sides with God against
yourself. That takes a work of grace. Adam's now afraid. He never felt
fear before, but now he does. God said, Adam, where are you?
Look at verse 10 here in chapter 3. And he, Adam, said, I heard
thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked,
and I hid myself. Adam is now afraid of judgment.
Adam is now afraid of death. Adam is now afraid of God. Adam
now fears because of sin. And sin not only made Adam ashamed,
sin made Adam guilty, and sin made him afraid, and sin made
him a fool. Adam was brilliant, as I said.
He named every animal. God brought all the animals,
all the species of birds that God created, and Adam named each
and every one of them. Brilliant man. He was created
in the image of God. God gave him a brilliant mind.
But now sin has made him a fool. You see, only a fool would try
to hide from God. You can't hide from God. Only
a fool would do such a thing. Are you hiding from God? Are
you guilty and ashamed of your sin? Has sin made you a fool? It sure did me. And I acted that
way a long time, for a long time. And some would say, still act
that way. And I do. Not proud of it. Sinful men and
women do foolish, sinful things. Sinful men and women say foolish
and sinful things. You know why? Because sin makes
them fools. The world, by wisdom, their wisdom,
the world's wisdom, knew not God. What did the apostle say
about the preaching of the true gospel? He said that it pleased
the Lord by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
And sinful men and women think preaching is foolish. The sinful
world thinks preaching is foolish. The natural man thinks preaching
is foolish. That's why it's called the foolishness
of preaching, because the world thinks it's foolish. But the
child of God don't. No sir, that's our source of
life. God had chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise. What we're doing this morning
confounds the wise of this world. They don't understand it. Because
the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God.
They're foolishness to him. God has chosen the weak things
of the world to confound the wise and confound the mighty. And God has made foolish the
wisdom of this world. Why did God do that? He tells
us, so that no flesh should glory in His presence. Men are not
going to be able to glory in what they've done, because they've
done nothing but sin. Sin made Adam to hate. You ever
think about that? God came to Adam and asked, who
told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the fruit that
I told you not to eat of? And you know what Adam said?
He looked over at Eve, and he said, it's all her fault. It's
all her fault. The woman whom thou gavest to
be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. If it hadn't
been for her, I wouldn't have even touched it. You gave her
to me, so God, really, it's your fault. Eve did the same thing. She blamed it on the serpent.
Basically, what she said was, if you hadn't let that wretched
serpent be in here in the garden to talk to me, this would have
never happened. So really, God, it's your fault. You see, sinners
play the blame game, don't they? It's everybody's fault but ours.
What happened in the garden? Adam died spiritually and we
died in him. And Adam became guilty and so
did we. And Adam became ashamed and so
are we. And Adam became afraid. Are you
afraid? Adam became a fool and so did
we, thinking that we can do something to save ourselves. How foolish
is that? And Adam began to hate. We hate
God without a cause. A carnal mind is what? Enmity
against God. The fleshly mind. That's what
a carnal mind is. Enmity against God. Hostile toward
God. What happened in the garden?
Man died to God. Though he lived 930 years. And friends, without Christ,
you and I are dead spiritually. Though we live in this flesh.
What happened on the cross? That's the next question, and
I must hurry. What happened on Mount Calvary?
That's where the old covenant of works made with Adam was destroyed. Oh, I'm telling you, this is
glorious. God in the first covenant had said, obey and live, and
Adam disobeyed and died. Didn't work out too good for
Adam. Didn't work out too good for us. Adam broke the covenant
and he put all of us under the curse of the broken law. And
it was then and there that God revealed a new covenant. It was
a covenant of grace and it was not made with man because man
had fell and man was dead. So who was this new covenant
made with? God entered into an agreement with His beloved Son. God the Son, the one that was
with Him, the one who was daily His delight. You know, you can't
enter into an agreement with someone that's dead. And we by
nature are dead in sin. God made this new covenant with
His Son. And His Son, Paul said, was a
surety of that better testament. In other words, Christ made sure
this new covenant. That's why He's our surety, because
this New Testament is all about what He did, and nothing about
what we've done. And as Adam is our representative
in the Old Covenant, Christ is our representative in the New
Covenant. In Adam all die, but in Christ, the second Adam, as
the Scripture calls Him, all that God chose and calls are
going to live. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse
47 says just that. The first Adam is of the earth,
earthly, and the second Adam is the Lord from heaven. And
as we have borne the image of the earthy, the first Adam, so
we shall bear the image of the second Adam. In Adam, we all
died. In Christ, we're all made alive.
This is the gospel. That's the good news for sinners.
Adam represented his people in the garden, and it destroyed
them. But Christ Jesus represents every
believer in his life, and in his obedience, and in his death,
and in his burial, and in his resurrection, and in his ascension,
and in his intercession. And He gives them life. For by
grace are you saved through faith, and that's not of yourselves.
What is it? It's a gift of God. Not by works, lest any man should
vote. God sees us all in two men. He either sees us in Adam
or He sees us in Christ. Which is your representative?
Of all God's people, God's elect, it will be said, as we have borne
the image of the earthly, meaning Adam, we shall bear the image
of the heavenly, the Lord Jesus Christ. Not everybody in the
world Not everybody that professes to love Him, but everybody that
does. Everybody that trusts Him. Why
did the Lord Jesus live on this earth in human flesh? Why did
He go to the cross of Calvary and die that terrible death in
which His body suffered like no man's ever suffered? Our Lord
was so badly beaten that the Scripture says that His visage,
His appearance, didn't even resemble that of a man. Why was all this
necessary? Christ must do what Adam didn't
do. He must keep the law. God must
be honored. God is holy and His justice requires
it. So Christ did for His people
what God required of Adam and what God required of you and
I. He was born under the law as a man. Christ never sinned. He was tempted. He was tested.
He was tried in all points, yet without sin. God put His people's
sin on Christ and the Lord Jesus paid the wages of sin. Isn't
that what we sung a minute ago? Jesus paid it all, every bit,
every sin of all the elect throughout all time. And God being satisfied
with Christ's payment, God then imputed, God charged His perfect
righteousness to His elect in return. And God's now satisfied
with all God's people. Why was this substitution of
Christ necessary? To save His people from their
sin. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sin. How could one
man die for so many? Because of who He is. He's God. He's God in human flesh. And
God loves His people so much that He died for them. For God
so loved the world that He gave. Everybody in the world? All His
elect in the world. It's Christ that died, yea rather
that is risen again, who's even at the right hand of God, who
maketh intercession for us. That's what happened on the cross.
Christ honored God's law. Christ satisfied God's justice,
enabling God, if I may use that language, to be just and to justify
ungodly sinners like you and me. That's the gospel. I did the sinning, God did the
saving. Now which do you want to talk
about? What happens to a sinner when God saves them? Well, it's
more than becoming a better you. Religion makes men and women
Pharisees. It makes them holier than thou.
They're compared to white sepulchers in the Scriptures. Ornate and
decorative tombs that appear beautiful on the outside, but
on the inside are full of rottenness and corruption and decaying things. Dead man's bones. But in Christ
God creates in us life. Life eternal. This is life eternal
that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
that He sent. This is my 35 minutes up. I can
now talk with God. And I can walk with God. In Christ
we can now come boldly into the throne of grace. That we may
obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of what? Need. Need. Do you have need? Remember
those that have no need, need not a physician. Jesus Christ
is the great physician. Do you need Him? Are you a sinner? Oh, if you are, I've got good
news for you. Christ came into the world to
save sinners. Oh, may God enable you to trust
in Him alone.