The Lord will bless me in preaching.
He's blessed the psalm service and the reading of His Word in
prayer. We're going to be blessed. I've
got a blessing just sitting there the last few minutes. The title of the message is taken
from verse 3 of Revelation 22. And there shall be no more curse.
But before we can get a blessing from this verse, We have to go
back to the garden in Genesis chapter 3. We have to understand
what happened in Genesis chapter 3 or we can't understand another
page of God's Word. And that certainly includes Revelation
22. I thought what Henry told us
so often, wrong on the fall, wrong on it all. We have to understand
what happened here in Genesis chapter 3. And we have to understand
this, this is what I hope we can come away with this understanding
this evening. Between Genesis chapter 3, where
there's all this curse and this judgment, and Revelations 22,
where we read this wonderful statement, and there shall be
no more curse, how did we get from here to there? In these
pages, between Genesis 3 and Revelations 22, is the most wonderful
story that has ever been told. It's the most amazing display
of God's grace and wisdom and love that we could get from Genesis
chapter three. The Revelations 22, there shall
be no more curse. So let's see if we can look at
this and learn something from it this evening. Now, you know
the story of a serpent beguiled Eve. She ate that fruit of the
tree, the knowledge of good and evil that God had commanded them
not to eat. In verse 6 of Genesis 3, when a 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 gave also unto her husband with her,
and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and
they knew that they were naked, and they sewed thick leaves together,
and made themselves aprons. Now, verse 8, and they heard
the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence
of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden. Now how wicked
is it that Adam and Eve, after they ate this fruit in disobedience,
made themselves aprons of fig, fig leaves, to cover their nakedness? That's wicked. I know on the
surface it doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's wicked.
It's very wicked. Because what they were doing
was trying to cover their sin and cover their shame with their
own works. They are trying to cover their
sin with something that they made. They are trying to cover
their shame with a solution that they thought of and with something,
a covering that they made. Now look over Mark chapter 11. This is very interesting. I learned
this from Arthur Pink as I was studying this week. Mark chapter
11. Verse 12, And on the morrow, when they
were come from Bethany, he was hungry, our Lord was hungry.
And seeing a fig tree far off having leaves, he came, if haply
he might find anything thereon. And when he came to it, he found
nothing but leaves, for the time of the figs was not yet. And
Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee
hereafter forever. And his disciples heard it. Now
this is the only thing our Lord cursed during his earthly ministry,
was a fig tree. The same kind of tree that Adam
chose to try to cover his own sin. There were leaves on that
tree, but no fruit. And the Lord cursed it. Now look
over at verse 20. And in the morning, as they passed
by, they saw that fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter,
calling to remember him, saith unto him, Behold, the fig tree
which thou cursed is withered away. And Jesus answering, saith
unto him, Have faith in God. I tell you what our Lord's teaching
right there. Don't trust in your own works. That's what that fig tree represents,
because that's what Adam used it for. Don't trust in your own
works. Don't trust in your own works
of righteousness. Have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The
only covering that you will ever find for your sin and for your
shame is in the blood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And you won't contribute one
leaf to it. Not one. Have faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ to cover all of your sin and your nakedness. Now Adam
and Eve's fig leaves, they did cover part of their naked body.
I mean, they sewed them together and put them on. They covered
part of their nakedness. But those leaves had no fruit. Those
leaves, they put them on. But those leaves did not cover
their shame. You know how I know that? Because
when they heard God walking in the garden, they ran and hid
in the bushes. Those leaves didn't work. They didn't cover their
shame. Our works can never take away the shame of our sin. Only
the blood of Christ can take away sin and the shame of sin,
the curse of sin. Look at verse 9 in Genesis 3.
And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where
art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and
I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. And he said,
Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the
tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
Now, you know this. God knew Adam already ate that
fruit. God knows everything. He knew that. And God didn't
ask this question for his own information. God never asks a
question so he can find something out. God asks questions so we'll
learn something. God asks this question because
he's going to hear it from Adam. Adam is going to confess his
sin, confess what he's done. And if you look in verse 12,
Adam does a very poor job of confessing his sin. And the man
said, the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of
the tree and I did eat. Now, this would have been a very,
very good time to beg for mercy. But that's not what Adam does.
He doesn't ask for mercy. Adam blames everyone but himself
for his sin. He says, God, it's your fault.
If you hadn't given me this woman, I wouldn't have sinned. If she
wasn't here, I wouldn't have sinned. He blamed everybody but
himself for his sin. And we all do the same thing
today. You know, something's wrong with this. what somebody
did to us in our past or something, you know. You know why we do
that? We've got Adam's nature. That's
why we do that. That's what Adam says. Not my
fault. It's your fault, God. It's Eve's fault. If it wasn't
for the two of you, I never would have sinned. That's what he's
saying. So, verse 13, the Lord God sent unto the woman, What
is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent
beguiled me, and I did eat. He's got Adam's nature now, too,
doesn't she? She does the same thing, and he's her head, and
she's got his nature, just like United. He passed it right to
her, and she says, not my fault. In verse 14, the Lord God said
unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed
above all cattle, and above every beast of the field. Upon thy
belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of
thy life. I will put enmity between thee and the woman. between thy
seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise
his heel." Now, you notice God doesn't even waste his time asking
to hear anything from Satan, does he? He just immediately
curses Satan. Satan is cursed, and the form
that Satan took is cursed. The form that Satan took here
was the serpent, and Satan was cursed, and the serpent was cursed. The form that Satan took And
people hate snakes to this day because of this. Almost universally. Maggie and Sidney don't hate
snakes, but I bet everybody else in this room does. We hate snakes
because of this. It's just, it's this curse. Snakes
apparently used to be, they'd walk or they flew somehow. They
were beautiful, exquisite animals. And I guess they're still kind
of pretty, but they slither around in the dust, licking the dust.
I mean, it's just, ugh. And it's because of the curse.
And Satan is cursed. And the Lord prophesied right
here at the beginning how Satan will be finished off. Now Satan's
main desire is to keep people from coming to the Lord Jesus
Christ. If he can keep anyone for whom Christ died from coming
to Christ, Satan will be victorious. And God prophesied right from
the beginning how Satan is going to be finished off. He's going
to be crushed by the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. What
our Lord say, and I, if I be lifted up from the earth will
draw all unto me. This is how Satan is going to
be crushed in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's
because of that sacrifice, all of God's people will be irresistibly
drawn to that sacrifice because they're going to know this, that
sacrifice is the only hope I have of having my sin and my curse
taken away." Now, verse 16, the Lord turns to the woman, and
he says, under the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply
thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth
children, and thy desires shall be to thy husband, and he shall
rule over thee. Now, to Adam he said, because
thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten
of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not
eat of it, Cursed is the ground for thy sake, and sorrow shalt
thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles
shalt bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the
field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground. For out of it was thou taken,
for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." And Adam
called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Now there's judgment, punishment
in those verses. But I'm telling you, there is
God's electing love in these verses too. You'll notice Adam
and Eve are punished. But they're not cursed. God didn't
say, Adam, you're cursed. He didn't say, Eve, you're cursed.
He said, the ground's cursed for your sake. There's punishment.
There's consequences because of your sin. But they're not
cursed. Satan was cursed. The form that
Satan took was cursed. But Adam and Eve are not cursed,
because God had already provided the Redeemer for their sin. Satan
in his form, the serpent, was cursed. Adam's form was cursed. The ground was cursed for Adam's
sake. The ground that God used to make Adam was cursed. But
Adam was not cursed, because in the loins of Adam are every
last one of God's elect. He was not cursed. And Eve, she
suffered punishment, but Eve was not cursed because in the
seed of Eve is the Savior who's going to come and take this curse
away. Eve, Adam says, the mother of
all living. She's the mother of all living
because in her seed is life itself. The Lord Jesus Christ, the seed
of woman. Christ is going to come. He's
not going to partake of Adam's seed. He's not going to be a
descendant of Adam. He's not going to have Adam's
nature. He's the seed of woman. He does not have Adam's nature. And that will enable him to bear
the curse away. Now, God's grace is here. The
woman sinned first. And God said, by woman is going
to come the Redeemer. By the woman's seed is going
to come the Savior who will bear the curse of sin for his people
away forever. For Adam and Eve, there is punishment,
but there's no curse. And in this punishment, there's
mercy and there's pictures of Christ. I'll show you those here
in a minute as we come to the conclusion of the message. But
in this punishment, there are pictures of Christ and how this
curse is going to be taken away. Now look at verse 21. And to
Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin
and he clothed them. Now, the first gospel message
ever preached on this planet was preached by God himself.
He prophesied of how the Messiah is going to come. The seed of
woman is going to crush the serpent's head. And then he killed an animal. He gave Adam and Eve a picture
of how the sin and the shame of his people is going to be
taken away. And it's going to be taken away
through the sacrifice of another. It's going to happen through
death and bloodshed. Adam and Eve saw the first death
that occurred after their sin. There was blood. God killed that
animal and took its skin off. There had to be blood. And they
watched that blood. That blood that they saw. I mean,
you think of the wonder. It's going through their mind.
That blood pictured the blood of the seed of woman who would
come. And that blood, through that blood, take away the curse
of sin. Sinners are going to be covered
by the covering of another. Adam and Eve were covered by
the skin of another, an animal that died and gave up its hide
to cover them, which is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ is going
to die and impute His righteousness as a perfect covering to His
people. I'm sure Adam and Eve didn't
have any understanding of all the ramifications of that, but
we do. We can give thanks for that.
Now verse 22, the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as
one of us, to no good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his
hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever,
therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden,
that till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out
the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims,
and a flaming sword was turned every way to keep the tree of
life. Adam and Eve were thrust out
of the garden, could not return. That garden was paradise and
it was lost because of sin. And to this day, we suffer the
effects of Adam and Eve's punishment because Adam is our federal head. Adam was our representative and
we suffer the effects of this because we received his nature.
You ladies know full well the effects of Eve's judgment. There's
pain and there's sorrow in everything it takes for you to conceive
and raise children, bear children. You know it well. You get a monthly
reminder of it every month. All during your pregnancy, you
get a reminder of it. Just the difficulty, the pain. I remember Jan saying, I can't
breathe, there's kids on my lungs. It's just constant. And those
labor pains, or a lifelong reminder, you'll never forget them, because
of this curse. They say if men had to bear children,
there'd be one, and they're probably right. I'm talking about something
I really don't know about, but what I've heard about, you all
understand this. And wives, because of this curse,
are in subjection to their husbands. Now in our day, this is not a
popular thing. But it will forever be so, because
God said it. Now think about it. If Adam had
never sinned, wives would still be in subjection to their husband.
He's the head. He's got the rule. But without
that sin, that submission would be a delight. You'd delight in
it. And men would have always ruled
well without Adam's sin. We would have ruled well, lovingly
and wisely in our homes. And I say to us husbands, We
should rule our homes lovingly and wisely. I'm telling you,
men, rule your home. Take the leadership of it. Take
the responsibility for it. Many times today, women rule
the home for this reason. Husbands refuse to take the responsibility
of the job. That's why. Somebody's got to
rule. Somebody's got to. Or else it's going to be total
chaos. Husbands, we should pray for the wisdom to rule well. And I'll give you a clue here,
how you know you're ruling well. If your wife and your children
find it easy to be in submission to you, you're ruling well. Isn't that the way our Lord rules
us? So we love to be in submission to Him. Men, we ought to rule
the home the same way. And because of Adam's sin, we're
all out there working as hard as we can every day to make ends
meet. to support our family, it's hard work. I mean, it's
just, you've got to keep going and things just keep getting
more and more expensive. You can never stop because of
this curse. Now all of us aren't farmers,
but whatever business or occupation you're in, I guarantee you, you've
got thorns and thistles. You make plans, you make preparations,
you get everything set up, And stuff falls apart. You've got
problems. You've got obstacles. You can't do what you planned.
Something falls apart. Those are thorns and thistles.
Because of this curse. And after a life of this, we
die. Every one of us will die. Because
our bodies are carrying around a dead nature. And we're going
to die. If you look back in Genesis chapter 2, it happened just like
God said it would. I mean, what not surprises. In
Genesis 2 verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the
man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not
eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die." And if you've got a little number
by that, like my Bible does, it'll tell you what that means.
God says, dying, thou shalt die. We can tell from what Adam said
to God here in Genesis 3, after he ate that fruit, he was dead
spiritually, wasn't he? He was already dead spiritually.
He felt shame. He felt fear. He felt hatred
of God that can only come from being spiritually dead. And in
a number of years, his body will die too, because Adam was carrying
around his dead nature. And as our representative, as
our federal head, Adam passed that sinful, dead, rotten nature
and the effects of that sin right on to you and me. Romans 5.12,
by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men,
for that all sinned. All sinned in Adam. When Adam
sinned, I sinned. When Adam sinned, you sinned.
Every son of Adam sinned and became guilty when Adam sinned.
By one man's offense, death reigned by one. You know why there's
an obituary section in every newspaper in this country? Death
rounds. Because of the sin of Adam. By
the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation. Every man in the flesh lives
under the condemnation of the law because we've all broken
it. By one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. You and
I were made to be sinners when our federal head seemed What
he did, we did. Now, there was a first paradise,
the Garden of Eden. Adam ruined it by sin, brought
the curse of sin upon that paradise, and it was lost. But there is
a second paradise. If you look over in Revelations
22, we read what John said he saw. That second paradise is
heaven itself. And there, there's no sin. and no more curse. This earth,
all that's in it is sin and the curse of sin. That's all that's
in it. But there, there's no more sin and no more curse. In
Revelation 22, verse 1, And he showed me a pure river of water
of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and
out of the land. Now here, John says he saw a
river in the second paradise. Well, there was a river in the
first paradise. That river had four heads in every direction
of the compass, and that water, all the Garden of Eden. Well,
there's a river in the second paradise. It's the river of the
water of life. And that river is the everlasting
love of God in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a pure river. It's a holy river. It's never
been defiled by sin, never will be defiled by sin. And this water
of life is given sovereignly. Where's the head of this river?
The throne of God. It flows from the throne of Almighty
God. Love. Life. Eternal life comes
to us from King Christ. It comes from the throne. It's
given sovereignly. In verse 2, John saw a tree in
the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river.
Was there the tree of life? which bared twelve manner of
fruits, and yielded her fruit every month. And the leaves of
the tree were for the healing of the nations. Now in the garden
of Eden there was the tree of life, and in heaven John saw
the tree of life." Now that tree, I mean there may be an actual
tree there, but John's writing in the book of Revelation is
always in picture. This tree is not an actual tree.
He's talking here about the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the tree
of life. He's everywhere at once. This
tree, it's in the midst of the river. It's on either side of
the river. It's on either side of the street. It's everywhere.
That's our Lord Jesus Christ. He's everywhere at once. And
everyone in heaven enjoys the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ
face to face. Everyone. Everyone enjoys His
presence as if they were the only one there. Face to face
with the Lord Jesus Christ. And this tree, John says, has
got twelve manner of fruits. It yields fruit every month.
It doesn't just yield fruit for a short time the rest of the
year if it's dormant or whatever they do. Fruit on it twelve months
out of the year. It's never barren. Well, you
know that's Christ. He bears fruit always. for all twelve tribes of spiritual
Israel. And Christ is enough fruit for
all that number that no man can number. Christ is their all. And that tree has to be Christ,
because John says its leaves are for the healing of the nations.
That's Christ who heals all the sicknesses, all spiritual sicknesses
of His people. There'll be no sickness. There'll
be no cold. There'll be no allergies. There'll
be no broken backs and things. Because there's no sin that causes
any of that. Because Christ has taken it away. This is the curse of sin. It's
all the infirmities of this flesh that we have. There, there shall
be no more curse. That's what John says in verse
3. And there shall be no more curse. But the throne of God
and of the Lamb shall be in it. And His servants will serve Him.
Now you read that as well as I do. There shall be no more
curse. But the question is, that somebody might not know, is how
do we get from the curse and the judgment of Genesis 3 to
here in Revelations 22, there shall be no more curse? Well, in a word, the answer is
Christ. Christ bore all of the curse,
every bit of it. He bore all the judgment in Genesis
chapter 3 and put it away. Christ was made to be a curse
for us. Galatians 3.13, Christ has redeemed
us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For
it's written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. They
didn't decide to crucify our Lord and hang Him there on a
tree accidentally. That was on purpose. He was bearing
the curse of his people and taking it away. In the garden, Adam
and Eve saw that they were naked and they were ashamed. At Calvary,
the Lord Jesus Christ was stripped naked before man and God so that
his people would be clothed in his righteousness. Now, nakedness
means a whole lot more than being without clothes. Nakedness means
the shame of being seen for who and what you are. There's no
hiding it when you're naked. Seen for who and what you are.
That's the shame of it. And the Lord Jesus Christ bore
the shame of His people. Because He was made to be what
we are. He bore our shame. He bore our
sin and took that curse away so that we'll never to bear it
ourselves. He bore that shame. In the garden,
God told Eve, your husband shall have the rule over you. She's
going to be made subject to her husband. Christ came to this
earth and He was made subject to His Father. He was made subject
to His own law. He was even made subject to men
for a time. And He bore that judgment away. So that now, John says at the
end of verse 3 there, his servants were set free to serve God, to
serve the Lord Jesus Christ. God told Eve, He's going to greatly
multiply her sorrow in conception. The Lord Jesus Christ came and
put that away. He was a man of sorrows. He was
well acquainted with grief. He suffered those travail pains.
He suffered those birth pains. His sorrow was greatly multiplied
so that his people would be born again. He bore that curse away. God told Adam, the curse is the
ground for your sake. You're going to go out here and
till the ground from whence you're made, but it's going to bring
forth to you thorns and thistles. What crown did our Lord wear
on Calvary's tree? Not the diadem of gold, crown
of thorns that grew from the cursed ground. He's showing us
he's bearing the curse of sin away from his people. God told
Adam, in the sweat of your face shall you eat bread. Christ came
to Gethsemane's garden. He sweat as it were great drops
of blood. All the sweat in the preparation
to make himself a sacrifice for sin. He sweat that way. because
he's bearing the curse of his people. When God thrust Adam
out of the garden, he placed an angel there with a flaming
sword that turned every way to keep Adam, to keep all man from
coming back to that tree of life. Christ came and he took that
sword. He allowed that sword that turned
every which way, the sword of God's justice, to be plunged
into his soul. so that his people would be allowed
to come back and have life from the tree of life, from Christ
who is the tree of life, have that life freely. Zechariah 13,
7, a Waco sword against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow,
saith the Lord of hosts. God took that sword of justice,
that flaming sword and plunged it into the soul of his son so
that the curse of that sword would be taken away from God's
people. God told Adam, in the day of the seed of this fruit,
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt surely
die. Dying thou shalt die. And sure
enough, Adam immediately died spiritually. We saw that. And
he began, immediately, he began to die physically. Arthur Pink
said this, physical death is the separation of the soul from
the body. Spiritual death is the separation
of the soul from God. This is the death that our Lord
Jesus Christ died. That's what happened to Adam,
isn't it? His soul was separated from God. He spiritually died
and eventually his soul was separated from his body when he physically
died. That is the death. Christ, our substitute, died
for his people. His soul was separated from his
body. Now, it wasn't taken from him.
It wasn't taken from his weakness, like when we die. He gave up
the ghost, but his soul separated from his body. He said, Father,
into thy hand I commend my spirit. His spirit was separated from
his body, and that body died. The worse than that, his soul
was separated from the Father. He cried, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? Now again, he didn't ask that
question for his own information. He asked that question so we
could learn something. His father forsook him because
he was going to be separated from God. He was going to die
a spiritual death. He was separated from his father
for the sins of his people because he was bearing our curse away.
You see how the Lord Jesus Christ died? bearing the sin of his
people, bearing that curse away. He died so that his people would
live. The death of Christ is the only
way there could be no more curse for God's people. There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, because
the Lord Jesus Christ bore that curse away where sin abounded. Grace did much more abound. Where
the curse abounded, the Lord Jesus Christ did much more abound. No believer, right now, no believer
is under the curse because Christ took the curse away. We're not
under the curse. Boy, we're living with the effects
of it, aren't we? Living with the effects of it. But not forever. But not forever. There, there shall be no more
curse. I finished my notes yesterday
evening, and I looked at that statement. And there shall be
no more curse. And I thought, what a day that
will be. And I asked Mike, We could sing
that song. I thought it'd be good. Good
closing song. There shall be no more curse. What a day. What a day that will
be. All right. Well, hope the Lord
will bless that too.