You're on. Well, I'm not a visiting speaker
anymore. And I do pray the Lord give us
a spiritually profitable time together here. And that Christ's
name, His person will be lifted up every time we gather together. and God will instruct us, teach
us, and one of my sincere prayers is that you and I would grow
in grace and in knowledge of Him. We have no idea how much
trouble that keeps down. When we grow in grace and in
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, when we draw close to Him, And
He becomes the sole purpose of our existence. And we become,
and I mean this, obsessed. I want to be obsessed with Jesus
Christ. I think that's what true worship
is. Is when you are obsessed with
someone or something. And when we become obsessed with
Jesus Christ, His glory, we become jealous Jealous of his name,
you know somebody gonna talk about my wife. You're gonna be
in trouble You're gonna be in trouble Somebody talks about
my lord. I Don't want to just stand there
and just let it go. I won't be jealous You know the
scripture says, you know, one of the names of God and you rarely
ever hear this but one of the names of God is this jealous
He said, my name is jealous. He's jealous over his people
and over his glory. And I pray that he gives us a
real prosperous time here spiritually and brings some of the sheep
that are still out there. I think the evidence that the
gospel is here is he still has sheep here and he still has some
sheep out there that must yet come in. Turn now in Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3. And let me
say this and if I don't forget I'll say it in the next service.
This Wednesday you continue to do what you're doing this Wednesday.
The next week, next week, week after, I guess, this coming.
We are going to meet on Thursday at 7 o'clock. Because I'm going
to go home after the service like this. I'm going to spend
two days at the house getting the place cleaned up and ready
to sell it. Vicki tore the kitchen up not
knowing we was going to do this. Now I got to put it back together.
So we got some things to do there and some cleaning and things
that need to be done over here at the parsonage. So we'll meet
together on Thursday night at 7. Let everybody know that. And then I'll be here. I'm going
to drive down here. I'll be here on Wednesday evening. And then
we'll meet Thursday. And then I'll be here through
until Sunday. And then hopefully that won't have to be a drawn
out process. But we'll do what the Lord does. Now what I want us to look at
in the Bible class this morning and for a while is Christ in
the Old Testament. I want us to look at Christ in
the Old Testament. You know, when our Lord came
into this world, He didn't sneak up on His people. He didn't sneak
up on Israel. They had all the types, all the
pictures, all those prophets spoke of Him. He said, you read
Moses and the prophets, they spoke of Me. Isaiah 53, that's
the gospel of the Old Testament, Isaiah 53, the gospel of substitution. And so I want us to seek in the
Bible classes for a while, Christ in the Old Testament. So I'm
going to read the first 15 verses of Genesis chapter 3. This is
where we are going to start. And then we'll pray and then
we'll look at some verses here. 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, 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, But of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it,
lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the
woman, Ye shall not surely die. 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. 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. And the eyes of them both
were opened, and they knew that they were naked. They sewed fig
leaves together and made themselves aprons. 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
God amongst the trees of the garden." How sad is that? They went from communion with
God to hiding from God. How fallen. is this human race. 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 wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof
thy commanded thee, that thou shouldest not eat? And the man
said, The woman. Here comes the blame game. Here
comes the blame game. You know, when God grants true
repentance, we quit doing that. David said, against thee and
thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. We quit
blaming everything. We don't blame society. We don't
blame the environment. We don't blame genetics. We don't
blame parents. We don't blame... Right here. Right here. But Adam said, the
woman, the one that he loved so much that God gave him, he
threw her under the bus. That's exactly what he did. He
threw her under the bus. The woman whom God gave us 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. Beguile me, I did he, it's his
fault. And the Lord God said to the servant, 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 thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I'll 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. Amidst all of this, God sends
them out of the garden, but he sends them out with a promise
of a Savior. So the title of the message is
this, the seed of the woman with a promise of a Savior. Let us
pray. Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Our Father, We bow before your
presence this morning, praying that you would bless us, that
you would bless the ministry here, and that you would make
me a blessing to these people, and that you would make your
word a blessing, that you would enable us to grow in grace and
in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Enable us, Father, enable
us to love thee more. For in loving thee more, we will
love one another more. Thank you for your mercies. They
are too numerable to reckon up in order. Help us to worship. Our Father, our number one desire
this morning is to worship you in spirit and in truth. In Christ's
name we pray, and amen. Now to understand, to understand
redemption, we must understand what happened in the garden. We have to understand what happened
in the garden. If we go wrong here, we go wrong
on the rest of it. You cannot go wrong here and
get any of it right. It can't happen. Today's gospel
has missed the truth of what happened in the fall. When Adam
died, when he fell, and when he died, we died in him. And
I don't know what is so hard to understand about dead. Dead is dead. If you receive
a phone call this morning and they tell you so-and-so is dead,
you're going to understand what that means, don't you? There
are no degrees. We need to understand this. There
are no degrees of dead. There are no degrees of dead.
Someone may call and say, you need to come to the hospital,
so-and-so is barely alive, they don't think he's going to make
it, and you rush to the hospital. But if they call you and say
he's dead, you're not going to say, how dead is he? Dead is
dead. And when Adam fell in the garden,
he spiritually died, and we died in him, and we are spiritually,
by nature, all the human race, is absolutely dead to God. Now just because you and I can
communicate with each other does not mean I can communicate with
God. That's a different, God is Spirit. And we by nature are
flesh. That's why the Lord said you
must be born again. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit
is Spirit. It's not until a man or a woman
is born of God that God can even instruct you or teach you. You
have nothing to put it in. This glass right here is holding
water. Without this glass, what are
you going to put it in? Without a new birth, without being born
of God, there's nothing to put it in. There's no reason to be
instructed. You can't try to teach a dead
person. They'll lock you up. They'll
put you in a straitjacket seeing you standing there trying to
teach a dead person something. And when I preach the gospel, I stand
here and preach the gospel, a lost sinner comes into this room.
I'm not trying to convince that man to do something. I'm just
declaring the truth. And God's going to do something
with it. God's going to do something with it. So we have to understand
what happened in the fall. But we can't understand any of
the rest of it. That's how you get this, God
wants to do something for you if you'll let Him. That's where
that starts. Because they don't understand what happened in the
garden. They don't understand it. Now the first thing we need
to recognize this, and I'm not going to read all of this, but
Genesis 1 through 2, And you'll see that creation, God created,
He started creating. In the beginning God, then He
commands light, and then all this creation starts to happen.
And it says in chapter 1 of verse 31, that everything, let's go
back here to chapter 1 of verse 31. And God saw everything that
He had made, and behold, It was very good. And the evening and
the morning were the sixth day. Everything God created was perfect. No sin in it. There was absolutely
no sin. There was no flaw in creation.
It was very good. When God created Adam, He created
him innocent. He created him in righteousness.
There was no flaw in the creation of Adam. None whatsoever. The scripture says, God cannot
be tempted with sin, neither tempted He any man with sin. God has never tempted any man
to sin. You see that in the book of James, but that's another
message. And then we'll see here in chapter 2, look at verse 8. And the Lord God planted a garden
eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.
Now look over in verse 15. And the Lord God took the man,
He took Adam, put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and
to keep it. He put him over it. He gave him
dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air,
over everything. Here's what God did. He made
Adam king. Had Adam not fallen, had he not
fallen, he'd still be the king on this earth. He'd still be
the king overall. But you and I know, we know who
the king is. We know who the real king is.
We know that Adam was nothing more than a type in that sense
because Christ is the real king. He's the real king. But here's
the point. In Adam, in Adam the whole human
race existed. Every person in this world, every
person, every race Every tribe, kindred, and tongue, every one
of them can trace their genealogy back to Adam. Back to Adam and
Eve, right there. God made him the federal head
of the human race. That's why when Eve fell, not
when Eve took of the fruit and ate, we didn't fall then. The
fall didn't happen until Adam took it. Because we were standing
in Adam. And when Adam took the fruit,
and when Adam ate, that's when the whole human race fell. That's
when Adam died and every one of his children, born from him
and Eve, are born spiritually dead. But he stood as the federal
head of the human race. Look over in Romans chapter 6. In Romans chapter 6. Let's go to verse... Romans 6 verse 19. No, I've got
the wrong one written down. Let me see if it's... Hold on
a second. Let me find it. Romans 5. Romans 5, 19. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, and that's the many he represented." That's
what it's talking about. Many were made sinners. That's
the many he represented. And he represented the whole
human race. God made him the federal head of the human race.
Now there are some who are going to say, I don't agree with that. Well, first of all, it doesn't
matter if you do or not. It doesn't matter if I agree with it. You
and I can disagree with the Word of God all day. It ain't gonna
change it. It is what it is. But listen, I fell in Adam by
no, listen, by nothing that I did. But I'm also now, listen, let's
go ahead and read the rest of that. So by the obedience of
one shall many be made righteous. I'm made righteous by nothing
that I can do or have done or ever will do. I am made righteous
by another. I was made sinful by another.
I am made righteous by another. I fell in Adam. In Christ I'm raised and given
life. Now that's good news. That's
good news. If you understand the gospel,
that's good news. And then we have here, back here, go back
to Genesis. Genesis chapter 3. We have We
have the temptation of Satan. They're one through six as I
read to you. Satan is very real. He's very real. Don't ever mistake
that. He's very real. And he's very evil. He's all
that is evil. He cannot have a good thought.
That's amazing. He could not have a good thought.
He could not have a good intention. It is absolutely 100% impossible
for Him to do nothing but absolute pure evil. And then you and I
are no match for Him. We're no match for Him. He came
to Eve so subtly. He's so subtle that the Lord
said if it were possible, if it were possible, He would deceive
the very elect of God. Aren't you glad it's not possible?
It's not possible for you, for God to ever let you be completely
deceived. Now you and I might get twisted
up time or two. That might happen. Wish God would straighten that
out. And that'll be for our good. That'll actually be for our good.
Because everything God lets happen to us is for our good. Everything
He brings our way is for our good. It's for our good. Even though we can't see it,
most of it we'll never see in this life. When we stand in His
presence, we'll go, I see. I understand. I understand why I went through
that. I understand now why the Lord
did this. I understand. But he came to Eve, and he was
so subtle, and he took the Word of God. Listen, he took the Word
of God, quoted it, and twisted it. You know, all you have to
do to take the truth and turn it into a lie. It just put just
a little twist on it and then it's not the truth no more. If
something is true, if it's really true, if it's the truth, it's
pure. It's pure. But you put just a
little twist on it and it's no more truth, it's a lie. And that's
exactly what he did. And he put a question mark He
put a question mark, and this is dangerous. He put a question mark on the
Word of God, on the Word of God. When you read the scriptures,
You read the flood. Mike was talking about how sandy
it was down here. Mike said, probably a few thousand
years ago this flooded over here. He said, it's probably underwater.
I said, well I know it was in the days of Noah. I know in the
days of Noah this place was underwater. I believe that. I believe that. I believe that whales swallowed
Jonah. Donny Bell said, if the Bible
said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I'd believe it. That's so. If God said it, it's
so. It's so. And here, Satan is so subtle,
he takes the Word of God and he puts a twist on it. And she
doesn't catch it. And then she brings it to Adam.
Adam, now listen, Adam, the scripture says Eve was not deceived, I
mean Eve was deceived, it says Eve was deceived but not Adam.
Adam knew exactly what he was doing. I believe, I do, I believe this,
I believe Adam, when he looked at Eve, he realized what she
did. Adam loved the creature more than he loved God. I think
that happened. I think that's involved in it.
I think when he looked at his wife, he, beautiful, God made
her. God, she was tailor made for
him. Take her DNA, she came from Adam. She came from him. And God brought
her to Adam as his wife. He loved her. I mean, The love
was perfect. I can't imagine it. No arguments,
no fussing, not until the fall happened. Then it was downhill. It was downhill from there. This
ain't as subtle. He put a twist on God's Word.
She ate. She looked. She saw. She took.
Adam just, I have no doubt, loved her and he rebelled against God.
God said, Adam, don't eat of the tree. And I have no doubt
that Adam told Eve, being the head, God made him the head,
Adam told Eve what God said. And then the fall happened. and
all this mess that you and I see every day. And all this mess
that you and I see in us. I mean, I'm a mess. I'll be the
first one to tell you. I'm a mess. I'm a lot more of
a mess than I think I am. The problem is, I've learned
this, the problem, my biggest problem is nobody thinks better
of me than me. And that's one of my greatest problems. I stand
here saying I'm a mess, and then I have a problem thinking highly
of myself. Oh, what a mess. What a mess
we are. But then Adam, he takes it, and
then the fall happens. He knew what he was doing. He
knew what he was doing. And God comes in on the scene.
God comes into the garden. I know you've probably caught
this before. This act of rebellion. Do you know how this one act
of rebellion is all the rebellion we have in the world? All of
it. And God, it says, the voice of
God, he heard the voice of God walking in the garden. Not thunder, not lightning, not
threatenings. There's a great calm in there.
Has it ever just stood out to you of the great calmness that
went on there after the fall? And you know when some disaster
happens at my house, it's not too calm. I'm like, what in the
world happened here? And I get upset, but here's the
great calm. And you know why? I know you
know why. Because this matter had already
been taken care of. That's why Jesus Christ is called
the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. All of this that
happened was under the purpose of God Almighty to bring us to
Christ, the second Adam. To establish the true King, the
true King. Who is this King, they said?
Who is this King over in Psalm 24? He's the Lord of Hosts. the king of glory. Adam was a
king of a creation. God made him king of a creation.
Jesus Christ is king of glory. And that's yet for you and I
to look at, to see. We can't comprehend that with
these little minds we've got right here. Can't do that. We
can't comprehend heaven, can we? You know, even Hollywood.
Hollywood Hollywood can make great scary stories. They can
make horror movies. You let them make one of heaven.
Let's choose somebody floating on a cloud or something. That's
about all the human mind can grasp. But boy, they can sure
make some horror movies. Some evil movies. But they can't
even grasp what heaven must be. What such glory. Such glory. You know what the glory of heaven
is? God Himself. And that's why they can't grasp
it. Jesus Christ, who is God in human flesh, is glory. He's our glory. Now let's look here. God gives
this promise in verse 15. Let me do this and wind it up.
I can keep going on this one. After God called them all out,
He called everybody out. If God's gonna save you, I promise
you, He's gonna call you out. He's gonna call you out of darkness
into light. And you and I will have to confess
who we are, what we are, and our need of Christ. We'll recognize
thence when we recognize our need of Christ. But God's gonna
send them out of the garden, but He's gonna send them out
of the garden with a promise. With a promise. Satan And this is how, you know, sin
just dumbs us down, doesn't it? It just dumbs us down. Because
Satan, for 6,000 years or more, has been trying to bring down
God, His people, His glory. And you would think, after a
while, you'd learn that ain't gonna happen. But this is how
dumb sin makes us. We keep trying. We can't get
that at one angle, we'll try another angle. That's how sin,
that's what sin does to us. That's what it does to us. And
Satan, no doubt, no doubt, when Adam fell, he's like, I got him,
like he said about Job, you give me Job, give me Job, I'll bring
him down, I'll bring him down just like I did Adam. And he
knew no sin at that time. Just give me a shot at it. I'll
take him. Have no idea of the purpose of
God in Christ. No idea. But God says, I'm going
to put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed. And that's the first time I'd
ever jumped out of me. I tell Mike coming down here, I said,
it's the first time in all these years I've been reading this,
and it jumped out of me. I'm going to put enmity between
thee and the woman and between thy seed, your seed, Satan, and
her seed, which is Christ, and which is you and I in Christ,
if we believe God. It shall bruise thy head. Now
what does that mean? He's saying this, Satan, or Christ,
the seed of the woman, is going to crush your power. He's going to destroy you. You're
going to bruise His heel, but He's going to crush you. And He's going to do it, now
listen, He's going to do it as a man. has a man." Yeah, you brought the first man
down, but you ain't bringing this man down. There is a man,
a real man, seated in glory at God's right hand, ruling and
reigning over all things that the first Adam lost. Well, the
first Adam only had dominion on this earth. This one, the
second Adam, which is the Lord from heaven, reigns over all. All principalities, all powers
are made subject to Him. Every fly, every gnat. He proved
that to Egypt, didn't He? He proved that to Pharaoh. He
used the frogs. He used the flies. He used everything
that serves God. Everything serves God. And our Lord, the man Christ
Jesus, the second Adam, is ruling and reigning over all things. The seed of the woman. You came
at the woman, and you're going to pay for it. You're going to
pay for it. And I want you to look in one
more verse. Well, first of all, let me say this about verse 15.
He gives us And you and I should rejoice
this morning. He gives us, in verse 15, assured victory. The battle, listen to me, the
battle is over. The battle is over. He won. He's
the victor. He's the king. He's seated in
glory. He's ruling. He won the battle. The battle is over. That's why
we stand here preaching, we who preach, We preach as ambassadors,
be ye reconciled to God. The battle's over. He's won it.
Lay down your shotgun. Lay it down. Be ye, he says,
reconciled to God. Satan can't do that. Think about
it. Satan can't be reconciled. There
is no reconciliation for him. All the angels that followed
him, they said one-third of the heavenly hosts followed him.
They have no Savior. Zero. And to think, we have a
Savior. We have a King. We have forgiveness. And we are going to be seated
with Him one day in glory and rejoice and worship without sin. Without sin. Without what happened
back here in the garden. That's all going to be wiped
away. All going to be gone. And the first blood to shed,
the first blood that was shed, we have a real beautiful picture
and type here, verse 21. And unto Adam also and to his
wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them. The first blood that was shed,
God shed it. God killed. And I had no doubt
it was probably a sheep or lamb. God killed, shed his blood, and
took his skin and clothed the nakedness of Adam and Eve. Now
what is obvious about that? What's the picture there? Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb
of God, the Lamb of God. worked out a perfect righteousness
for us. We are robed in the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. And His blood, His blood, who
knew no sin, who knew no sin, was shed to put away my sin. My sin, the Lamb of God. Well, there's the first picture
of redemption. And for us to understand, us to really understand the gospel,
for us to understand the story of redemption, we have to understand
what happened back there in the garden. If we go wrong there,
it's like if you take a wrong road going somewhere, you're
not going to get where you're going. I tell you you're not. One time
I was driving back from Maurice Montgomery's. He lived in Madisonville. And I was taking the, I think
it's that Western Kentucky Parkway, I think it's back toward home. Well somehow, somehow I got on
the wrong, got off on the wrong exit and Greenbow was completely
south that way. I'm going this way. It went that
way. And I got down there and I was driving at night. I mean
it was probably about midnight. I'm driving and I see a sign
that says, it says, What's that? What's that? It's not Greenbow. Greenbow's
a licket. Who is it? No, anyway. We'll call it Greenbow.
I'll catch it. I'll figure it out sooner or
later. But anyway, I saw that sign and I was so mad because
I was like two hours completely the opposite direction of where
I was going. And I was mad all the way home.
Every time you, it's like this, you know, when you miss a turn,
every time you get to a point, you say, I could have been up
there. I could have been two exits up, or you know what I'm
saying. It makes you, you're mad all the way. I was mad up,
bowling green, that was it, bowling green. I told you we'd get it,
that's why I brought him. But I saw the sign that said
Bowling Green. Well, Bowling Green is totally
opposite of where I was going. It made me so mad, I was mad
all the way home. Hell is full of people that's
mad because they thought they were saved and they missed it. It's written in the book of Job,
they were confounded Because they had hoped. They hoped to
be saved. Thought I was saved. I did what
the preacher said. I did what I was supposed to
do. You said repeat this prayer. You said accept Jesus as your
personal Savior. And they wind up mad. Scripture
says they'll be weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth. Mad. Didn't expect that. It's like
I didn't expect to see Bowling Green. Christ is the way, the
truth, and the life. Any other way is the wrong way.
Alright.