John the Baptist is speaking
of is an understanding of spiritual things. And this is our great
need. Now, we have people in here who
are college-educated people, people who have post-graduate
work, and I appreciate all of that and appreciate the education
that God has given to so many of us. I appreciate the knowledge
that He's given to so many of us. But natural knowledge has
no bearing upon spiritual understanding. Now we have to understand that.
It doesn't matter how smart you are, how high your IQ is. When it comes to the things of
God, God has to reveal them. He has to give us the gift of
understanding. Understanding. I know we think we're smart,
and in many areas we are. I was talking to a lady today. Her husband is a physician here
in Ashland. He's quite a good physician,
and I'm sure he's a very gifted man. And I was talking about
the fact that how God has blessed this country with men and women
who have unusual understanding in the medical world. I'm very
thankful. We're talking about her husband's
disease and I was talking about my wife's disease. Very thankful
for the understanding, the insight that God has given. But all of
that knowledge has nothing to do with a knowledge of the things
of God. Because this is different. Now
we're talking about spiritual things. These other things are
carnal. These other things are fleshly.
These other things relate to the body, and that kind of knowledge
is all well and good, but we've got to have a knowledge of God. After all, that is eternal life. This is eternal life, the Savior
said in his high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. This is eternal
life that they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ
whom thou hast sent. That's the knowledge we've got
to have and you're not going to get that knowledge except
as a gift. You can't receive anything unless
it comes to you from above. When we approach this book, it
doesn't matter what passage of scripture you're turning to,
Old Testament or New Testament, we've got to understand we can
make no contribution to our knowledge of the Word of God. God's got
to give us knowledge. You remember the words of 1 Corinthians
2, the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit. That's what he said, receiveth
not. We'll receive knowledge in all
other areas. History, math, the sciences. Medicine? There's lots of knowledge
that we will receive, but when it comes to spiritual knowledge,
when it comes to the knowledge of God, when it comes to the
knowledge of our spiritual necessities, our own sinfulness, and the need
for Christ Jesus to come and lay down His life and give His
life as a ransom for our sin, when we get into that realm,
we have no natural knowledge. Because you see, we still have
this inbred idea, and it's inbred through sin, that we've got to
do something for God before He'll do something for us. That's just
inbred in us. We feel like this is natural
inclination, natural belief. If we do good, God will bless
us. If we do bad, God's going to
curse us. So we've got to do something
for God, so God will do something for us. We've got it all wrong. God's got to do something for
us. That's what we need. This is the need of the hour.
And preachers all over this country are begging people to do something
for God, begging people to do something for Jesus. What we
better do is beg God to do something for us. That's what we need.
We got too many self-made Christians. We got too many man-made Christians,
preacher-made Christians, church-made Christians. I'm not interested
in that sort of thing. I'm interested in being a Christian,
one whom God has made. Because if he doesn't do the
work, there's nothing good gonna come of it. If the Lord doesn't
build the house, what does the Scripture say? They labor in
vain that build it. You're just wasting your time
and wasting your effort if you think you can get spiritual understanding
on your own. You say, I'll read my Bible every
day. Go ahead. And you ought to read
your Bible every day. Nicodemus read his Bible every
day. Saul of Tarsus, why he quotes
scriptures around you and me both. He read his Bible. He was a walking Bible, but he
didn't know God. That's his problem. He knew the
letter. He knew the letters on the page.
He knew the words, but he didn't know the God who gave the word.
That's who he didn't know. And you're not going to know
Him until He introduces Himself to you. See, today is the day
of decisionism. The day of decision. It's a ruinous
day. It must be, if we're to know
God, a day of revelation. A day of illumination. Now having
said those things, let's go back to Genesis chapter three. Now
I've laid the foundation now for our study in Genesis chapter
three. Now you know Genesis chapter
one sets forth the formation of all creation. There's a full
account of creation in Genesis chapter one, and also it includes
man. When you get to Genesis chapter
two, the focus is no longer on the general creation of all things,
but the focus now is upon that very crowning point of creation,
man. God breathed into Adam the breath
of life, and man became a living soul. There is in the second
chapter a divine prohibition given. God said to Adam, of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But there is a tree in the garden,
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, You must not eat
of it, for in the day ye eat thereof, you'll surely die. So
God gave man one rule to keep, one law. He got all these other
trees and got all this other fruit. But there's one tree, and the
scripture says, in the midst of the garden, right in the middle,
Probably walked by it every day. A beautiful tree, isn't it, honey? He'd say to his wife, because
God gave him a wife. Beautiful tree, isn't it? Said,
it sure is. He'd say to her. And God said,
don't eat of the fruit of that tree. I know, honey. We'll leave that one alone. We
got a lot more trees here, though, in this beautiful garden in paradise. One prohibition. And of course,
in the second chapter, there is the God gave to Adam a helpmeet. One who is worthy of him. One
who is fit for him. A helpmeet. The word meet means
worthy or fit. And of course, that's a picture
of the bride that God gave to Christ Jesus. God put Adam in
a deep sleep. He put Christ in a deep sleep,
the sleep of death. And out from his wounded side came forth Eve, and out from
the Savior's wounded side came his bride, his church. And the
scripture says that God brought the woman to the man. That's
what God does in saving grace, Stan. He brings us to Jesus Christ,
to believe Him. And then we get to the third
chapter. If chapter one is about the formation
of all creation, and if chapter two, the focus is on man, and
chapter three sets forth the fall, of man. And as we receive chapters one
and two by faith, we must receive chapter three by faith. We must
bow to the authority of the word of God, which means if we bow
to the authority of the word of God, we must necessarily,
we must necessarily say that evolution is false. And I'm just gonna repeat this,
what I've said before. You cannot believe the word of
God and evolution. They're not gonna abide in the
same temple together. And I'll give you an illustration.
You'll remember this, I suspect, when the Philistines stole the
Ark of the Covenant. Remember that? That's when Eli,
when he found out that the battle had been lost, his two sons had
died, which they died because they didn't do right. They died
on the judgment of God, but they died. Eli heard the ark had been
taken. He fell over backwards and broke
his neck. The script says he's a large
man. Philistines took that ark of the covenant, took it to their
city, Ashdod. And they took it to their church. to their cathedral, to their
temple, that temple they had for Dagon. That was the god of
fertility, Dagon. Had the head of a man and hands
of a man, but had a fishtail. That was their god. And they
had a house of worship for Dagon. So here they come with the Ark
of the Covenant. Remember, that signifies the
glory of God, the presence of God. And they put that Ark of the
Covenant in there right beside Dagon. They closed down the temple
for the night. All went home, went to bed. Next
morning they got up, went in. Dagon's fallen on his face. They
said, well, I wonder how that happened. And so they prop up
Dagon, dust him off, probably, you know, use some pledge or
something to make him shine up and look really good, you know.
He's falling on his face, but, you okay now? Yeah, everything's
okay. And so they closed up the temple
for the day, and then the next morning they go in. Dagon is
not only on the floor, but his head has been broken off and
his hands are gone. And they said, we need to get
rid of this Ark of the Covenant. You see, God and Dagon can't
abide together. And the word of God in evolution
cannot abide together. The word of God breaks the neck
of the Dagons, of the evolutionists. And so you're gonna have to either
believe the word of God, or you're gonna have to toss it all aside,
because if you can't believe creation, if you're gonna toss
that out, you gotta toss it all out. It's all the word of God, isn't
it? And we bow to the authority of the scripture. So, we get
to Genesis chapter three. I don't know how long Adam and
Eve walk with God, talk with God, fellowship with God. I don't know how long they stood
in that state of innocence, that state of purity, that state of
uprightness. It must have been mighty sweet
to walk with God every day. You know who they walked with?
This is important. They walked with the Son of God.
because I've said it, I don't know how many hundreds of times,
but God will not speak to nor will he be spoken to by anybody
except through a mediator. So when God walked with Adam
and Eve and when God appeared to Adam and Eve after they had
sinned, this is the Son of God in pre-incarnate form. So as we come to chapter three,
all is well in paradise. And then something happened. Chapter three, verse one. Now
the serpent was more subtle, more crafty than any beast of
the field which the Lord God had made. Now, Let me talk to
you about the serpent and the woman, first of all. You know, Adam and Eve had been
given dominion over all things. You remember reading that back,
looking back at chapter three, excuse me, chapter one in verse
26. Let me just kind of refresh your memory. And God said, let
us, there's a plurality, there's the Trinity, We're Trinitarians,
aren't we? Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Not three gods. Three persons in the Godhead.
Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them,
now watch this, have dominion. Let them, man and woman, Let
them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of
the air, over the cattle and over all the earth and over every
creeping thing. I believe a serpent is a creeping
thing. Over every creeping thing that
creepeth on the earth. This serpent was way below the
woman. It isn't her equal. This is an
animal over which she has dominion. But the serpent was not merely
a serpent. It had been inhabited by a fallen
angel, that is Satan. Now my suspicion is And I don't
want to go out too far on the limb on this, but I suspect that
as long as Adam and his wife were in the garden in an unfallen
condition, I think angels visited them and spoke with them. Is it not
written in Hebrews chapter one in verse 14 concerning the angels,
are they not all ministering spirits? who are sent to them
who are the heirs, who shall be the heirs of salvation. And
it wouldn't, I don't think it's far-fetched. I can very well
imagine, I don't know for sure, so this is just my two cents
worth on this. I think angels came and ministered
to them and maybe even took up habitation in an animal and spoke
to them so that they could see them. I don't know that, but
I do know this, that Lucifer, he's a fallen angel. And he took
up his habitation in a serpent. And when the serpent spoke to
Eve, it didn't shock her. It didn't surprise her. Which
leads me to think, and many writers to think, that this was not an
uncommon occurrence. That angels often did this. Be that as it may, this fallen
angel, the serpent, he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said,
ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Uh-oh, here's
a questioning of the word of God. And you know he's gonna question
the word of God because he hates God. Lucifer was a very high-ranking
archangel, apparently. You go to Isaiah chapter 14,
and he would defy God. He would take the place that
Jesus Christ had been appointed to as the king over all of creation. He wanted that position for himself. Pride was found in his heart,
and he fell. God said, it's not yours. You're
not going to get that position. And God kicked him out. And he
took a third of the angels with him. A third of the angels said,
hey, we're with him. God said, well, get out of here
then. Go with him. They're dragging their chains
about in darkness ever since. Here's what he did. This serpent,
and he's often referred to in the scriptures as a serpent,
by the way. 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse
3, Paul said, but I fear less by any means as the serpent beguiled
Eve through his subtlety. So your mind should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. Revelation chapter 12 and verse
9, the great dragon was cast out. Well, who's that? The old
serpent. John tells us the old serpent
is called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. And he deceived our Mother Eve. Now, the Scripture says he masquerades
as an angel of light. Don't believe the pictures you
see about Satan. He's red and he's got pointed
ears and he's got horns and he's got a forked tail and he's got
a pitchfork and all that. Oh no, you see that Satan's quite
happy for you to think that's what he looks like. He masquerades,
you read the scripture, he masquerades as an angel of light. He pretends
to be an angel of light and so do his messengers. They're wolves,
that's what our Savior said in his Sermon on the Mount. He said
they're destructive wolves, but they're dressed in sheep's clothing.
They masquerade as if they're sheep. And you'll see him say,
well, that's another one of the sheep of the Lord. No, that's
not a sheep. It's a wolf. He's out to devour. That's what
Paul said in Acts chapter 20 when he met with the Ephesian
elders. He said, I know that after my leaving, grievous wolves
are gonna come in, not sparing the flock, come in to devour. Oh, Satan, he's up to no good
here. And let me tell you where he
does most of his work. You say, oh, he's down in the
red light district. He's down in the bars and in
the dope dealers. Well, there's no denying that's
a bunch of wickedness there. There's no question about that.
But I'll tell you where his great strategy is to work in religion. See, he masquerades or the Scriptures
say that he transforms himself into an angel of light. You know
where you'll find him? You'll find him in church. That's
where you'll find him. Deceiving. Deceiving. And here he is talking to our
mother Eve. And he immediately questions
the word of God. Yea, has God really said, ye
shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said,
she answers him. She says to 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 had
said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest
ye die. And some people say, well, she
added to the word of God. I think that's a minor point
in this sense. She couldn't, you can't eat it
unless you touch it and take it. I'm not gonna quibble over
that. But look at verse four. And the serpent said unto the
woman, Ye shall not surely die. Here's what he's saying, God's
not going to kill you. Come on now, woman. Adam, your
husband is the crowning glory of his creation. You reckon God's
going to kill Adam? No, he's not going to. God's
good. God's kind. He's not going to
kill anybody. He's just trying to scare you
a little bit. He's not gonna kill you. God's
not gonna put you out of business. And this kind of foolishness,
it has crept into religion so that preachers say, God's not
gonna send anybody to hell. He's not gonna kill anybody.
In fact, they'll even say this. If God doesn't send anybody to
hell, you send yourself to hell. Well, that's a stupid statement. Who sends themselves to hell? Or the devil's going to take
you to hell. It's not the devil's hell, it's God's hell. I wish people read the Bible,
and I pray God give understanding. He said, you're not going to
die. You're not going to die. God loves you too much. That's
what preachers today say. God loves people too much. He's
really not going to send anybody to hell. He wouldn't do that. Well, you need to read the book
of God. Because God cast men and women
into hell. I'm going to tell you something,
if we leave here without a Savior, if we die in our sin, He's going
to cast us into hell too. That's me, it don't matter who
it is, me, my wife, my children, my grandchildren, anybody in
my family, whoever it is, it doesn't matter. You die without
Jesus Christ, you die without the blood washing your sins away,
you die without the righteousness of Jesus Christ clothing you. God is going to put you out of
His sight forever. That's just a fact now. And I
know what Satan's ambassadors say, you shall not surely die. That's what they say. What the Lord said was it through
Jeremiah that his false prophets go around saying, peace, peace.
It's all right. It's all right. In the end, we'll
all wind up in heaven anyway. No, we're not. Well, you're just
narrow-minded and you're hard to get along with. Well, I am
narrow-minded and I can be hard to get along with too. That's
true. But I tell you what, the Word of God, no compromise to
the Word of God now. We're not going to compromise
the Word of God, not to get along with you, not to get along with
our family members. We love our family members, we
love our neighbors, we love our friends, but we're not going
to compromise what the Word of God says. You have Christ, you
love Christ, you believe Christ, you're washed in the blood of
Christ, or you're gonna perish. That's what the Bible says, Joe.
That's just what the scripture says. You shall not surely die. That's
what he said. Then look at verse five. For God doth know that
in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes will be opened. God's keeping
something from you. When you eat, if you eat of this
fruit, your eyes will be opened and you'll be as gods. You know
what? That's the very same word in
the original as in the beginning, God created the heaven and the
earth. In other words, you'll be free
of God. You'll be independent of God. You won't answer to anybody
anymore. Men like that don't have to answer
to anybody. Independent. You'll be as God's knowing good
and evil. And you know what? There's an
element of truth in what he said. Because actually, they didn't
know good or evil. Do you know that? Because the
only way you can know good is to know something about evil.
Because you've got to have something to compare it to. See, it's like the Lord in Genesis chapter 1,
He created all things in six days, six 24 hours a day, day
and night. How do you know what it's going
to be like when it gets night? Well, what is it in the day?
Well, the day is light. Well, night's not going to be
light. That's the only way you know the difference. They have
them both. So he says, you'll know good and evil. And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food, it was pleasant to the eyes, looked
good, A tree to be desired to make one wise, it'll make you
wise now. You'll know good and evil. You'll
be like gods. You won't have to answer to God
anymore. You don't have to bow to his will. You'll be independent
of God. And man has always wanted to
be independent of God. Throw off the shackles. She took the fruit thereof and
she did eat. Now, it says when the woman saw
that the tree was good for food, I've wondered about that. How
did she see that the tree was good for food? Again, my two cents worth. I
think she saw the serpent take that piece of fruit and eat it. right in front of her. Then he
said to her, nothing happened to me. I didn't die. I hadn't dropped dead. I'm still here, aren't I? And
she concluded, it's good for food. Oh, but wait, wait. You know why he didn't die? Because
he's dead already. He's already spiritually dead.
So she saw that it was good for fruit. And she ate. And guess what? Evidently, nothing
happened to her. She didn't drop dead. She couldn't tell any difference.
She took whatever that fruit was. She took a bite of it. Well, that tastes pretty good.
As good as the rest of the fruit. You see, the difference between
that tree and probably the fruit of that tree would have been
good to eat, but it stood as a reminder of the authority of
God. That's what that was. That tree,
every time they walked by, it was announcing to Adam and to
his wife, you have the dominion over everything, but remember,
I'm God. And you do what I tell you to
do. It's a symbol of His absolute authority. She threw it off. And she gave it to her husband. I have wondered, and maybe the
Lord will make known to us someday the answer to this. I've wondered,
did He deliberate about that? Did He think about it? Because
He wasn't deceived. He weighed this in His mind. Shall I defy my God who made
me and who sustains me? And in doing so, if I defy Him,
I'm going to suffer judgment. Or, I love my wife. If I eat, it'll be because I
love my wife, I want to stay with her. Or, if I don't eat,
then this is it for her and me. So he deliberated, shall I side
with God? Shall I side with my wife? And he, as one translation reads,
and he willed to eat. He willed to eat. He made a conscious
decision. I'm going to defy God. Whatever
it cost me. And when they did, when he ate,
watch this, and I'm gonna have to quit. But the eyes of them
both were open. It doesn't say when she ate,
you see back up here in verse six, it doesn't say that when
she ate, her eyes were open, oh no. It says, when he ate,
then the eyes of them both were opened. You see, he's her representative. Nothing happened to Adam when
she ate, because she didn't represent him. No, not at all. In fact, if you
read back over there in chapter 2, the Lord commanded the man,
The man, she wasn't even there, commanded the man 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
thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And when Eve ate
of it, she hasn't been given the name Eve yet, but I'm gonna
go ahead and call her Eve, because you know that's who she is. When
she ate of it, nothing happened to Adam, and it would seem that
nothing happened to her. Why? Why didn't something happen
to her? Why didn't she just drop dead?
She's not the representative. God deals with all mankind through
a representative. We've got to learn that. Through Adam, the first Adam,
or Jesus Christ, the last Adam. That's how He deals with us. and he's gonna deal with Adam's
wife through Adam. And in Adam, 1 Corinthians 15,
you know the verse, in Adam all die. All he represented died, but
in Christ shall all that he represented live. Live. Well, I'll quit there. I'll pick
this up again next Wednesday night. Let me just make a little
note where I left off here. And that's where we'll crank it back
up again next Wednesday night, the Lord willing, from that passage. I hope that the Lord blesses
his word to the hearts of all of his people and that those
who know not the Savior will have been duly warned and instructed
to come to Jesus Christ for salvation. May God show you mercy. May God
show me mercy to the glory of His marvelous free and sovereign
grace.