It's interesting because I believe
one of the hardest things for our flesh to hold to is resting
in the sufficiency of the gospel. Resting in the sufficiency of
the gospel. And when we say the word gospel, you know, we talked
about that last week, we talk about the word sufficiency, you
know, is the gospel enough? Is the report of Christ, is the
good news of what Christ has done for us enough for us? And
another way to put that is this. Is Jesus, the God-man, enough
for us? Is Christ and all that He is
enough for our joy? Enough for our happiness? Enough for our comfort? Enough
for our satisfaction? Or do we desire more? Do we want
more? Do we want more of the world?
Do we want more of relationships? Do we want more of peace? Do
we want what the world has in the context of love and peace
and wealth? Jesus says, I will leave you
My love that the world does not understand. Jesus says to His
disciples, I will give My peace to you that the world cannot
comprehend. Paul would teach over and over
again that the natural person, the natural man, the flesh, this
meat suit that we walk around in every single day, is unable
to grasp the spiritual things of God. We don't really fathom that,
do we? Because we can understand the concept of things. We can
say, oh, well, you know, this means this, and I understand
that, and I understand the other. But beloved, our heart, our mind,
our countenance, our disposition cannot truly sit still and just
exist in the sovereignty of God. and in His finished work and
in His person, except that God Himself do a work in us. And
that is called faith. Resting in the sufficiency and
the satisfaction of Jesus is faith. That's what it is. And as we
learn and as we grow, we understand the teachings of Jesus, all of
them, by learning the Bible. But do you know there's not one
thing that we know and there is not one person that exists
today who has been granted divine faith that has not first heard
the Word? Faith is granted by the hearing
of the teaching of Christ. whether one reads it for themselves
or whether they hear someone else explain it, the truth of
the gospel, the person of Jesus, is indeed the power of God unto
salvation, for it is the good report of God sovereignly and
freely saving a people through His Son. The Old Testament is
the roadmap to this. The Old Testament is the foreshadowing
of this reality that we as New Testament saints hold to and
understand by divine power. We know that there is nothing
more to this life except Jesus Christ. That is why Paul teaches
us that He is preeminent. Beloved, we sing it a lot of
times, don't we? that kindred may go, and goods
may go, and riches may go, and health may go, and the world
would grow strangely dim, but the love of God for us is all
that will ever remain. And because He has loved us in
this eternal way, because He is sovereign and powerful and
purposeful in His decrees and promises, we then can say, now
I can love one another. Now we can love each other as
Christ has loved us. But I'll tell you right now,
beloved, Anybody under the sound of my voice that has perfected
this type of living, please stand up and give the report. For we
definitely could use the encouragement. But I'll be honest with you,
it would not be an encouragement to my soul to hear you say you
had perfected love. You had perfected faith. Because
then it would make God a liar. Because God says that He alone
is perfect. He alone is love. He alone is
righteousness. He alone is good. And so that
only that which God calls good is good. And the only reason
that it is good is because God has called it good, because He
has declared it righteous. as He is righteous. He has declared
it set apart because He is set apart. He has declared it holy
because He alone is holy. This is the good news. This is
the simple gospel. This is simple grace. This is
the quintessential centerpiece and every block and shingle that
is built upon the centerpiece of the house of grace. Every penny in the economy of
grace is made of the same substance, and that is the person and the
work of Jesus Christ for His people, which is a finished and
accomplished salvation. That's what we've been learning
in Genesis. That's what we've been seeing. But you know, platitudes
are easy to pass out, right? Sort of like handbills. You don't know what those are
anymore. People don't go to the mailbox, oh, did my friend write
me? You know, we don't wait for letters anymore. I found a lot
of my letters from my friends overseas throughout the years,
especially in my high school and early college days, and some
of them in foreign languages and things. It's amazing how
much language you don't remember when you don't use it or read
it. But it was interesting because I'm going through all these letters
and Abigail comes in and she's like, Dad, what is this? I'm
like, this is how we used to talk to one another. See all
these stamps and it took a week to get here and sometimes it
got lost. We don't do that anymore. We
don't talk like that. It's always instant. But beloved,
God is talking to us through His Word. God is speaking to
us. God is purposing to reveal Himself
in this Genesis account. We have this good report. We
have this intimate reality of the Lord's doing. And I will
tell you, that sometimes we suffer too much thinking that we have
got to get so many things correct in order to satisfy God's righteousness. When the Good News says that
God Himself has satisfied His righteousness. The Word of the
Lord says here in chapter 2, or chapter 3, I don't know why
I said 2. Now the serpent was more crafty
than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And
he said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat
of the tree in the garden, of any tree in the garden? And the
woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees
in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit
of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall
you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman,
you will surely not die, for God knows that when you eat of
it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing
good and knowing evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was
good for food, and saw that it was a delight to the eyes, and
that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of its
fruit and ate it, and gave some to her husband who was standing
with her, who also ate. Then the eyes of both were opened
and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the
sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the
presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. But the
Lord God called to the man and said, where are you? And he said,
I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because
I was naked and I hid myself. He said, Who told you that you
were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of
which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, The woman
whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit, and I
ate of it. Then the Lord said to the woman, What is this that
you have done? The woman said, The serpent that
you made gave me, deceived me, didn't give, but deceived me,
and I ate. And the Lord said to the serpent, and this is one
of the places we'll be today, because you have done this, cursed
are you above all livestock and above the beasts of the field.
On your belly you shall go, and thus you shall eat all the days
of your life. I will put enmity between you, the serpent, and
the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise
your head, you shall bruise His heel. To the woman He said, I
will surely multiply your pain and shall bearing, not start
it, multiply it. In pain you shall bring forth
children. Your desire shall be contrary
to your husband, but he shall rule over you. And to Adam he
said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and
have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not
eat. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat
of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall
bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return
to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you were
dust, and to dust you shall return." The man called his wife's name
Eve because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God
made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed
them. Then the Lord God said, Behold,
the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.
Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also the tree of life
and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him
out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he
was taken. He drove out man, and at the
ease of the garden of Eden he placed a cherubim, a flaming
sword that turned every way to guard the way of the tree of
life." We've already talked about a lot of this, but we're not
finished. We talked about the idea of nakedness
and unashamedness. They were naked and not embarrassed
because there was no reason for them to be embarrassed. They
were good. They were clothed in the presence of God's goodness. They were clothed in His company.
They were innocent to evil and they were innocent to sin, but
they themselves were not righteous. To be righteous is to be God. So Adam and Eve were created
creatures. They were not God, nor were they
the God-man Jesus, the Christ who took on flesh. So therefore
they were in a state of innocence, but they were not in a state
of righteousness. For the one who is righteous
can never fail. God Himself can never sin, He
can never be tempted by sin, nor does He tempt anyone to sin,
James says, as we talked about last week. But what tempts us
is that we, in our flesh, desire that which is dangled in front
of us, and when we give into that desire, it what? It produces
sin, and when sin has given birth, it produces death. And death
has entered the world this first day. this first season of life. With this first couple, newly
engaged, newly betrothed, and newly united, came to understand
what death really was. And now they were naked, and
they hid from the Lord. Adam and Eve, as I've said before,
sought their own wisdom. Even before the fall, they sought
their own wisdom. They were told by the serpent,
by the enemy, let's just call it what it is, it's Lucifer speaking,
tempting them by that which was already tempting to their flesh.
It looked good to eat, it looked good in general, and now that
I know that it can make me wise, that's a really good idea. What hope do we have, beloved,
who have not walked in the cool of the day with the God-man Jesus?
Seen Him face to face in a state of innocence, yet those who walk
with Him in a state of innocence also fail for a piece of fruit. What hope do we have to affect
our own righteousness? But that's the first thing that
these people did. I'll answer the question so you
don't have to sit here. You know the answer. We cannot affect
our own righteousness and every effort that we put forth in order
to affect our own righteousness before God is sin. Adam and Eve knew immediately
they were naked, they could see evil, they understood who they
were. Adam and Eve's understanding
of evil, their first peer into evil was peering into their own
hearts. into their own minds. Think about
that for a second. They knew evil because they knew
themselves. They knew they had rebelled against
the promises and the provision of God. They knew that they had
put a condition on and a secondary option that would make what God
had promised even better. Isn't that the way it works?
We think that we can take and add to the gospel. We can take
years of experience and go, well, in my experience, and then we
think that's wisdom when it comes to salvation or to biblical understanding. Or we can look at the world and
go, you know, historians have always said, well, beloved, historians
are the ones writing the books on what they think history says.
And it's not complete. Well, theologians say, or this
doctrine means, okay, but what has God said? See, it always
starts with a twisting of what God has said. And none of us
are immune. None of us are immune. I was
listening to an older sermon just yesterday. Someone said,
hey, listen to this, see what you think about the first five
minutes of this, me teaching. I went, oh, this is good, this
is okay, oh, this is, that didn't even make sense. And I realized
during that time, it was like 2015, 2016, I was in the middle
of trying to hone my vocabulary as it related to the idea of
assurance. And thankfully had a lot of brothers
come along and we had this debate together and we spit on each
other because we overspoke and then we got to the ends of the
nitty-gritty of the Bible and went, ah, now we see. When we say this, we're actually
saying this in the ears of most people, so let's change the way
we say these things. See? Because that's what love
does, right? God's Word is the supreme authority,
not the interpretation of it. God's Word is the absolute declaration,
not my commentary of it. Now, can my thoughts and commentary
be as authoritative as the Bible? You betcha! If it is what the
Bible teaches. And that is why we check what
every man and woman and child has to say. And that's why we
understand the context of Scripture. I think that as I've been reminiscing
in Genesis, especially about the fall, there is so many ridiculous
ideas about the fall and all these things. And you have to
understand that this is laid out for our encouragement and
joy to see the sovereignty of God. That's what Genesis is all
about. The beginning exposition of the
revelation of the sovereignty of God. And yet, we can say, well, the
Lord's Word says, and we can be 100% wrong. And we can quote
the verse, and we can be 100% wrong. And we can add to it, and we
can be 100% wrong. But the Lord is never wrong.
And His prophets are never wrong. And His apostles were never wrong. in their writing. Because they
wrote not by their own will, but they wrote by the protection
of God the Holy Spirit. And Paul was good at differentiating
his ideas that seemed wise versus God's commands that are complete
wisdom. And this fall started because
innocent people were unable, I want you to hear this, they
were unable to resist their own flesh. Eve and Adam desired what was
offered to them or it would not have been appealing to them. You ever been invited to a timeshare
presentation? and you swear, and you put it
in blood, we're just gonna go get the free gift card. Three
hours later, you're signing papers. I swore I would not buy that.
It's tempting. Oh, you don't want a free vacation?
How about $1,000 a month? For what? You don't know, it's
just like printed certificates. You can't spend it except in
the company store. I digress. It's desirable. And if that sales
pitch doesn't work, they got five more guys in the back like
tag team wrestlers ready to go. This guy over here, he doesn't
know what he's talking about. Let me show you what you can really
get this for. Door-to-door salesman. You ever
bought something from a door-to-door salesman? We have an entire set
of encyclopedias for $1,500 in 1998. Easy payments of $9 a year. I mean, you know, for 75 years.
I mean, you know, they get you. Man, I can't afford that. Can
you afford $9? Yes, sir. $9 a month. $9 a year. I'm exaggerating,
of course. We're still paying those off. Like, wow, this is too good to
be true! Adam and Eve desired to know more about why this fruit
was prohibited. And their flesh had no choice
but to desire it. By the sovereign decrees of the
Lord. But God did not make them eat
that fruit. They ate it of their own volition.
And that's what they were destined to do. Well, that doesn't make
no sense. Well, we're not smart enough
to understand God's sovereignty in that. But we don't blame God. We praise God. So here is this
twisting of Scripture. Did God say that? Adam had already
added to in some sense. Or so Eve blamed Him. You know, God said couldn't touch
it. We talked about that last week. Then we see this continual
blame game. So now they're naked and they
decide in that great wisdom that it told them to eat of this fruit
to gain their godlike status, which they did get in the knowledge
of evil, they would cover themselves so the Lord would not see their
nakedness. It's like the doorbell ringing
when you're getting out of the shower. It's that salesman again, ready
to ring the doorbell, that or a Russellite trying to convert
you. Either way, it's always inconvenient. You don't just
bust out there on the porch in your birthday suit. You cover
up. And that's what's happening here. They're trying to hide
their guilt before the Lord in their own way. But does the Lord
cover their guilt and absolve them of that guilt? through their
own ability or their own idea or their own wisdom? No. God
does something different. He says in verse 21, listen to
the words here, and the Lord God made for Adam and for Eve. Now who's the actor there? The
Lord God made. For who? For Adam and for Eve,
for His creation, for His people. What did He make them? Garments. They were clothed in the presence
of His righteousness, clothed in the decree of His goodness,
clothed in the promise of eternal life through His provision, and
they did not want it. They wanted more, and they got
more. death. And then they tried to cover
themselves. This is a picture, beloved. It's
a picture of self-righteousness. It's a picture of self-will.
It's a picture of decisionism. It's a picture of taking the
Bible and putting together a bunch of inferences to make your own
doctrine. It's a picture of unlovingness. It's a picture of untrusting.
It's a picture of an impossible fool's errand
that we could affect our righteousness in any way. God made garments. What were they? Garments of leaves. They had garments. Garments of
skins. Garments of skins. Now, if all
we had was chapter 3 of Genesis, This would be a very difficult
thing to assess because we'd be coming to the place of trying
to figure out what the story's trying to teach us. But because
we have the apostles and all of the prophets, we have the
clear teaching of the whole counsel of God's Word, we know exactly
what is taking place here because the Apostle Paul, specifically
in Romans and in Hebrews, points back to it. In Galatians as well. How about that? Almost in all
the writing. And so do the Gospels, that God took an animal and in
some way took its skin. How do you take the skin of an
animal? I mean, are there like no-skinned horses running around
in Eden? Is there a lamb out there somewhere
that's just like zombie lamb, just muscle, no skin? Something
has to die to get its skin. To get a hide, it has to be killed
and butchered. Something has to die to cover
sin. And that which dies in order
for it to absolve sin must be perfect. And then the Lord takes away
his provision and gives another one. Adam and Eve are separated from
God in death. And beloved, perseverance, I
mean imagine that for a second. I wanted to say this, I don't
know if I said this or not, but Adam and Eve decided they wanted to
persevere in the garden. We're naked. Get in there and
let's make something to cover our nakedness, because we can't
hang out with the Lord unclothed, which is true. If we're not righteous,
we cannot be in the presence of God. If we're not as He is
in all perfection, there is no way He can stand with us, because
He is separate. The word for that is holy. He's
separated in such a way that nothing is like Him. Yet, they
think they can persevere by their own hands. But it's not enough. And even God's giving them skins
to cover their nakedness was not sufficient for them to remain
in His presence, nor was it sufficient for them to have eternal life.
Because He throws them out of the garden and says, get away
from my presence. You cannot live in this state. Though it does require me doing
something, this is just a shadow of that which I will do. And
what's crazy, and that's a southern term of saying what's very interesting,
is that God has already told them what He was going to do
before He gave them clothes. So as they're being charged and
tried, they're naked with fig leaves, or whatever kind of leaves
there were, azaleas, holly bushes, maybe it was holly, for those
of you who understand holly, or poison ivy. I'm done. That's the third time
today I've lost my train. I've derailed it. Fourth. Yes, God promised. While they're
being given the curse, there they are, clothed in their own
ability, which is worthless, and then God shows them the shadow
of what will come, and then He shows them what it looks like
in the covering of their nakedness and guilt by the flesh of an
animal. But what is it that God has done?
I alluded last week to, I'll look
forward, but I alluded last week to Romans 6, where it says, the
wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life
through Christ Jesus, or in Christ Jesus. We know that Paul says
in Romans 3 that the righteousness of God is manifested apart from
the law. Though the law and the prophets
bear witness, they show the point to it, it's a shadow, the righteousness
of God is fully understood and seen and revealed in the person
of Jesus Christ. And this is to be received and
understood, the better word there, by faith. And then Paul would go on to
say that it is a gift in and of itself, God's divine creative
power to work in us the resting, the ability to rest against our
senses, against our knowledge, and against our personal wisdom,
to rest in His promises and provision of the Lord Jesus Christ, who
was the one who was skinned for our transgressions, Isaiah. The one who bled and died. But God shows us the
wages of sin. A wage is something that you
deserve. You have to be paid what you owe. The one who does
not pay you what you owe is evil and is due prison. If you've
earned the wage. The wage of sin is death. Adam
and Eve received death. But the free gift of God, which
is in contrast, justice says die, grace says live, but in
order for grace to be just, justice has to be satisfied in grace. God just can't say, ah, it's
okay, you're forgiven. It's impossible. He must satisfy
His wrath with something that satisfies righteousness, His
essence, His person, His glory, all that He is. Jesus Christ
is the only one who will satisfy that righteousness in wrath. See, a lot of times we forget
that grace, as it means unmerited favor or gift, literally means
gift, something that's gifted to you. Sometimes we forget that
God deals with all sin in just wrath. And that the wrath He
pours out on Jesus Christ is grace for you and me. Because if He did not pour it
out on Christ, He could not forgive us. How do we get the grace,
the gift of life? Because God graciously and vengefully
and justly and legally poured out our wage on Jesus. And then He gifts us His glory,
righteousness, imputed. That means it's not us being
righteous. I mean, how's that going for
you? For He has not given us a spirit
of fear. How's that going for you? I'm way behind the bell
curve on that one. I was up all night. Didn't sleep
one hour. Time I shut my eyes. I said,
oh Father, please let me sleep. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts,
thoughts, burdens, anxiety, fear, frustration, irritation, anger.
All in a minute, second. Wait a minute, is the air on?
It's hot. I mean, you know, now I have
to go to the restroom. I mean, it's just like, what
is going on? Yeah, fear. Love your neighbor as yourself.
How's that going? Some of us couldn't even get
to church with the person we're driving with, loving them correctly,
whether it be a child or a spouse or a best friend or a neighbor
or the guy that we ran over and we'll pick up after church. Let's be honest. We have no righteousness
of our own. And if we're left to ourselves,
and God counts our attempts at righteousness to our credit,
guess what we get? Death. We earn death. But the free gift of God is Jesus
Christ the Son in our place. Chapter 3 shows us clearly this
picture. You die, and because you have
died, you're going to die. That's sort of what God says.
And because you're going to die, life and the world around you
is going to die. Everything is going to be disheveled.
Everything is going to be destroyed. All this order that I showed
you that I alone can keep and create is now about to become
disorder. And the only reason that it doesn't
fall apart now, God speaking, is because I have a divine purpose
that I'm going to play out through time. And by the way, God is
not in time. All things are at all times done. Time is a creation. And then
we'll just move right along from that one. But you are a cursed serpent. The devil was already cursed.
Now the snake's cursed. Now, see, this sounds like a
myth, right? This is the explanation of why trees grow up. This is
an explanation of why the sun goes down. I mean, you know,
you've seen that. The great tortoise that holds
the world up and all that. I mean, there's always a story
or a fable or a myth that can explain certain natural realities. I mean, look at Greek mythology. Roman gods and goddesses. demigods and all these other
different types of things that have been created through the
years. But there's an expression here showing the serpent, the
means through which God used to allow Satan or Lucifer, let's
call him by his name, to deceive Eve for Adam and Eve to fall
of their own desire. Now, this creature is cursed.
And I'm scared of a lot of different types of critters. Now I'm scared
of hippopotamus, hippopotami. I've been looking at how fierce
those things are. They'll hunt you down and eat
you and throw you up. I mean, it's just like, are you
kidding me? I thought they were sweet. They look sweet. Oh, none of that. And they're
water-dwelling type things, too. That's crazy. You know, spiders. Spiders. You know, that's why
God is going to destroy the earth second time by fire. So all the
spiders will surely die. And, sorry. And then there's a lot of other
things that we're fearful of. But there is one thing that's pretty
much true around the world. For a majority of people, they're
scared of snakes, right? There's a reason there. So yeah,
there is a literal sense in which people have enmity with snakes.
I mean, cats are scared of snakes. Yeah, they jump high. You can
watch videos all the time on YouTube, cats jumping at snakes
and snake-like things and cucumbers and other stuff. So mean to make
an animal be that scared. But here when God says, I will
put enmity between you, He's now speaking directly to the
reality of what death does. It puts enmity. What is enmity? Well, we could use a lot of phrases
and words. Enmity, simply put, is just hatred,
bad vibes, unlovingness, division, death. You, the woman in you,
you're going to be at odds for the rest of your lives. You're
never going to be at peace. Now that's true of some, most
women, not all women, some women, some men and snakes, but it's
true of all humanity and the enemy. And it's true of all humanity
and the Lord. And then he says, her offspring. And here is where you just have
to pay close attention. Because when he says offspring,
he's talking about the seed of a woman, and without going into
a whole lot of biology, typically this type of thing in a patriarchal
Semitic system would be through the lineage
of a man. And when we see that the apostles
point to this as the virgin birth, as the incarnation of the God-man
in the garden, promised in the garden, we see this promise of
the one who shall come from woman, who will crush the head of the
serpent. What does it mean to crush the
head of the serpent? To kill it. The New Testament is full of these
types of references. Christ has destroyed the works of the devil.
Christ has what? victorious over sin and death.
This is the picture. This is the promise. It's the
gospel that Jesus Christ will come into the world, which is
why God created it, in order that He would be the one to be
crushed for the iniquities of God's people, and that in doing
so, He would destroy the wage of sin for His people. And then
16 through 19, We see all these other problems.
And I'll get to those next week. These problems, you know, childbearing,
childrearing, all sorts of things, this ruling over the wife type
situation, this desire shall be for her husband. You notice
your translation says contrary. Is this what it means? And then all of this hard work.
Work and labor are part of God's gifts, as we'll see. But because of sin, it's never-ending
and it's hard. It does not yield that which
it could have yielded. And beloved, the work of creation
will never yield life perpetually. As we've already learned, only
God can yield perpetual life, eternal life. And so then we
see that what God has done in the skin of an animal, He will
fulfill ultimately in the skin of His Son who takes on human
flesh. And the reason this is all there
is to teach about God's grace, which is sovereign and free. Now see, these are terms that
we use. These are terms that we use to illustrate ideas that
we have come up to understand and define based on our reading
and study of scripture throughout our life and historically. But
if I say the word sovereign, and I say the word free, most
of us know in a simple way what those words mean. But when I
say free grace, that is not also sovereign grace, then I'm talking
about something completely different. If I say sovereign grace that
is not also free grace, I'm talking about something completely different.
Because sovereign grace in and of itself is just God providing
grace. Free grace in and of itself is
that it's unmerited. But without these two working
together, in the context of what the Scripture teaches us, even
in the creation account and the fall of humanity, together, we
will misinterpret and misunderstand. And we will find little, you
know how you sort of, you hear a song sometimes, you go, wait
a minute, I know that song. But it's not the song you thought
it was. It sounded like it. Or it's a really bad cover in
the elevator. You know, it's the Boston Symphony C band trying
to Do some Michael Jackson. I mean, I've heard that. It's
bad. Oh, that was a pun. Okay. Unintentional. Wow, I'm on a roll today. Sovereign
grace and free grace. See, we always think we're right
in our own eyes. Well, I understand that, Steph.
Well, do we? Has God given us learning or
have we just been told and we can recite what we're told? You
know, there are gospel preachers who are unconverted throughout
all of history. And there are brothers and sisters
who can recite the gospel who are unconverted. And there are
some people who make a mess of things at times because of the
Judaizers and the Gnostics and everybody else that come in and
try to add new things and process new ways of filtering siblinghood. and they could be completely
regenerate and just be completely confused. But there are also people who
accuse me of saying what I didn't say right then and say, you're
saying people can come to faith through a false gospel. No, stop
being a liar. I didn't say that. You are a
liar if you say I say that. And none of you say that. So
let's just rest. In what? The gospel of free and
sovereign grace. But let's understand what it means. See, we always
think we're right in our own eyes. We ignore the promises
of God and the truth of the Scripture, and when we do that, we're trying
to be right in our own eyes. We don't know it. It's not like
we get up and go, I am right in my own eyes. Right in my eyes. That's my new name tag. We're
not getting up doing that. It's deceitful. We've been deceived
by our own flesh. I mean, Eve wasn't going, you
know, God's going to get me, but that fruit, I've got to eat
it. I've got to be wise. He's not here, is he? Adam, where
is the Lord? I think He's walking outside.
He can't see us. No, she's like, this is going
to be great. This is going to be great. The Lord's going to
come up here. We're going to be more like peers now. We're going to be able to talk
about things at a different level. Our theology discussions are
going to be amazing. I can't wait to talk about the wisdom,
the knowledge, the understanding of being like God. He just doesn't
understand what he's trying to withhold. He's lonely. He needs
us. That's contemporary Christian
theologians right now. God needs me. God doesn't need
any of us. He won't use anybody who thinks
that He needs them. Never has, never will. Just get
up and throw everything away and walk off the face of the
earth to do God's work without preparation, training, and years
of patience? Baloney. It doesn't happen. Anybody called to the ministry
without years of patience and planning is a liar. They're just
a little old boy playing house. It's like giving somebody a plastic
shovel and saying, go be a farmer. It's not going to work. The Scripture's
clear. Scripture's clear. We don't find
our own path. And sometimes we find our own
path to understanding sovereignty and grace and everything else,
satisfaction, spiritual maturity, assurance. And in the end, all
these things lead to death. Sometimes we think, well, you
know, God is creating me to be a new man in His image. No, He is not. That is not taught
in the Scripture. I'd love to see it without 15
separate proof texts over 9 books. Show me in the context that it's
also taught in another context. That is a proof text. Anybody
can produce conjecture and inference and make a logical and valid
argument and go, see, I was right. That's what all the cults of
the world have done. All the Christian cults of the world.
All the evangelical cults of the world. Listen to the Word
of God. There's no new man. Jesus is
the new man. He is the image of God. I've
been saying this for years and people look at me like, But I'm
doing better. No, you're not doing better.
You're not doing better. The very fact that when you hear
that you're not growing in absolute goodness to a degree that would
be comparable to the person of Christ, and it upsets you, proves
you're not good. You see? The very fact that I
get flustered by that proves that I'm not good. Aggravation. Irritation. These are not things
the Spirit of God does for His people. God does not cause us
to have an elevated blood pressure, and a heartbeat, and breathe,
and panic because we don't like something. That is sin. That
is flesh. When we get angry, it is sin. Well, the Bible says, be angry
with sin not. Exactly. I've got to protect the truth.
I've got to protect my own. I've got to... Just go into beatboxing then,
because you do a better job at it. We need to relax in the promises
of grace, sovereign and free. God the Spirit helps us, and
grows us, and leads us, but He does not rearrange us. What is
repentance but faith and trust and assurance and satisfaction
in Christ? That the mind of the flesh says
everything it wants to say inside, and the gospel says no. But I've got to paint the wall?
No. Well, I've got to dress like? No. Well, I've got to change
my... No. And some of us have learned to
be quiet, but still try. And we're failing. We're failing
at faith. Thank God our faith isn't what
justifies us. But our faith rests in the report
of the one who is faithful, who justified us. That's what's called
good news. So the Spirit helps us, not rearrange
us. He grants repentance, which is
faith in His promises, faith in His work. See, it's so simple,
it flusters us, it ruffles our feathers, it pets the cat backwards. Whatever other illustration can
get you all to see that it's not good to the flesh, and we
hate that stuff. And beloved, all of us have an
inkling of self-righteousness in us if we're breathing today.
Well, not me. There it is. If you just said,
not me, that was it. Well, I don't see that. Of course
you don't. Doesn't mean you're lost. It means you're immature.
Could be a sign of unconvertedness. Depends on where your hope lies.
Because God will show you the truth. And the Word of God will
show you the truth. And the Word of God will show
you how to live the truth. And the one who is being led
by the Spirit, who is calm and at rest, who is spiritual and
maturing, they will believe and trust, even through the kicks
and screams sometimes, the promises of God. That God's promises are
sovereign. That God's power is sovereign.
That God's gospel is sovereign. That God's grace is sovereign.
To think that we're becoming like Jesus is to believe the
lie of the serpent. We have the promise of being
just like Him one day. Yes, we are called because we
are redeemed to put away the flesh, to put on Good words,
good thoughts, good deeds to flee immorality, to speak to
one another with respect, to be submissive to government,
to not speak ill of any human being in the world. They're one of our memes. I mean,
you know? We live in a culture of Christian wickedness. And
we're all in it. Praise God for His glorious grace.
Sovereign and free. For if it were not for the gospel,
we would perish. So where does that leave us?
It leaves us being shown day after day, minute after minute,
second after second, that if it were not for the grace of
God, He would smite us and be justified in doing so. But because
He has smitten His Son, because He has destroyed His Son, because
He has crucified His Son, He cannot smite us. Because the
debt has been paid. Therefore, we live in the obedience of faith. As Paul would teach in the Romans.
Because sovereignty and free needs to be understood clearly.
God made for Adam. God said, I will put enmity. God said, I will multiply your
pain. God said, God said, God said. Now why do you think God started
Moses out with the creation of the world? Why couldn't he just
start here? Because we had to see first that
God could say what he wanted and it happened. And nothing
could stop it. So that when we get to the fall,
when God says, when you eat of this tree, you will die, it happened. Then when they died, God says,
I will cause, I will curse, I will put, I will make, I will. Who will? Now if you know the
fall of Lucifer, what is it that Lucifer did? Lucifer said in
his heart, I will. He didn't get up in God's face,
he said in his heart. I will ascend to that stage and
stand with the Lord. Look at us together, what we
could be." And God threw him out. Threw him out of the garden. Threw him out of the garden of
worship into the garden of Eden. God shuts off all natural means
to life because only supernatural power can give it. Sovereignty
needs to be understood in these ways, according to the Scripture. There's too much for me to go
through here, but it'll give us a little bit of a hors d'oeuvre.
God approved that He alone could create good from nothing, could
divide and order the cosmos, and now that only in His promises
and power can any man, woman, or child find righteousness apart
from their own flesh. Now God will provide another
promise here in creation, which pointed to Christ, a sovereign
mercy that is free and sovereign. Sovereign, we hear the words,
King of kings, Lord of lords, first and last. And we need to
understand that the scripture, of course, the Bible tells us,
I am God, there is no other, I do what I want, no one stays
in my hand, I'll have my way. Nothing can stop me. I don't
care about your ideas or desires or actions because nothing can
stop me. This is God's paraphrase to you
this morning. And check it. Don't take my word
for it. Where there is a shadow of a
true sovereign in the world, like a government, a king, or
a sovereign, or a lord, They're just there because God has decreed
them to be there. They're not sovereign. He is
all of them, over all of them, rather. He is the Lord of all
lords and the King of all kings. So of every king, a king is nothing
but a servant of the true Lord and King. God is the one who
is Elohim. He is the one who is the highest
of all things. God delegates authority, as Paul would teach
us, and it also, the scripture of the prophets even teaches
that God establishes kings and governments, and they rise and
fall by His decrees. Kings can become cows, and cows
can become kings, and so on and so forth. God, even in creation, saw that
He showed His sovereignty and that He created lights to rule
the day and to rule the night. He is the Lord over light, and
that light, as we see in John's Gospel, is Christ. The Scripture says in verse 15,
which He will display at the proper time, He who is blessed
and only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. In
Romans 13, I've already mentioned, but it's like every person should
be subject to the governing authorities, for there's no authority except
from God, and those that exist have been instituted or created
by God. In Psalm 29, and there's a bunch
of Psalms that we did, Psalm 29, verse 10 says, the Lord sits
enthroned over the flood. The Lord sits enthroned as King
forever. I mentioned Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel
chapter 4, and we could go on and on and on, and we could see
that God, as it says there, His kingdom endures from generation
to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth
are accounted as nothing, and He does according to His will
among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay His hand or say to Him, what have
you done? Romans 9 pops into my mind as that is read in my
heart. Matthew 10. are not two sparrows
sold for a penny, and not one of them will fall to the ground
apart from your Father, but even the hairs of your head are all
numbered." So we see the majesty of creation, the staunchness
and the stoicness of government and kingdoms, and then small
things like birds and hair. Revelation 19, which is an incredible
picture. I don't want to derail what I'm
thinking here, but that's where it talks about his sword and
tattoos on his arms and legs, and his robe is dipped in blood
of his enemies and all this kind of stuff. I mean, this is like
a guy you don't want to let in your house if he's selling stuff. Nine dollars a year or not. But
it says on his robe and his stah, he has a name written, the King
of Kings and the Lord of Lords. This is a sovereign God. So grace
is sovereign in that He executes its efficacy. That means it works
because He does it. Grace in and of itself is not
a thing that does anything. Grace is the manner in which
God operates toward His people in salvation so that we understand
what the Scripture teaches. According to the Scripture, when
grace is attributed to God possessively in the grammar, it is always
Him saving His people sovereignly. without merit in His power, without
their permission, without their decisions, and certainly without
anything they could bring to the table. And it's also free. That means
there's nothing the creature can promise, nothing the creature
can provide, nothing the creature can perform that would come in
return for salvation or as payment for salvation. Grace is free. The gospel is free. God's sovereignty
executes His purposes and salvation freely as He determines, Ephesians
chapter 1 and 2. Think mercy when you hear the
word grace, because that's a better translation. God's mercy. Why? Because we have worn the
word grace out to where it doesn't mean anything anymore. Like love. We love pizza. We love movies.
We love the Lord. We love our spouse. Oh, gosh.
There's a wide variety of meaning behind that, right? That's why
when you're in the fourth grade, say, man, I really love these
shoes. Somebody goes, why don't you marry them then? We've all heard it. Grace, mercy, salvation. It's not offered from God. It's
decreed by God. It's purposed. It's finished.
God said it. It is. He decreed it. This is
a promise. To deny God's promise or to condition
God's promises of eternal life on anything that we can do as
creatures is to desire to be like God, is to say, I will take
the divine power in my hand and I will work it for myself. or
I will meet God in a synergistic way. I will work together in
power with God and God will allow me. Folks, this is what myths
are made of. It's what stories, it's what
fairy tales. This is why we have the Avengers,
not Avenger. That's why even in the most powerful
superheroes or false gods out there, there's always something
that can thwart their plans and do something. There's always
something they're waiting on to do, waiting on somebody else to do.
God waits on no one. He purposes and causes all things
to work after the counsel of His own will. He answers to no
one. He does not look through time
because time is something He holds in His hand. God does not
learn. He is and He is all things at
all times or knows all things at all times. He is not all things.
except in the spiritual sense, in preeminence. The decree, I
will put, I will make, he shall. God is the one doing, and because
of that, God alone is the one who has said what is good news.
He has said that it was good, this is not good, this is good,
this is not good. I will do this and it will be
good. To deny grace in a sovereign way and to deny that grace is
free is to deny the gospel. I'm going to say that again.
To deny the gospel is the same thing as denying free and sovereign
grace. And I'm not talking about to
say these positions or these things, but let me say something,
beloved. If I say that which Scripture says in my own words,
it is as authoritative as Scripture. Because sometimes hillbillies
have to translate. Sometimes my lack of intellect
has to put it in terms that I can relate to. But if it is saying
what God's Word is saying, it is authoritative. The Word is
authoritative. The fall of man reveals only
the outcome of what man's free choices can attain. Self-sufficiency, self-righteousness,
self-glory, which ends in death. And because grace is sovereign
and free, because God is sovereign and free in His power to save
His people, and it is a done deal, we can have assurance.
Adam and Eve had assurance this day. God will crush the head
of the work of the serpent. He will crush the work of the
serpent through the seed of the woman. by shedding His blood
and taking His righteousness and clothing His people in true
righteousness that they'd never had before, even before the fall.
They were just in the presence of righteousness and innocence,
just like the trees and the snakes. Assurance, as we've learned,
also is God's promise and has nothing to do with man's performance.
The God-man has performed everything required for salvation Everything
required in His humanity also for righteousness because He
is righteous. So everything that Jesus has
said, thought, or done and desired is righteousness. So faith alone reveals what God
has done by His power through Jesus Christ, and God grants
the resting of this promise, and that is what faith is. It
is easy to get this confused as a means of assurance, like
1 John says. It was always so difficult to
explain that. You ever find yourself, you know
that what you're trying to say is wrong, but you're thinking
rightly. And the more you speak, the worse
it sounds when you're trying to explain spiritual things.
And then one day, you just sit down and read, and it's like,
wow. That is God's blessed patience. It doesn't mean that you don't
believe the truth. It means you don't really know how to explain
the truth. Because the minute we think we know how to explain
the truth, we'll think we're the effectual agent for redemption
for others, won't we? Yeah, we're not. God's mercy
is. God alone is. So, as I've said already, I think
our language needs to rest in the biblical mode of expression, even if it contrasts with the
historical mode of expression. Otherwise, sheep get scared.
Sheep get scared. When we get to chapter 4, there's
a lot of nonsense over there on that, about why Cain was rejected. Cain did this, and Cain thought
that, and Cain... Cain was rejected because of
the will of God. So what happens? If we don't
get grace-free and sovereign, and we don't learn it, and we
don't hold fast to it, we get fearful. We become afraid. We start trying to cover ourselves
up and we want to hide from God the reality of who we are. We
want to hide from one another and each of us thinking the other
being such superior spiritual beings will never match up to
the guy or gal sitting next to us or in front of us or beside
us. But beloved, we're all in the same pot. That's not saying
which frog is the cleanest in the bucket. I don't know. The one you bathe. It's still
a frog. It's still a snake. It's still a turd. When you get real, that was for
the children. Fear is not given by God. Fear
is not the precursor to regeneration. Fear is the consequence of death. Spirit of God does not give fear
to His children in the context of redemption. Fear is a natural consequence
of sin. The natural consequence of guilt.
They hid, they clothed, they knew evil in themselves, and
God purposed all these things. He purposed all these things
so that he would be the redeemer of his people. So grace that
is sovereign and free is freely given, and because it is sovereign
and free, it is effectual. And because it is effectual,
that means that it is by God's power, and it is not offered,
it is applied. It is working, and it is certain. Beloved, there's a lot of stuff.
There's a lot of stuff. We could repeat over and over
and over again. And we could look at all these things. And
as we continue to go through this, I just thank the Lord that
He's helping us to see, in the big picture, the Gospel. And
we could keep going. We could go through the entire
book of Genesis, and none of the things written there don't
point to the Gospel. And the positive, all those things
written there point to the Gospel. The whole point of it all is
to show God's sovereignty over every small detail of man's life. And what He's recorded in the
history of Genesis shows us that He can be trusted and that His
power is great. Let's pray. We thank You, Father, just for
Your kindness and for Your mercy. And I thank You, Lord, for allowing
us to hear the Word this morning and to worship together. Lord,
bond us in the Gospel. Help us to pray for each other
rather than ponder and fret and fear. It's so easy. We get so
bound up in this world and all of the details. So, Lord, help us to be busy
about serving each other and about loving each other. as we
rest in Your salvation, so that You might grow us all into a
place of peace that the world does not understand. Help us to remember in all the
Scripture what You teach us about Your work and Your power and
Your promises and Your love toward us, Your people. And Father,
help us to be patient with others, that Your sheep, Your children
who have yet to come to know the truth, Lord, help us to be
patient with them. To show them the Word that at the time that
you've allotted, you will open their eyes to see it. Lord, let
us thaw away suspicion. Let us thaw away fear. Help us
to put aside all these principles and applications of conditionalism
and new laws, gnosticism. And Lord, just let us be simple
people with a simple faith, given through simple grace and a simple
story. It is more than a story. It is
your power. It is your glory. It is your face. So help us to
look at your face. Help us to see that which you've
shown us, which you have shown. Let there be light in the hearts
of my people that they may see me for all that I am in the face
of my Son, Jesus Christ. That's what your Word teaches
us, Lord. And that is authoritative to the ends of infinity. And we praise you for it. In
Jesus' name, amen. Let's sing, beloved.