Genesis one. Like we just said in the Bible study, this is our first Sunday of the new year. And as I was thinking on what the Lord would have me to bring for this beginning of the year. This thought came into my mind. Why don't we start at the beginning? Why don't we begin the year by looking at where this whole thing began? Where creation began, where the law began, where sin began, where the gospel began.

A man made the statement one time, he said, wrong on the fall, wrong on it all. And that's so true. It is so true. Wrong on the fall. If we're wrong on what happened in the beginning, we will be wrong on it all. We'll be wrong on what happens in the end. Wrong on the fall, wrong on it all.

So let's see if the Lord will give us a right mind on a foundational truth to begin this year with. If you look here at Genesis 1, verse 1 says, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. God created the heaven and the earth. And the verses here go on to say, you can read them on your own sometime. You can just read all these remaining verses. It says, God created everything in the heaven and everything in the earth.

Now look at verse 26. And God said, Let us make man in our image. God is Father, Son, and Spirit. Three persons. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, created he him, male and female, created he them. God created man.

Verse 29, and God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth. And every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air and to everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat. And it was so.

Now look with me at chapter two, verse eight. 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, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God created every tree that exists, but he singled out two of them, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Verse 16, and the Lord God 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.

He said you can eat from every tree here, including the tree of life. But do not touch, do not partake of, do not eat from, and try to live from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In the day that you do, you'll die. So God established creation, and then God established his commandment right then and there, and this was God's commandment. Do not eat from. And what that ultimately means is do not try to receive nourishment from. This is why, why do you eat? What's the purpose of eating? Do not try to receive nourishment from. Do not try to receive satisfaction from and fulfillment from. the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and everything will be fine. I have given to you, I have provided for you everything that you need freely. Take, eat freely, live, just live. freely as long as you don't try to touch the knowledge of good and evil. In the day that you try to make the source of your life the knowledge of good and evil, all of my goodness and free gift to you will be taken away and you'll die. Now, what is the knowledge of good and evil? It's the law. It's the law. That is the knowledge of good and evil. The law is the established knowledge of what is good and what is evil. Turn with me over to Exodus chapter 20. Exodus 20, here are the 10 commandments. Now there are thousands of commandments in this book. Here are just 10 of them. Verse one, and God spake all these words saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, thou shalt have no other gods before me. He said, do not have any other gods before me. That would be evil. Verse four, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. That means a man-made, man-formed image. or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in water under the earth. It's a made image specifically to represent religion, or God, or Christianity, or worship. Anything like that. Verse five, thou shalt not bow down thyself to them. nor serve them, that means reverence them, idolize them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. So he said, do not make a religious symbol of anything in heaven or on the earth or in the water. Here are examples. It would be pictures or carvings of the Lord What would be God? People like to make images of this man, Jesus. No one knows what he looks like. But he said, don't even make an image. Don't even try to show what he would look like. Angels, you know, doves. There's nothing wrong with a dove, but if you're going to turn it into a religious thing, just don't do it. Crosses, that's heaven. On earth, you have crosses. In the water, you have fish. Anything that would be a religious symbol. He said, don't do it. That would be evil. Verse seven, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Just saying his name in an empty way, he said, that's evil. Verse eight, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. He said, that's good. Verse nine, six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Now I don't have time to go into this because this is not our message today. But I do just want to add a side note that Christ is the fulfillment of all of this. And our Sabbath is not a day. You know, you read that and think, well, am I supposed to just sit at home on Saturday? We don't rest on a day, we rest on a person. We rest on a person. Christ is our continual Sabbath. And I just need to point that out because it's important. But according to his law, he said, that's good. All right, verse 12, honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. That's good. Verse 13, thou shalt not kill. That's evil. Verse 14, thou shalt not commit adultery. That's evil. Verse 15, thou shalt not steal. That's evil. Verse 16, thou shalt not bear false witness, lie against thy neighbor. That's evil. Verse 17, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not cover thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor. That's evil. We just experienced the knowledge of good and evil. And our God told Adam and he told every soul that has come from Adam, he said, your life will be sustained by my free provision to you. But in the day that you try to add the knowledge of good and evil to my free gift, my grace, you're going to lose it all. These two trees that our Lord singled out, they are his declaration of law and grace. Man's obligation to works or God's free gift of grace. The Lord God said there's only one way of life. There's only one way of life, and it's by my free gift to you. Live on that, and you'll be fine. But here's what happened, all right? That's what God said, but this is what happened. The lie of false religion came. Gabe, why are you always talking about false religion? That's where the whole thing started. That's where free will started. One angel up in glory rounded up third of them and said, let's do something called free will. God cast him out like a bolt of lightning to this earth. And this is where it continues. The lie of false religion came, and this is what happened. It deceived, it confused, and it ruined everything. Everything. Now, that's where men and women are naturally right now. And I'm talking about in religion. This is where men, this is how men and women are born into this world. And this is where men and women stay in their good law abiding, you know, lives that they live, good family oriented lives in these nice little small towns. And this is where they stay until God does something for them. Men and women right now are naturally deceived, confused, and ruined until Christ is right here in Christ alone. This is where everybody is deceived, confused, and ruined. All right, now turn with me to Genesis chapter 3. Verse 1, it says, 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, 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 again, to dig into what that ultimately means, God said don't try to live by it. Don't even try to be tempted by it. Don't touch it, leave it alone. Leave it alone. It's not your life. It's not your way of life. But listen right here to the The great false prophet, the false preacher, okay, as he brought in the message of false religion. This is the message of false religion. Whenever you hear a man telling you this, you're listening to false religions, false message from its false preacher. Verse four, and the serpent said unto the woman, you shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God's, knowing good and evil. He said, oh no, this is not the way of death. God said you're gonna die. No, this is not the way of death. This is what will actually open your eyes. This is what will cause you to say, I once was blind, but now I see. This is the way to be like God. You want to be like God, don't you? Well, if so, you have to lay hold of the law. Now, you can still have the tree of life. You're just going to have to add the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to it.

Verse six, and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, the law is good. It's good. 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. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves apron. They saw their sin. And from that moment on, they went to work trying to cover their sin.

And I want us to take notice of this. A brother just a minute ago in the hallway between these two services, he said, it's amazing how fresh that same old message can be. And I said, yeah, that's right. And then he said, it's amazing how enlightening that same old message can be. And I said, that's exactly right. That's what I feel has happened to me in this message. I want you to really listen to these next few statements here, okay? See if this doesn't really open your eyes and help you.

Grace turns our eyes to Christ. Law turns our eyes to us. When our eyes are on Christ, there is no worry, there's no conviction, there's no bondage of sin, because in Him is no sin. When we're looking at Him, we're looking at no sin. And when our eyes are on us, all that we see is sin. And we can't get away from the worry. You want to worry? You want to feel bondage and conviction? Look to yourself. Compare yourself to that law. When our eyes are on us, we can't get away from the worry or the conviction or the bondage of sin because sin is all that we are. Oh, I'm gonna try to make a little bit less sin here. Not a possibility. Sin is all that we are. It's all that we are. Verse seven says, the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves apron. Now listen to this. They were naked before they ever laid hold of the law. They did not become naked. They didn't lay hold of it and then all of a sudden they lost their clothes. They were already naked. But they were not condemned. In the grace of Christ, there was no condemnation. There was no condemnation. They already didn't have a covering of their own. They tried to sew these fig leaves together, which the fig tree represents man's words. Tried to make a covering. They already didn't have a covering of their own. They never had a covering of their own. In the grace of Christ, there was no condemnation, but in the law of God's demands, all there was was condemnation. That's all there is, is condemnation.

Verse 8, and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden. Now listen to this. I don't mean to tell you, you know, like I've got it and let me enlighten all of you. All I'm saying is the Lord has enlightened me. Rejoice with me in this. The law does not bring men to God. You talk about a... See if you can chew on that, see if you can get a hold of that. The law does not bring us to God. The law actually drives us away from God because we can't keep it. Now if we could keep it, it'd be a different story. The grace of Christ is the only thing that can bring us to God. And the law is just the schoolmaster that teaches us that. That's all that the law is. People think, I want to go to God, I want to get to God, therefore I'm going to start doing this right here. The law does not bring us to God. Oh, I wish men and women knew. I hope more people know this in 2026 than knew this in 2025. The law didn't bring us to God. The grace of Christ is the only thing that can bring us to God, and the law is just the schoolmaster that teaches us that. Verse 9 says, And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, who told thee that thou was naked? The law did. 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 me of the tree and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, what is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And 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. What is that talking about? The cross, talking about the cross. He said, because the adversary introduced the lie of salvation by the works of the law. And because man was deceived by that lie and believed that lie and fell from grace into his own sinful works, he said the only thing that will remedy this is the cross of Christ. That's the only thing. It's gonna take the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ for his people to reinstate them back into God's grace. Verse 16. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life, Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them. Our Lord showed them the consequence for their sin against him in trying to lay hold of the law. All right, let me just Let me give you my light bulb here, okay? I had my light bulb turned on a couple of times. The laying hold of the law was the sin. People think they're sinning against God by not laying hold of the law. You're sinning against God. Well, that's true. Transgression of the law is sin. But in Christ, the law is laid hold of all that it needs to be laid hold of. And for man to come behind Christ or beside Christ and say, I think I need to lay hold of it too, is the sin of unbelief. God said, I've taken care of this law. And man comes behind him and says, I don't believe that.

The laying hold of the law was the sin. It was the very sin of unbelief that brought death and it's still doing it right now. It's still doing it right now. It was the very sin that required the death of Christ our substitute to deliver us from the fall. An innocent lamb was slain. The wages of sin is death. And without the shedding of blood, there was no remission from that sin. So an innocent lamb had to be slain. And then the very innocence of that lamb was laid on those two sinners to cover them and to give them a new sinlessness to stand in. And that's exactly what Christ the Lamb of God did for God's elect people on the cross of Calvary. His blood was shed and given to God to pay their sin debt. And his righteousness was taken and given to his people in order to make them acceptable again to stand in God's presence. And all of that happened. All of that had to happen because man laid hold of the law.

The law is not the remedy. Christ is the remedy. Our works are not what draws us not to God. The blood of Christ is what draws us not to God. His mercy and His grace in what He has provided. That's not only all we need, that's all God will accept. That's all that He will accept. When Christ said, I am the life, what He was saying is, lay hold of me. When he said, I am the bread, what he was saying was, eat of my flesh, drink of my blood, and do not add one work or one knowledge or one good or one evil of your own. Salvation is by God's grace alone. Salvation is by God's grace and not man's works. And trying to add man's obedience in the law to God's grace, not only is that a bad idea, That's eternal death. That is eternal death. It's a certain casting out, a certain casting away from God's presence.

We cannot touch God's holy law at all. If we believe that he will be pleased with our obedience to his law, we're deceiving ourselves in thinking we're equal to God and we have the ability to accomplish the holy perfection that only God can accomplish. When we add our own hand to God's holy perfection, it's certain death with us because we can only touch it with sinful hands.

I'm not going to go into the story, but I was going to tell you about a man named Uzzah. You ever heard of a man named Uzzah? These kids in the little classes need to learn about Uzzah. He was a man who was carrying the Ark of the Covenant, driving an ox. He was pulling it on a cart. God's holy Ark of the Covenant on top was the mercy seat. In it was the manna and the staff and the law. God with his people, he said, I'll meet you right there. And they were carrying this cart. This ox was pulling a cart with the Ark of the Covenant. And the ox stumbled. And Uzzah thought the cart was going to fall. And so he put his hand on the ark to stabilize it. And boom, killed him.

I thought he was doing good. He did too. But God is holy. God is holy and we cannot touch his law with sinful hands. God will not, it cannot have anything to do with man's sinful hands. The law can only be touched with holy hands. Therefore, Christ is the only one who can touch it. He's the only one.

Now verse 22, I'll be done. It says, The Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil. And now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. What he's saying in this is, lest man defile our holiness. in thinking that by adding his own hand and his own works and his own deeds, he can lay hold of eternal life.

Verse 23, therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. What that means is, is Christ alone. That's what it means. Christ is all. And Christ must do it all by himself.

Let me just leave you with this. We do not look to His death and our obedience. We don't do that. We look to His death and His obedience. His death and His obedience. Romans 10 says Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. Philippians 3 says we have no confidence in our flesh at all. 2 Timothy 1, it says, who hath saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our words, according to his own purpose and grace. 1 Peter 1 says, we were redeemed, not with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ only.

This is what it all boils down to. Christ is the way, Christ is the truth, Christ is the life. No man comes to the Father but by Him. Amen.