Thank you, ladies. That was a
blessing. I always enjoy hearing that song
and hearing you ladies sing for us. If you would open your Bibles
to Genesis, the third chapter. Genesis, the third chapter. We
read that in six days God made the heavens and the earth and
all that in them is. And on that sixth day God made
a man, Adam, and he put him in a perfect environment and a perfect
world. It had to be perfect for God
to call it, call everything very good, very good. And all of creation worshiped
the Son of God who made all things. The world was a land of harmony. All parts of creation worked
together in unity to magnify and honor the one who was their
maker. I believe that, and I know it
was the Lord Jesus who created all things, the Son of God, for
the scripture says all things were made by him. I believe that
our Savior took upon himself a pre-incarnate form and walked
and fellowshiped with Adam in a perfect world, a perfect garden. You see, Adam was the crowning
touch of God's creation. It was a world without any sin,
any sickness, any disease, any death, no cemeteries, nothing to cause Adam to be sad. or distressed, no problems. All of creation got along with
everything else that God made. It was a beautiful place come
forth from the beautiful Son of God. The scripture says all things
were made by Him and all things were made for Him. Everything was agreeable to God. When it says everything was very
good, very tells us what kind of goodness. It was very good,
excellent. And then when he used the word
good, it means everything was agreeable to God. A world no doubt visited by angels,
who I suspect visited with Adam. and spoke to him and fellowshiped
with him about the goodness of God. And this world was a fit, a fit
place where the Son of God and Adam could walk together and
fellowship and enjoy one another's company. Won't it be wonderful when this
world is like that again, but even better, because in the new
heaven and the new earth, there will be no possibility of sin.
And our Lord Jesus will walk with us, and fellowship with
us, and talk with us, and we will worship Him, and never,
never, ever again sin. against Him. You see, that was
a world where everything bowed to Christ. Lord, hasten the day when every
voice sings His praise, and every heart beats for His glory, and
every mind worships the Son of God who loved us and who gave
Himself for us. It was a fit place where God
could meet with man and man could meet with God. And in that perfect state, God
entered into a covenant with Adam. It was called the covenant of
works. And if you want to read, there
are just two real covenants. You can read that in Galatians
the third chapter and in Galatians the fourth chapter. One's a covenant
of works and in Galatians Paul likens it to Hagar. That was a covenant of works. And then the covenant of life,
the covenant of promise, the covenant of grace is likened
to Sarah. And I'll get into that more perhaps
in another message. But God entered into a covenant
with Adam. And basically it was this. I give you one law to keep. Of every tree of the garden,
you may eat the fruit thereof. Any one. And the Garden of Eden
was a glorious place. Had to be, he was very good.
Everything was agreeable with God. But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, now here's the law, here's the one commandment
I'm gonna give you. I know I gave you dominion over
all things, Adam, but this tree in the center of the garden,
will bear fruit and the fruit, it's good fruit. There's nothing
evil about the fruit. But I give you this commandment
to remind you while you have dominion over all things, I have dominion over you. And
don't forget, don't forget who's the governor, the owner, the
sovereign over all things. And we know that Adam was a representative
man. The reason I read that passage
in Romans chapter 5, because it has to do with two representative
men. The representative man in the
covenant of works was Adam. Well, in Adam we sinned. That's
what we read. But in our Lord Jesus, we have
salvation. We have righteousness in Him. He is the Lord our righteousness. He established righteousness
for His people by His perfect life and His sinless death. Righteousness is not something
we earn. It's something freely given to
us based upon the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And God said, now here's this
tree, don't eat of the fruit of it. Don't eat of the fruit
of it. Now Adam had no idea what God
had on his mind regarding this tree of knowledge of good and
evil. I'm sure even though he was a
brilliant man, but he didn't know the mind of God. You see,
in the mind of God and in the purpose of God, God's going to
give this one law to Adam and he's going to break it. But in
the breaking of this one rule that God gave, this one commandment,
in the breaking of that, that will give God an opportunity
to show His magnificent grace to sinners through the death
of the Son of God who would come some 4,000 years later. This is all in anticipation of
the Redeemer coming. It's against the black backdrop
of man's transgression and his sin that God will bring forth
the jewel of salvation by His free and sovereign grace through
Christ the Savior laying down His life, the penalty for sin. He will die in the stead of the
guilty, that the guilty be freed. So this is God's purpose in all
of this. Though Adam didn't know it. And as we get to the third chapter
of Genesis, we see the entrance of sin. The entrance of sin. We see the fall of Adam. And
in that passage in Romans chapter five, wherefore by one man, one
man's sin entered into the world. And death by sin. This is why
we all die physically. We will die physically. It's
why we were all born dead spiritually. And it's why many people die
eternally, die the second death. The reason is S-I-N. It must be dealt with in a way
that will honor God and save the sinner. But the sinner can
do nothing about doing away with or covering or eliminating, putting
away sin. That's a work only one could
do, the son of God, and he had to be made flesh to do it. He had to suffer, he had to bleed,
he had to die, he had to endure the wrath of God. He had to himself
pay the penalty of sin, the wages of sin, which is death. That's
why Christ died. We haven't preached the gospel
unless we stress the redemptive death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And here in chapter 3 we find
the fall of Adam. We're introduced here in the
3rd chapter immediately to the serpent. It says in verse 1,
Now the serpent was more subtle, more crafty, than any beast of
the field which the Lord God had made." Now, people say, well, I wonder
how in the world Eve would feel comfortable talking to a serpent.
There was no sin, right? There was no poison. There was nothing for her to
be concerned about. And most writers believe that
the serpent at this time walked upright because part of the curse
against the serpent was to crawl on its belly. And apparently
the serpent was beautiful. So we're introduced to the serpent
in whom or in which Satan, the devil, took up his dwelling. Even as our Lord took up his
dwelling for a little bit in Balaam's ass, right? So the serpent
would be the dwelling place for a little while for Satan. He was a very subtle creature.
It's interesting that if you look up the word serpent, several
of you have got concordance, and if you don't have a concordance,
you can borrow one out of the library, church library. If you
look up the origin of the word serpent, you'll find it means
a clever observer. And Satan, through the serpent,
had observed Adam and Eve. After God made the covenant of
works with Adam, He then gave Adam a wife, who was later named
Eve. And the serpent, Satan, Lucifer,
you can read about his fall in Isaiah chapter 14. So Lucifer
had closely observed Adam and Eve, and he had determined It
had determined, I guess would be a more correct way to say
it. It had been determined in his
own mind, in his own devious inward thoughts, that the weaker
vessel, the one to go after, was Eve. And we know from 1 Peter
3, Peter says that Eve was, the woman is the weaker vessel. And
in 1 Timothy chapter 2, Paul talks about that the woman
was deceived, but Adam wasn't. So Satan had determined that
Eve would be more receptive to his temptation. You'll notice
if you'll read with me in verse one. 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. Stop right there. Yea. The word yea, if you looked it
up, you will find it means also, moreover, therefore, or furthermore. which tells us that this was
not the first conversation that the serpent had with Eve. Because the very first word he
uses to Eve on this occasion was yea, or wherefore, nevertheless,
moreover. So there had been previous conversation
between Eve and the serpent. He was beautiful. You know what it says in 2 Corinthians
11? Satan is transformed into an
angel of light. And don't be astounded, his opinions,
his false preachers, they come to us as a minister of light. You see, Satan didn't come to
her. The world and false religion
has painted this picture of Satan as being, he's a red devil, he's
got horns, he's got a pitchfork, he's got a forked tail, and he's
just hideous looking. That's not how he came to Eve,
and that's not how he's gonna come to you. You say, well, what
is Satan doing today? Where is Satan? He's in church
today, and his false preachers are in churches. They carry a
Bible. They talk about God, they talk
about Jesus, but they don't know anything about substitution or
satisfaction or how God can be just and justify the ungodly. They don't know that. But they're
nice. That's why Paul says it, don't
be amazed, don't be deceived that even his false prophets,
they masquerade, is the word, they masquerade as angels of
light. They don't come to you looking
evil, hideous. They come in pleasantness, nice. Angels of light is their masquerade The scripture says don't be surprised. That's the way they come because
Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light He wasn't afraid of him She wasn't
suspicious of She didn't know that she's going down a road
that will lead to tragedy. She has no idea of that. She thought this serpent is here
to enlighten me, not to deceive me. You see, he approached Eve not
as an enemy, but as a friend with a soothing, calming voice. As one who possessed great knowledge
and was willing to share that knowledge with Eve. Isn't that
wonderful that he's willing to do that? Remember, Satan beguiles people. He corrupts people with regard
to primarily religious things. You see, here in Genesis chapter
3, the sin of Adam was not drunkenness. It wasn't anything like that. It
wasn't foul living. We think of Satan as he's active
in the bars and in the red light district and among the prostitutes
and the crack houses. Yeah, that's all under the devil's
control. Well, I wouldn't say that he
doesn't have a hand in all that, but his primary atmosphere of
work is in religion. Because His goal is to keep you
and me and everybody else from Christ. He wants to come between
you and the only Savior. And He will lead you to believe
in yourself. That's the saying of today. Just believe in yourself. You
can do it. No, you can't. We have no ability. Don't listen to his lies and
don't listen to his false preachers who are disguising themselves
as ministers of light. They're not your friends. Anybody who doesn't lead you
to Jesus Christ crucified, buried, risen again, The one by whom
God is made just and justifier through his bloody death. Any
preacher that doesn't lead you to the Lord Jesus Christ, he
is in fact an angel of darkness. Maybe he knowingly is an angel
of darkness. I believe some of them are. But
I believe a lot of them are deceived themselves. In the book of 2 Corinthians
11, Paul is concerned for the Corinthian believers that they
would be beguiled and deceived and that their minds would be
corrupted from the simplicity that's in Christ. And the word
simplicity means the singularity of Christ. One thing. You see, in the garden, there
was a blessed simplicity to this. One commandment to keep. Pretty
simple, isn't it? That's not complicated. And when it comes to the gospel,
there's one gospel message and one Savior. There's one way to
God, there's one life, there's one door, there's a blessed simplicity
to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It isn't complicated. But preachers bring in religious
motions, They bring in crosses, pictures, religious pictures,
all kinds of things that really distract from Christ. It's just one message, the message
of Christ and Him crucified. That's how simple it is. Paul
said everywhere he went, that's what he did, preach Christ and
Him crucified. That's simple, isn't it? He said in 2 Corinthians, we
preach Christ and Him crucified, or 1 Corinthians rather. It's
not complicated. You see, his goal is to get you
to live right. Yeah, you know you haven't lived
right. I know I haven't. You need to
repent and start living right. I will. And when he gets you to say that,
he's got the hook in your jaw already. You need to serve Jesus. I know
I do. Well, join the church, be baptized,
join the church, live right, tithe, be faithful. Be a nice person in the congregation. Be nice in your community. You
see, He is complicating the whole thing. Those things are good
in their place. But it has nothing to do with
salvation. They don't have anything to do with salvation. There's
one Savior, and that's the Lord Jesus and Him crucified. Satan will teach you to trust
your works, your righteousness? That's no good. It's no good. He immediately puts into question
the Word of God. Then in verse 1, He said unto
the woman, Yea, moreover, This is a continuation of a conversation
that we don't know what preceded this. But there's no question
about it, there was some words exchanged before this. And he immediately questions
God. Yea, hath God said, Did God say,
Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman
said unto the servant, 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 that word, lest, is kind
of a key word here. Because look it up, it means
perhaps, or peradventure, we will die. He's already got her. Because now she's questioning
the Word of God by adding to. God didn't say, lest you die,
you will die. In the day thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. Look up the word lest, it means
peradventure or perhaps. Perhaps you will die. And then the serpent said unto
the woman, Ye shall not surely die. Now he just absolutely writes
off the word of God. 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. You don't know anything about
evil now, do you, Eve? Uh-uh. Well, I tell you what,
you eat of this fruit, you'll find out about evil. And she
did. She found out she did evil, but
she doesn't know how to get rid of it. So verse 6, when the woman saw
that the tree was good for food, 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 I suspect that she said to
Adam then, I didn't die. God said I'd die, I didn't die.
Honey, you see me, don't you? Yeah. I didn't cease to exist. Moreover, when the serpent gave
me the forbidden fruit or directed me to the forbidden fruit, perhaps
he even ate of it and nothing happened to Satan, because he's
dead already. So she gave to her husband, and
the last four words of verse six, and he did eat, he willed
to eat. The first sin that was imputed
to all of Adam's posterity took place in the will. Because literally
this says, and he willed to eat. And that which Adam did, in exercising
his will has been made a God throughout this world, the free
will of man. You wanna see free will? Adam,
he willed, he willingly ate of that which God said, don't you
do it, in the day you eat of it, you'll surely die. And they died. Spiritually. They died spiritually. Then their eyes were opened.
Before it would appear that there was something about Adam and
Eve in their nakedness, perhaps there was a divine light about
them because they had the presence of God. But something happened
and all of a sudden they knew We're in trouble. Now remember this, Eve did disobey God, but her sin was not imputed to
the rest of us, because she didn't represent anybody. It's Adam. You see, Satan is
clever. He went after the weakest link. And now what to say about a chain?
It's only as strong as its weakest link. She was the weak link. And then she said, here, honey,
I love you. This is good. God hadn't been
truthful with us. And he, in his heart of heart,
willed to defy God. Their eyes were open. They knew
that they were naked. And I said, we're in trouble. We've got to hide our nakedness.
I'm embarrassed. So they sewed fig leaf aprons
together to hide their shame. And men and women have been doing
that ever since. except the fig leaves we sow
together are our good works. It's going to hide our shame. I'm ashamed of myself. I'm going
to stop drinking. I'm going to stop running around.
I'm going to stop cursing. I'm going to stop this. I'm going
to stop doing that. I'm going to start going to church.
I'm going to do all these good works to make up for the bad
that I've done. Well, let's see how them fig
leaves, let's see how long they last. They will wither and die. And you may hold on to your works
and your supposed goodness until you enter into eternity, but
I'll tell you this, the wrath of God will take care of those
leaves. The only way to hide from God
is to hide in God. In God crucified, buried, risen
again. That's the only place of refuge. And then they heard the voice
of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Literally in the cool breezes
of the day. And they hid themselves. It never
hid before. Before they said, Lord, it's
so good to see you. Not anymore. Why, the Lord was
the last one they wanted to see. And they hid themselves from
the presence of the Lord. Adam, who was so smart, We'll
see tonight back in the second chapter. He named all the animals.
God brought animals one by one. Name them, whatever name you
give them, that's what they'll be called. For a smart man, look
what sin has done to him. It's made him a fool. And it's made all of us fools. And the Lord God, Christ the
Son of God, called unto Adam and said, where are you? The Lord never asks a question
because he needs information. This was to make Adam aware of
his dilemma and Eve too. And Adam said, I was afraid. Why did you hide,
Adam? I was afraid. Why did you hide,
Eve? I was afraid. I was afraid of
your voice. Were you thinking you were going
to hear the voice of doom and the voice of judgment, the voice
of wrath? Instead, they heard the voice
of mercy, the voice of grace. Adam said, I was afraid. What'd you do, Adam? I broke your law. And of course, gotta blame it
on somebody. The man said, the woman that
you gave me. We've been blaming our wives
ever since. Yeah. She gave me of the tree and I
ate. It's her fault. And the Lord God said to the
woman, what is this that you've done? And the woman said, the
serpent beguiled me. It's past the buck time. We're
real good at that. And the Lord God said unto the
serpent, now this is the Son of God I remind you because God
will not speak to nor be spoken to by any son or daughter of
Adam apart from a mediator. He said because you've done this,
you're cursed above all cattle, above every beast of the You'll
crawl on your belly the rest of your life. But then the Lord
introduced another covenant or another promise. And just to
give it to you quickly, he promised the seed of the woman was coming.
The seed of the weaker vessel, the Son of God. Christ is called
the seed of the woman. He's not called the seed of the
man. You see, he was not the son of Adam like all of us are. We're the offspring of Adam,
not our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the son of God, pure, perfect,
holy, righteous. The Son of God's going to come.
This is the promise. And the Son of God made the promise
Himself. I'm coming. I'm the seed of the woman. And 2,000 years ago He came to
do that which nobody else could possibly do, save us from our
sins. And the only way He could do
that was by his death. By his death. You say, Jim, why
do you keep preaching Christ and him crucified? Well, I preach
by example that Paul said before us. I preach by commandment.
That's what I'm told to preach. How can you come to God? Only
through the stricken, smitten lamb of God. who died, was buried,
and rose again the third day. His precious blood of reconciliation
and atonement. Well, I'm going to kind of come
back to this tonight and have a few more things to say, but
I've preached long enough. I appreciate your attention. Let's sing a closing song. If you would, get your songbooks
and turn to 468. I will sing the wondrous story.