I want to ask three questions
this morning, three questions that we need to answer correctly
from the Scriptures. If we can have a good understanding
of these answers, we might know something about what the Scriptures
is talking about. The first question is, what happened
in the Garden of Eden? If you'll turn to Genesis chapter
2, we'll see the answer to this question. What happened in the
Garden of Eden? What really happened in the beginning
of the human race? The answer will reveal why things
are the way they are now. I'm reading Genesis chapter 2,
verses 15 through 17. And the Lord God took the man
and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep
it. 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." Now you know the
story of creation, how that God made man, male and female, in
the image of God, rational, reasonable creature with the life of God,
that is, a spirit which animals did not have. Man was a moral
creature. Man was fashioned by God after
God, holy, righteous, just, lovely, a reasonable, rational being. Now, at this point, man had a
free will, able to think and make rational decisions from
a good and holy heart. Now, God was and is God, that
is, absolute ruler. And man, being his creature,
is subject to God, his servant. And God gave man everything but
one thing, one tree which represented God's right to be God, God's
sovereign right to give or withhold, to order man. to set the rules. And God warned man, in verse
17 we read, the day you eat or the day you disobey, thou shalt
surely die. What that says is, dying you
shall die. You will be dead and dying. You will be dying two ways, spiritually
and physically. Chapter 3 of Genesis, verse 1. It reads this way, "'Now the
serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which
the Lord God had made.'" We're talking here about Satan. And
this subtle serpent, he sows the seed of sin here. It says, it reads, "'And the
serpent said unto the woman, Yea, half God said, You shall
not eat of every tree of the garden. The first thing Satan
does to sow the seed of sin is to put a question on God's Word. He's still doing it today in
the hearts and minds of men and women, questioning whether this
is even God's Word or not, any of it. Verses 2 and 3, the woman
said unto the serpent, Well, we may eat of the fruit of the
tree 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." First of all,
the woman should not have been dealing with the serpent without
her husband. And then she began interpreting
God's word instead of quoting what he said verbatim. Is this
important? It sure is. You can change the
whole meaning with one little addition or subtraction. Now
again, this is going on today. Men and women think God's Word
is up for interpretation, up to everyone's interpretation,
they said. Well, read on. Verse 4, A serpent
said unto the woman, You shall not surely die. Now, first, after
casting doubt in her mind upon God's Word, now he completely
denies what God's Word says. You shall not die. And this is
the great denial today, the satanic deception. God said, you'll die. Satan said, you won't die. Man's not dead. No, there's a
spark of life. He has a will. He has faith. We just have to drum it up. Well,
verse 5, Satan continues to say, God doth know that in the day
you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and you'll be
as gods, knowing good and evil. Now he begins to sow out and
out lies. You'll know good and evil, when
in fact, disobeying, she'll know only one thing, evil, not good. He says to her, basically what
he's saying, you have a free will, and God knows that. You
have the right to choose. You need to exercise it. And
verse 6 says, When the woman saw the tree was good for food,
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. The lust of the eyes,
lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, the root of all sin,
the Apostle John says, and she took it, gave it her husband,
and what happened? They died. They died spiritually. Look at verse 7. It says that
eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were naked.
And they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. This wasn't
enlightenment to no good, but this was sin. Sin. They began to know sin. They
felt ashamed of their nakedness. Verse 8, they heard God walking
in the garden and they hid themselves. Now they felt fear. Verses 11
and 12, God spoke with them and said, Who told thee thou wast
naked? Have you eaten of the tree whereof
I have commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man
said, The woman you gave me, she gave it to me." Now Adam
begins to deny his sin. He begins to blame the woman.
Bitterness begins to set in. What is happening here? What
has happened to man, the holy, righteous, God-like creature?
Man has died in sin. He has lost the life of God. He's lost holiness. He's lost
obedience. He's lost righteousness. Sin
is now permeating his mind, his heart, controlling his will.
And from now on, everything he thinks, says, and does will be
influenced by this sin that is in his being. He is dead in trespasses
and sins. And all of his offspring from
this day forward will be born sinners. born in sin, as David
said, brought forth from the wounds, speaking lies." Well,
the Scripture says, "...but God, God who is rich in mercy." God
foresaw all of this. Yes, He even decreed it all,
and He foretold of the remedy for man's fall. Why did God decree
the fall of man? For his glory. We are going to
see that, his glory. Look at chapter 3, verse 15. God foretells the remedy for
the fall of man, for the death of man in sin. Chapter 3, verse
15, God speaking to the serpent says, I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed, the woman's
seed. It, the woman's seed, shall bruise
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. The remedy for man's
fault, life for dead man, is in the seed of woman, the offspring
of a woman, yea, a virgin-born man, born without semen, or that
is, without the nature of man in him. And Isaiah 9, verse 6,
prophesies of this. It says, "...unto us a child
is born, yes, the Son is given." The preexistent Son of God is
given. The government shall be upon
his shoulder. His name shall be called Wonderful
Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince
of Peace. This woman's seed is God's Son,
Jesus Christ, whom God sent to crush the serpent's head, break
the power of sin, give life to dead sinners by being bruised
by that serpent. This brings me to my next question.
So what happened on the cross? What happened on the cross when
Jesus Christ came to this earth and hung on the cross? Well,
God sent his Son to earth as a man, a perfect, holy man, the
life of God, holiness. He had a heart, a mind for God,
for his glory, his obedience to God, holy, unblameable, unreprovable. And Christ lived 33 years on
this earth as a man, a perfect life, according to God's holy
law. Why? To show us how to live? No. But
to give that perfect life to some that God had chosen, to
some whom God had elected to life. Now, wait a minute. Don't
argue with it. God didn't have to do this at
all. God didn't have to save any of mankind. God could have
destroyed Adam and Eve. He didn't have mercy on the fallen
angels. There were a race of creatures
called angels, created beings called angels, some of whom fell. God didn't have mercy on any
of them, but reserved them in chains of darkness, Jude said. But God, who is rich in mercy,
chose to save some and chose some to save. And since God is
just, God's sin must be punished by God. And God said the punishment
for this sin of man is death. The soul that's in it must surely
die. And I'll tell you what happened
on the cross when Jesus Christ came and hung on that cross.
Jesus Christ was being made sin that day. Christ was being made
to be every elect sinner, every chosen sinner, everyone whom
God had chosen to save. Christ was being turned into,
if you will, that sinner. All the sins of those chosen
sinners were charged to him. The just for the unjust. He was
being their substitute. And God killed his son that day. God put his son through hell
that day for every hell-deserving sinner. And Jesus Christ paid
for all the sins of all of God's chosen people. Yea, Satan was
attacking him that day. The serpent was bruising his
heel. The heel of God, as it were.
The lower part of God. God in the body of a man. But yet it pleased the Lord to
bruise him, Isaiah 53 says, because he was representing the chosen
people of God. He was paying for. He was being
punished for all the sins of all of God's people. And so Christ
paid for all of their sins, and that all of them, all of those
chosen ones, would be eternally saved. This was not an attempt
to save them, but it was an atonement. Not a down payment, but full
payment. Not making salvation possible,
but salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ for those chosen
ones. This brings me to my third question.
What happens to a sinner when God saves them? Well, God gives
life is what He does. He sends the Holy Spirit, Spirit
of life, Spirit of God, God who is life, in whom we live and
move and have our being. He sends the Holy Spirit, and
through the preaching of this gospel, this gospel of a crucified
Christ, he begins to open blind eyes, eyes that were once blind
to God, to the truth of God, blind to one's own sin, opens
their eyes to see that they are indeed sinners in need of life,
opens their ears to hear the truth, to hear the shepherd's
voice, and gives them a new heart, a heart that once did not love
the word of God, love the truth, love God, now they have a heart
that does, that loves God, loves Christ, loves holiness and hates
sin. New life is being created, new
birth, the life of God that wasn't there before. And this is all
of God's work. You see, man was dead. He died
in the garden. Christ came to do the work necessary
to save him, and he did it. And then God sends this life-giving
gospel sound to everyone that Christ died for. What happened
in the garden? What happened on the cross? What
happens when God saves a man? Three vital questions. Do you
know the answers? Well, I hope you do. If you want
this message on cassette tape, write to us. We'll send it to
you free of charge until next Sunday. Good day.