What I'd like to do in the third
chapter of Genesis is read the entire chapter because pretty
well what we have is an overview of the whole Bible, as it were,
in Genesis 3, the doctrines, and we'll look at that here in
a minute. But it has been said by many
writers that Genesis is the seedbed of the whole Bible. The entire
book of Genesis is the seedbed. You find all the great, glorious
doctrines, obviously, of the Gospel. You find many, many things
in its pages. Obviously, Christ said Moses
wrote of Him, so we know that it speaks of Christ, and that's
our main concern, is to find Christ in this book. But it has
been said by many, many of the older writers, it's a seedbed,
or a seed plot, of the whole Bible. and in this book of Genesis
we have all the grand and old blessed forever doctrines of
Jehovah and this third chapter if I can say it this way is a
micro version of the whole book of Genesis itself this chapter
3 is a small seed plot the whole if you want to put it that way
and basically tonight what we're going to look at is we're going
to outline just a brief outline of Genesis 3 or We can entitle
it the gospel according to Genesis the gospel according to Genesis
Let's read the entire chapters 24 verses now the serpent was
more subtle than any beasts of the field which the Lord God
had made and And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said,
Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman
said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees
of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst
of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither
shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the
woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God knows that in the day
that you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman
saw that the tree was good for food, and 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
fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. 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 God amongst the trees of the garden. 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 God said, Who told thee that
thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof
I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The
woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree,
and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the
woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said,
The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said
unto the serpents, 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 thus shalt thou eat all the days of
thy life. And I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. And to the woman
he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow in thy conception.
In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall
be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto 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. In sorrow
shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns, also,
thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the
herb of the field, and 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.
unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of
skins and clothe them. And the Lord God said, Behold,
man is become as one of us to know good and evil. And now lest
he put forth his hand and take also the tree of life and eat
and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent
him forth from the garden of Eden to 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 which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of
life. As I said, this has been said,
this book of Genesis has been said to be a seedbed or a seed
plot of the whole book. And I think this third chapter
is a micro version of the whole book. Because in it we're going
to see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, at least 8 or 9 things that we
observe in these chapters. One thing that we see is the
fall and ruin of our race. We see depravity. That grand
and glorious doctrine of the total ruination of human race. Okay? Then, it happened then,
in the garden, and every child of Adam, male or female, boy
or girl, doesn't matter, that's born a woman, is born in sin. Okay, the fall and we see clearly
the fall and ruin of our race, verses 6 and 7. And when the
woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant
to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she
took of the fruit thereof, did eat, and gave 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. They heard the voice
of God as before, and now they're afraid and they hide themselves.
No man, woman, boy, girl, we hide from God. Oh, I've heard
people say, oh, since I've been a little child, I've sought Jesus.
Well, probably the Jesus of somebody, some preacher's imagination,
but not the God of this book because of sin, There's a separation. Natural separation. Paul tells
us this. Turn over to Romans chapter 5.
Paul tells us this very thing. Because of one man's sin, sin
entered into the world. Sin entered into all of us. We're
not born seeking God. We're born hiding ourselves.
Now, it wasn't always that way. Before this third chapter, they
communed. They fellowshiped. They had peace
with God. But in this chapter, we see the
fall and ruin of our race. Romans chapter 5, verse 17, for
by one man's offense, death reigned by one. Verse 18, therefore as
by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation. Condemnation. Verse 15, the offense,
for if through the offense of one, Adam, many be dead, many
be dead. Verse 16, and that as it was
by one that sinned, one was by one to condemnation. Therefore
we see Christ is the second Adam, as it were. Christ who did no
sin, but he was born of our bone, flesh of our flesh. He's the
restorer of our souls. He's the one that gives us a
new nature. that Adam lost completely. Verse
19, For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners. His disobedience,
he's the federal head, he's a representative of all mankind. When he fell,
we fell. And it wasn't a partial fall.
God said in the day that you eat that, when you eat that fruit,
you're going to die. Well, he didn't die physically,
he died spiritually. And spiritual death is separation
from God. That's what spiritual death is.
Because we're physically, we're still alive. We began to age
once he did this. Because we see in the latter
part of that third chapter, had he eaten of the tree of life,
he would have lived forever. And we didn't look at this in
Genesis chapter 2, we just kind of went to Genesis 3, but it's
interesting that Adam or Eve, they chose the tree which God
commanded them not to, when the tree of life, the picture of
Christ, was in the midst of the garden also. And they didn't
pick that one. So, one of the grand doctrines
that we see in this chapter, this micro version, the seedbed
of the whole Bible, here in Genesis 3, The fall and ruination of
our race without question, without question. And throughout the
scriptures, what we've been going through Isaiah on Sundays, we
see the depravity of man. And here's where it all began
right here. Secondly, we see and observe the subtlety of our
enemy, Satan, the subtlety of our enemy, Satan. In the New
Testament, the apostle says we're not ignorant of his devices. You know, he's not this boogaloo
thing like everybody talks about. Satan made me do this or that
or whatever. We understand through the scriptures his power and
his might. And he's more powerful than us,
but we're not ignorant of his devices, what he does. And it's
found here also. The subtlety of our enemy Satan.
Verses 1, 4, and 5. Now the serpent was more subtle
than any beast in the field which the Lord God had made. And the
serpent said unto the woman, Hath God said you shall not eat
of every tree of the garden? Look at verse 16 of chapter 2.
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of
the garden you may freely eat. Every tree except but the tree
of knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life is right there
by it. How do I know that? Move up further in Genesis chapter
2 and verse 8. And the Lord God planted a garden
eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed
and out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that
is pleasant to the sight and good for food. the tree of life
in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good
and evil in the midst of the garden. They're right there.
But every tree that he made was good for sight and good for food. OK, and Satan says, God said,
you shall not eat of every tree in the garden. OK, he takes a
few words, a quote from God himself and twists it. That's what false
preachers do today. It's what false shepherds, that's
what Satan does. They're ministers of His, His angels, that they
transform themselves to angels, you know, ministers of light.
They're wolves in sheep's clothing, they have many tricks, but what
they always do is found here in this book, in this chapter.
What Satan does and his ministers, they'll take what God says and
add one thing or the other. God said, of every tree in the
garden you may freely eat, but that one. And then He says, yea,
God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden. OK,
he just twisted sounds real similar. We see this also in Proverbs
about the the whorish woman who's, you know, a good picture of the
false false churches, how they sound just like. The cry of Christ,
remember, we looked at that years ago, the wisdom stands outside
the gate and speaks the wisdom which we saw was Christ. And
then this whorish woman who's a false preachers, false gospel,
They say the wording was real close to identical and then they
deviate just a little bit. And then secondly, in verse four,
and the serpent son of the woman, ye shall not surely die. He added
the word not. God said, you shall surely die.
And he said, you shall not die. And verse five, for God knows
that in the day thereof, then your eyes shall be open and you
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. He proffers this. He
goes, he goes that beyond. He starts to reason and logic,
which is what people do with any doctrine that's not found
in this book. A perfect one that we've talked about much lately,
it'd be infant sprinkling. It's not found in here. So we
can do a few things that look religious and find a few verses
that whatever and then all of a sudden you have a whole system around certain things. Going beyond what this book says
to do. He changed the word of God, he
added, and he disagreed, and he flat out lied about what this
book says. It's all as his devices. So we
see this subtlety of our enemy here. Thirdly, we see man's inability
to do anything without the grace of
God. How much more of a perfect situation
and setting could Adam and Eve been in than they were in the
garden? You want to talk about man's free will, here it is,
everything they had, the best of everything. They were psychologically
impaired because they were brought up poorly or beaten as children
and all these different things that everybody is all so up in
arms about. They had a perfect situation,
perfect setting, and they still fell. So what we see here is
man's inability to do anything without the grace of God, anything
good. Perfect conditions yet he still
fell spiritually. It's the same today. No matter
how perfectly we try to surround ourselves or withhold evil or
bad influences, we will still be sinners at heart and in practice. Verse 12 and the man said the
woman whom thou gave us to be with me. She gave me the tree
and I did Man's ability to do anything
without the grace of God helping If they could have done good
and right it would have been right here and they fell and
And it's the same today. I don't, you know, years and
years ago in the 30s and 40s and 50s is the big psychological
studies was what made us what we were. There's two groups of
studies was environment or, you know, Heredity. Mama made me do it
because I'm like her or I'm like dad. And then others said, no,
nature has the surroundings that you're brought up in has more
of all these things. You take a person and you put them in
a monastery and you surround them with the best things and
we're still going to be sinners at heart and practice. I heard
about this horrible thing. It took place in Virginia Tech.
One person, I heard all these people analyzing, whatever, I
heard somebody calling somebody and they said, could it be that
we're just that bad by nature? You know, they're blaming it
on this. They're blaming it on guns. All these different things.
All these political agendas now. So could it just be, yeah, you
know what? We all have that capability if
God does not stop us. because God looks in the heart.
So whether you actually do the act of sin, if you think it,
you've done it. You see, if you want to live
by the law, you better listen exactly what the law says and
you and I can't do it. So thirdly, we see man's inability
to do anything good without the grace of God. Fourthly, we see
the spiritual effects of sin, verses 7 and 8. And the eyes
of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked,
and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves apron, and
they heard God, and they hid themselves. Spiritual effects
of sin for these two and for us and our children is... How in the world can a person
hide from omnipresence? Isn't one of the attributes of
God is that he's omnipresent? That means he's everywhere? And
they tried to hide from him? That's one effect. That's a foolishness, an effect
of sin upon us. That which we think we know,
we've got no idea. And then they sought to cover
themselves with foolish religious things or works. In this case,
it's fig leaves. We talked about this years and
years ago. Fig leaf religion. It's like a lick and a promise.
Let's just do this. We'll do that. We'll walk down
the aisle. We'll say a couple things. We'll say the Lord's
Prayer. We'll recite the Nicene Creed. We'll say this little
prayer. Do this little communion. We'll
take this little wafer. We'll get this little sprinkler
on our head. All these different things we
think commend us to God and they don't in the least. That is a
spiritual effect of sin. Fig leaf religion. Fig leaf religion. And you know
the beautiful thing is that when God does do a work for us, we
look at that and we just We're so ashamed of what we used to
think God would be pleased with us. I think about all the things
that I did and said and thought that God would look upon me favorably
on what I did. And when the gospel came my way
and snagged me and gave me a new heart, You realize, none of that stuff,
it works. Religious or otherwise, it won't
do a thing, it won't appease your conscience, and it certainly
won't satisfy God's law, and it won't serve as a substitute
for our needy sins. That's the spiritual effects
of sin. We see this in this chapter. Fifthly, we see God's attitude
towards the guilty sinner, verses 16 through 19. Always as it was
then, it is now, deals in wrath, Judgment and justice. You're
going to earn your living by the sweat of your brow. You want
to know why I got to buy a gallon of Roundup or two gallons of
Roundup every year? You want to know why Jackie's
got to make Bruce till that garden with that tiller? Why can't you
just do it one time and you never have to worry about it? Weeds.
It's sin. It's sin. We see God's attitude towards
the guilty sinner. He cursed the ground, but he
took through them out of the garden. God is just. He is just, holy,
and right in that which he does. He rebuked every one of them. He rebuked both of them. God's
attitude towards the guilty sinner has not changed outside of the
substitute. Nextly we see man's universal
tendency to remedy the wrong You see it right you see there
in every church in the core every corner of this this this city
You see it on every corner of the state you see in every corner
of the country Man's universal tendency to remedy the wrong
or sin. What is that works self and whatever
we do is insufficient To please God verse 7 And the eyes of them
both were open and they knew they were naked and they sewed
big leaves together and made themselves apron. Man's universal
tendency to try to get back out of what he's done. But he doesn't
do it God's way. He takes it upon himself to try to remedy the situation. And it usually works. However
you want to slice it, however you want to dice it. As we've
taught this, which we will see later on in Genesis, in a few
more chapters, there's only two kinds of religions. You can name
them whatever you want to name. There's only two kinds of religions.
The religion of Cain, works, and Abel, that's grace. Next we see God's provision,
which is grace, verse 21 in this chapter. God's provision. for
the guilty verse 21 and unto Adam also and to his wife did
the Lord God make coats of skin and clothed them he took that
which he didn't even look upon that which they did it was it
was despicable it was vile it was blasphemous cast them out
those aprons those fig leaves and he made coats of skins and
clothed them this would be the first sacrifice of an innocent
animal to cover their nakedness. This is the gospel. This is substitution. This is God's provision throughout
Genesis 1 all the way to the end of Revelations. It's the
same way God must provide himself, sacrifice and clothe us or we'll
never be clothed. This is the soul of our gospel.
The innocent was slain to cover the guilty. The need is completely
and acceptably met by God himself for such as these two sinners.
God himself must make the covering. Simply, that's the gospel. We
can't earn it. We can't work for it. We can't
plead for it. We can't pray for it. It's all
of grace. What we'll do on our own is try
to remedy the wrong and we just get further and further and further
away next we see the prophecy of Christ
and him crucified or the need for a mediator in the scheme
of salvation verse 15 and I will put in between God says between
thee that is the serpent and the woman and between thy seed
and her seed it shall bruise thy head Yeah, that is Christ. He's the seed of woman. Seed,
not seeds. Seed. This is the first, I suppose
it would be the first prophecy of the Lord, of the incarnation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Come, He's born of woman. So
here in this chapter, the seedbed, the seed plot of the whole scriptures,
we see the prophecy of Christ and Him crucified, or the need
for a mediator in the scheme of salvation. We're going to
have to have somebody who's just like us, flesh and blood, yet
without sin, born of a woman, immaculately conceived, but come
from woman, raised, walked, breathed air, worked the ground and the soil,
the same as you and I do, yet without sin. And he's going to
bruise The serpent's heel. He's going to crush Satan's domain. He's going to crush Satan's control. He's going to take that. But
however, there's a price to be paid. And that is the serpent's
cell bruises his heel. And when Christ must go and he
must suffer the things at the hand of sinners who are controlled
by Satan. He must die on the cross. His heel must be bruised. But
oh, he'll crush the head of the serpent. And we see that at the
cross. Satan will will bruise his heel. Christ will crush him. Our substitute
must. He must experience the bitterness
of death. So the law and sin would be accomplished
on the behalf, the fulfillment of the law and satisfaction of
sin would be accomplished on the behalf of the elect of God.
We see that in this chapter. And the last note, and I alluded
to this, why our mother and our father,
why they did not eat or come to that tree of life, which is
Christ, we'll never know. It was right there. Yet the beauty
of the gospel, the beauty of redemption, the beauty of the
scheme of reconciliation, God providing His Son, who knew no
sin, became sin for His church, for us, His people, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. The beauty of that
is seen in this here in Genesis 3. Because through it all, through
the fall, this great sin, Through the disobedience, the serpent,
the Savior promise, and everything that we've looked at here, God
was never taken aback or never taken off guard. But rather, by these events that
are unfolding here, and we see unfolding through the course
of history, because salvation is the same, in the same person. Rather, God is all the more glorified
in the glory of His free and sovereign grace which is found
in His Son. You know, we could say what if
and why didn't and all these different things, but God has
predestinated all things as they are. So He will get the ultimate
glory. His Son will get the ultimate
glory. The Spirit of God and grace would
get the glory. And you know what? He does so
in the redemption of fallen sinners like you and I, even though we
try to cover ourselves and try to remedy the wrong by our works. He, in his own free mercy, has
chosen a people that his son will come and fetch.
And He does it by clothing us just like He did here. I can say humanly and logically
you look at it, but we don't look at it that way. We look
at it as it is, spiritual. We understand the truth because
He is truth. And He is Spirit. And it's only
by His grace, His revelation of these things in our heart
that we understand it. Otherwise, it's just a book that's
got some historical, logical things in place. But the gospel
of His grace is seen from beginning to end. And as I said, we see
all these glorious and grand doctrines in this book, in this
Genesis, and in this chapter we see everything unfolding.
May He give us spiritual eyes and ears to see and to hear the
truth of redemption in Christ. Bruce, would you close this please? Thank you, Father. We see and
hear you.