Tonight in Genesis chapter 3
we're going to look at something a little more specific instead
of outlining the whole chapter like we did last week We're going
to look at the fall and its results the fall of Adam and Eve in the
garden and its results Many things happened upon the fall of our
race our federal and representative head Adam when he When he sinned
he plummeted the whole of Humankind into sin and separation from
God and we're going to look at just basically for effects for
effects of the fall For this evening for effects and we're
going to start in Genesis 3 and verse 6 let me just read a few
verses and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food
and That it was pleasant to the eyes of and the 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 both of them
were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed
fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. and they heard
the voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of
the day and Adam said to his wife and Adam and his wife hid
themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees
of the garden and the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto
him where art thou and Adam said I heard thy voice in the garden
and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Now we're going to stop right
there. That will suffice it for the first several thoughts on
this fourfold effect or four main effects of this fall here
found in Genesis chapter 3. The first thing in verse 7, in
verse 7, in their eyes of them, the both of them were open and
they knew that they were naked apparently they found out something
that they didn't know before but the eyes of them were opened
and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves aprons now one effect of the
fall was a sense Adam and Eve had a sense that something was
wrong with themselves. Something was wrong with themselves. They knew that they were naked.
They didn't understand that before. They had shame, which they never
had before. The experience of something different
than they had known before. Now, they begin to age. They didn't begin to age before. As we saw later in this chapter,
had they eaten of the other tree in the midst of the garden, which
was the tree of life, they would have lived forever. But they
ate of that tree that God said not to, and now they begin to
age. Now they begin to die physically. Now they understand that they
have no communion with God. Now instead of life, spiritually,
there's death. Now he said in the day that you
eat of it, you're going to die. So when they ate, they didn't
die right then. So he wasn't talking about physical
death. He was talking about the soul and the spirit that had
open and intimate and free communion with God. Boy, what a state. What a condition, what harmony,
what beauty. Now, spiritual severance, death. Psychiatrists try to explain
the fall away. You go to them and say, I got
a problem with this, and I got a problem with that. And they
try to explain away the fall. Counselors seek to silence what
the conscience knows there's something not right. Counselors
try to seek to silence it. Psychiatrists try to explain
it away. False preachers ignore it or
delude the issue. But God says, when you eat, you're
going to die. And that's exactly what happened. There was a sense that something,
Adam had a sense that something was wrong with himself. Didn't
have it before. But he does now. Turn to Ephesians
chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. We're in
Genesis 3, looking at the four effects of the fall. The first
effect, as I mentioned before, is that Adam had a sense that
something was wrong with himself. He walked in the cool of the
evening with God, he communed with Him, he fellowshiped, he
sins, he eats that fruit, and now he's trying to hide himself,
now he's afraid, now all these different things, there's a problem. And most people that you talk
to, Because I said, God gives every person a conscience. Most
people you talk to, though they try to justify themselves in
whatever they might do, they know that something's... They
know, well I'm not perfect, but they understand that. How do
they understand that? If Adam hadn't have eaten that
fruit, as I said before, had he eaten the tree of life, he
would have lived forever. Sweet communion, perfect fellowship,
there would have been nothing broken. That's what we saw last
week in the latter part of Genesis. He says, you know, lest he live
forever, they put that sword there to prevent them from going
into the Garden of Eden. Most people, unless their conscience
is so seared, which is very true, very possible, most people will
admit some sort of fault, failure, imperfection, whatever. It's
a result of the fall. As I said before, psychiatrists
do their best to explain it away. Counselors will seek to silence
it. Linda and I were talking about
this. My generation, I'm 48, we had one or two counselors,
but that was to counsel what you were going to do after high
school. It wasn't if you got beat up at recess or if you got
beat up in gym class, it wasn't to counsel you to make sure that
you were going to be a normal, productive citizen. And I'm not
saying there's not some horrendous things, because the depravity
of man gets worse and worse and worse. The more sinners you have in
an area, the more sin you're going to have. But counselors and false preachers
and psychiatrists, they will ignore it or dilute the issue. They will try to blame something
else or something else, environment, heredity, condition. Mom and
Dad, you know, Daddy was a stinker, he beat me and so on, you know. It's sin. That is a result of
the fall. And there's something different.
We're not as we were created in the garden. Ephesians chapter
2 verse 1, And you had the quickened who were dead in trespasses and
sins. And since wherein in time past
ye walked, according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in
the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our
conversation in time past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others, dead in trespasses, and
spiritually dead. Man was born, a soul, a spirit,
and had perfect communion, and when he fell, something changed. And false religion, ever since
this time, here in Genesis 3, is trying to put those pieces
back together. Man is trying to do that which
is impossible for him to do. Regain fellowship with God based
on his own works his own merit his own worth and for the Unreligious
person the scientists the psychiatrists the counselors and I said before
they try to explain it away Or code it over Nothing, you know
nothing to do but but are nothing like dealing with it head-on
and see what sayeth the scriptures and we could turn to Romans chapter
3 and and have a pretty good description of what we are by
nature and that change, that something is wrong. And verse 9 of Romans 3, What then?
Are we better than they? No, and no wise, for we have
proved before both Jews and Gentiles, that's you and me, that they
are all under sin. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no, not one. There is none that understands,
there is none that seeks after God. I don't care how religious
we are, brought up, everybody in this room is probably brought
up, has been brought up in some kind of religion. I don't care
how much religion we have, until God does the work in us, we don't
seek the God of this book. Now we seek the God of the doctor
and our parents or whatever, but not the God of this book.
He's got to spiritually open our eyes. So they are all gone
out of the way, they are together become improbable, there is none
that doeth good, no not one. Spiritually speaking, in the
eyes of God, man upon man, and man to man, there's many people
who do wonderful things. And that's as it should be. That's
fine. But in the eyes of God, which is, He's the, He has the
record. He's the one that puts that straight
stick down, that lines that plumb up, and there's none that do
us good. No, not one. But we will not
receive that. We will not accept that. Says
the fall. What we do is we do like Adam
did. We try to hide it and do those
things. There's no more natural fellowship. There's no more walking
together in the cool of the evening with God. There's no more unhindered
prayer. What was wrong with him? He understood
that he understood there was something different. Now what
the problem was is called sin. S-I-N. Secondly, back in verse
7. The second effect. And there's
more than four, but we're just going to look at four. And the
eyes of both of them were open and they knew it. that they were
naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves
aprons. Second effect of the fall is
man now tries to hide his shame by a self-provided covering. Isn't this exactly what you see
everywhere? Everywhere. Political, unpolitical,
in any religion. Man now, because we all come
from Adam, You know, whatever somebody's, whatever nationality
they are, whatever denomination they are, it doesn't matter.
The great leveling factor is sin. And these are characteristics,
these are results of our father Adam, and we can't hide him. We can't deny him. Man now tries
to hide his shame by a self-provided covering. This is so universal
in its application and is the root of the problem. What Adam
tried to do, sewed fig leaves together to cover himself is
laughable works. It's laughable. And when you
see people doing things, superstitious or otherwise, to try to get good
fortune to the believer, it's laughable. you know, lottery or horoscopes. I mean, people who actually put
faith and trust in stuff like that, that everything is going
to work out because the stars are aligned right. Because I
drove this way and, you know, accident free for so many years,
so I keep doing the same thing. Whatever it might be, They're
works. And the sad thing is, is trying
to make ourselves acceptable to God by our self-provided coverings. It's never going to work. It's
God laughs at it. It's a strong delusion. They're
detestable human effort. Whatever we try to do that is
not blessed of God will fail. They're vile and common coverings. Look at this verse 7. And the
eyes of both of them were open and they knew it. And they sewed
fig leaves together. Fig leaves. They're trying to
hide themselves from omnipresence. Omniscience. God who's over all,
above all. It's laughable. It's detestable. And it's common and vile. Fig leaves? It's not well thought out. Let's
just grab something and cover ourselves. It wasn't very well
thought out. And works never is. I know Bruce talks about
it. He'll sit there and listen to
people. He tells his time in Bible class and different things.
He'll sit there and listen to somebody. It's usually a religious
conversation. They'll say something and he'll say, well now, have
you thought about... And he takes it to the logical
conclusion. And they're just like, I never
thought about that. It's not well thought out. Well,
I'm just going to do the best I can, and then when I stand
before God, who knows? You can know. In Christ, outside
of Christ, you're just rolling the dice. There's no way. There's
no way you can be saved by anything you think, do, or don't do. It's
not well thought out. Isn't that the way it works?
I got to think about it. I'm writing this down. Every
illustration That illustration, every time Bruce tells us about
somebody, he talks to them about what they've done, or this or
that, and he takes it to the next level, what about business
and that? And we're talking about eternal
matters. We're talking about the salvation of our souls. And people, when they trust in
these works, and they trust what mom and dad say, or they trust
what the preacher says, without looking at this book, It's not
well thought out. If your salvation is based on
what I do or don't do, when I die, what are you going to do then?
Think about that. If your salvation is based on
how you feel, what happens when you don't feel good? If your
salvation is based on the number of times you come to church,
what happens when you can no longer make it? If your salvation
is based on your reason and thought process, what happens when we
lose our mind? The only way our salvation is
secure is by God-provided covering, the Lord Jesus Christ. Getting this big leap, just like
works, is easy to do, but it's dead wrong. Easy to do. Say a little prayer, God saves
you. Walk an aisle, God will save
you. Send a sinner's prayer, God will
save you. Repent three times, God will
save you. Rub some beads for 20 days, God
will save you. It's pretty easy to do. Salvation
by works is easy to do. Got enough time? Got enough energy? You can do it. But it's dead
wrong. It's a quick fix. But it's a
foolish attempt to try to please God. Use a quick fix. Say three
Hail Marys. Right? Rededicate yourself on
Mother's Day. Quick fix. And Bruce made that
comment again too. Walked an aisle. So when he was
younger, he walked an aisle. Then Monday came around and went
to work or went to school, whatever he was doing, he said nothing
changed. Boy, that preacher sure made it look good, didn't he? Quick fix. Whether it's Baptist,
Lutheran, you know, whatever. It's just a quick fix. Do this
and you'll live. No. It's a foolish attempt to
do the impossible. And it's all out of verse 7.
They took fig leaves and sewed them together. Laughable. But
that's what we do. That's our mindset. Like somebody
told me, when I'm ready to come to Christ, I'll come to Christ. No, we won't. No. And sewing these fig leaves on
in Adam's eyes seemed fine. But God looks past this worthless
covering and looks into the heart. It seems fine. I've been doing
this my whole life. I've been going to this place
my whole life. I could tell you what he said, what we believe,
what the doctrine is. It seems fine. Makes me feel
good. But God's going to have to rip
that covering off, rip that self-righteousness off, rip what we think is right
down, tear it down. And as we see later on, he's
going to have to provide the covering. He's the one that's
killed an innocent animal. And he said, he says in verse
21, unto Adam, also to his wife did God, the Lord God, make coats
of skins and clothe them. He has to do the work. That's
free grace. We can look at that in Isaiah
55 verses 1 through 3. The second effect of the fall,
now man tries to hide his shame by a self-provided covering.
We can look at 2 Timothy 1.9. Not by works of righteousness,
which we do. Man tries to cover shame by self-provision. In Isaiah 55 verses 1 through
3. The third effect of the fall
is now there is no sweet fellowship with God, but rather an attempt
to hide from God. Look at verse 10. And Adam said, I heard thy voice
in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid
myself. Now he's not talking to just
anybody. He's talking to holy, omnipotent, God. He's talking to Jehovah. There used to be sweet communion
before the fall, but now there's this feeble attempt to hide from
God. The spiritual link is now severed. between God and man. It's broke,
separated. Man is unable to repair it. So now man will flee from the
presence of Jehovah. Turn to Isaiah 59. Isaiah 59
verses 1 and 2. Behold, the Lord's hand is not
short that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot
hear. But your iniquities have separated between you and your
God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not
hear." So that's the effect of the fall. And Isaiah 64 Turn to Isaiah
64 verses 6 and 7. We've read this and looked at
this before. But we are all as an unclean thing and all our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And we all do fade as a
leaf and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
And there is none that calls upon thy name, that stirs up
himself to take hold of thee. For thou hast hid thy face from
us and has consumed us because of our iniquities. There's no
war. sweet fellowship with God, but
we flee. We flee. I was reading A.W. Pink on this,
got this outline, I was reading him, and boy, I tell you what,
you want to know why people make excuses? I thought this was just
classic. Why people make excuses not to come hear the gospel?
Not church, the gospel. Because the gospel confronts
us head on. I don't like that. I'd rather
be doing something else. I want to hear it. You want to know why so few people
read this book? Because they're afraid of it.
Trying to hide from the truth. And the critical point is that
salvation and restoration is going towards God, coming to
Him based upon His substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. But we
are running the other way. We're trying to hide ourselves
from Him. There's no way salvation can be had going that way. But
that's an effect of the fall. You invite people, you invite
people, you invite people, you invite people. You talk to people,
you talk to people, you talk to people. And I understand it's
not by what we say it's going to save them, but they know there's
something a little different than what to God you believe
and the God that they hear because you've said it. You've told them
so. You've spoken to the gospel. You know, we're harmless. We're
harmless as doves, aren't we? We don't beat people over the
head with the doctrine. We just tell them to come. They're
afraid. They're like Adam, because of
the fall, when the truth is preached. Don't want to be confronted.
And our way, the other way, is not the way of peace or grace
or forgiveness, rather it's the way to hell. And fourthly, lastly, the effect
of the fall, verses 12 and 13, back to our text in Genesis.
And the man said, the woman, well, verse 11, and God said,
Who told you that ye were naked? And hast thou eaten of the tree,
whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the
man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave
me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord said to the woman,
What is it you have done? And the woman said, The serpent
beguiled me, and I did eat. Here's the last effect in our
points. The fourth and last, man now
will try to excuse his sin rather than confess it. It's called
we justify ourselves. And I do it and you do it. It's
a result, an effect of the fall. And it's in the old nature and
it's never going to leave. Bless God for the new creature
in Christ in us that confesses. Faithful and just to confess
our sins. And he forgives. We confess our sins and he's
faithful just to forgive us our sins. But now, Adam, he'll try
to excuse his sin rather than confess it. He says the woman.
She says the serpent. Why did you put me in the garden?
How come you did that? How come I was raised in the
middle class? How come I was raised in this
part of the country? How come I was... all these excuses. We had somebody in our midst.
I was thinking about this when I was preparing this and thinking
about this. There was a gentleman that used to sit right over there
and walked away from the gospel. Why don't you get a job? Well,
the way I was brought up. It's my grandma. It's my mom. It's my dad. I was born in the
wrong time. If I was born during the Civil
War, I know you'd have lasted about two minutes and been shot
dead. All these excuses, right? Blame mom. Blame dad. Blame grandma. But when you stand and when I
stand at the bar of God's justice, it isn't going to hold up. And
there'll be none to pity. Because by nature, we excuse
our sin rather than confess it. And that's a common thread with
that gentleman. It's not my fault. I was born
at the wrong time, or I was at the wrong time, in the wrong
place, in the wrong generation. I live in the wrong neighborhood.
I have wrong parents. It's my genes, it's my environment.
It's my social class status. It's my this and my that, but
never me. Exactly right. We need to confess our sins and
confess our need of redemption, confess our need of the Savior
and a need of grace. You have a beautiful example
of that. Two thieves on the cross. They both were mocking and laughing
and jeering in the face of Christ. And then by divine grace, one
was made aware of his sin. And what did he say? You remember
what he said? We could turn there, but it's
Matthew 27 and Luke 23 to both places. One place it says they both were
railed on him. In Luke it is that further explanation. As
they're sitting there and one of them starts to rail, the other
one says, you know, be quiet. He says, what we've done, we're
here justly. You know what he said? We're
here because we deserve it. But he said, this man, Christ,
he's done nothing. He confessed he deserved death. He confessed, not excused, And
then two minutes ago he was wailing on Christ just like the other
one. What happened? Free, sovereign grace. And he looked at the Lord and
he confessed and he said, Lord, remember me. Guilty. Unworthy. Deserving of death. And you know what happens when
God gives us a heart to confess and cry for mercy? It's all right
there. Today, you're going to be with
me. And in Psalms 110 verse 3, we've
looked at this many times, he says he makes his people willing
in the day of his power. Willing to confess our sins,
now excuse it. willing to be convinced of our
sin, willing to own up to all of our sin, willing to look to
Christ, willing to come to Christ, the desire to be found or excuse
me, to be freed and forgiven by Christ's sweet, free, meritorious
work. The Holy Spirit of God, may he
make us willing in his day. May He remember us in our needy
condition, in our needy state. Because you know as well as I
do, these four things, these effects, are with us. And only by His grace will we
quit trying to cover ourselves by ourselves and seek His covering. and desire to quit excusing our
sin, but rather confess it. We will know what the problem
is. Father, I'm going through a lot
of stress. A lot of pressure. We know what
the situation is. We call a spade a spade. You know, my boss said to me
one time about my attitude about something. I said, that's because
everything's going my way. I said, come back and talk to
me when I lose half my customers. See what I'm like then. Oh, by
God's grace. By God's grace, not close with
this, may we be like our brother of whom you know this story. Brother Henry Mahan. preacher
of God's grace for years and years and years. You love him,
I love him. He not very well liked in Ashland and he wasn't
very well liked in the 60s and 70s. His son went to Vietnam and wasn't there
very long, got killed. And one of these free will Armenian
preachers called Henry up on the phone And he says, where's
your God now? You know what Henry said? He said, He's the same place
as He was when my son was born. He's on the throne. Grace makes
the difference. Not upbringing, not society,
not race, creed, color, Grace in Christ. Bruce, would you close
us please?