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00:01 John Milton was a 17th century British author and poet, one of the most
00:07 influential people in British literature. And back in the late 1600s, he wrote the epic poem Paradise Lost.
00:17 Now, John Milton's theology was somewhat questionable. He was considered a heretic by some of the people back then,
00:24 and I'm sure if you heard some of his views, you would also consider him to be at least in some areas heretical. But he
00:29 did take the message from Genesis 1, 2, and three and put it in a poetic form.
00:36 In his book, he included many different things that we have already seen in the
00:41 first part of Genesis. He included the creation of man, the
00:47 creation of woman. He also included God telling the people not to eat of the
00:54 fruit. He included showing how they were tempted, how they fell, how they tried
01:02 to hide themselves, and then at the end, how they were expelled from the garden.
01:07 In John Milton's book, one of the major characters, the first major character is Satan, who plays a major role. And by
01:15 the way, unfortunately, I think western thinking, especially in the English-speaking world, has been
01:21 probably influenced more by John Milton's theology of the devil than by the actual scriptural account of the
01:28 devil. So, be careful that you base what you believe on that about the Bible, not on what Milton wrote. And even though
01:34 you haven't read what Milton was written, more than likely his thoughts have crept into the theology of many
01:42 people. But at the end of the paradise lost, this epic poem, the people of
01:50 course are kicked out of the garden and you would think all is lost like the title implies, paradise lost. But in
01:57 this poem, Milton goes on to point to the fact that there is hope. And he
02:04 points to the fact that someone is coming, Jesus is coming, who will make it possible to once again regain
02:10 paradise. was an interesting anecdote. After Milton had written this poem and had
02:15 received such great success in England, one of his Quaker friends came to him
02:20 and said, 'You have talked so much about Paradise Lost. Why don't you ever talk about Paradise Found?
02:28 And sometime after that, then Milton published the epic poem Paradise
02:33 Regained. And in this one,
02:38 Jesus is the main character. and he primarily deals with the fact
02:44 that Jesus was tempted by Satan similar to the fact that we see Adam and
02:50 Eve being tempted. But the difference is Jesus resisted the temptation. And
02:56 because of what Christ has done, then salvation, redemption is possible,
03:02 paradise can be regained. Well, my topic that I was asked to speak about today is neither paradise lost nor
03:10 paradise regained, but somewhere in between the promise of paradise. It's
03:16 the assumption that paradise has already been lost. And a couple of weeks ago in the sermon, we saw the first part of
03:22 Genesis 3 where sin entered into the world. And today, we're going to see some of
03:28 the tragic results of that. When you look at Genesis 3, most of the chapter is really very bleak, dark, and
03:37 hopeless because all is lost. There is no return to Eden.
03:43 There's very little hope given, at least very little in quantity. If you
03:50 look at that and you look through all the verses, you'll just find a very few words here and there that give us some
03:56 hope. But we will be looking at those verses later in the sermon. will see even though the quantity is small, the
04:02 quality is deep and there is hope because in the actions of God as well as
04:08 in the promise that God makes, we're going to see a glimmer of hope that helps us to see that there is indeed the
04:15 promise of something better, the promise of a coming paradise that we can be part
04:21 of in the future. So, in our text from Genesis 3, we're wanting to emphasize,
04:26 especially towards the end of the sermon, that God is going to bring hope into our hopelessness.
04:33 But before looking specifically at the text, I want to emphasize how important the first three chapters of Genesis are.
04:41 Understanding the first three chapters of Genesis are crucial to our understanding of the rest of the Bible.
04:47 If you don't know what happens in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, it's going to be very difficult to understand what's
04:54 happening in the rest of the Old Testament. Why did Jesus come in the New Testament? What's going on? To
05:00 understand human existence, to understand life, human nature, our human situation, we need to understand Genesis
05:07 1 through3 to understand who God is. Genesis 1 through3 tells us so much
05:13 about him. If we want to understand why is the world like it is, it seems like
05:18 everything is broken. We can see that in the first three chapters of Genesis to
05:24 understand Jesus, why he came, what his mission was, why it was necessary to
05:30 bring salvation, what are we saved from? You see, to understand the good news of
05:36 the gospel, it's important that we first of all understand the bad news that
05:42 makes the good news so good. And in Genesis 3 that we'll look at today, we see how bad the bad news really is.
05:52 I think sometimes the first three chapters of Genesis are neglected possibly in our zeal. We want to get to
05:58 Jesus as quickly as possible. And yes, that's the ultimate. All scripture does
06:04 point to Jesus. But all scripture does point to him. Therefore, it's good to see what is
06:10 pointing to him. You can understand him better. I think another reason we sometimes skip over these passages is we
06:17 want to avoid controversy or maybe we're somewhat embarrassed because when we read this this this does
06:23 not sound very scientific and modern and how do you explain evolution and all
06:29 the scientific objections that you might find to Genesis 1 through3.
06:34 And then unfortunately oftenimes when people do talk about Genesis 1 through3
06:41 they concentrate on the wrong things and they try to make Genesis into a
06:46 scientific document. Well, Genesis was not written two years ago. It is not
06:52 21st century scientific language. It was written so that people of all ages could
06:58 understand the message God is wanting to communicate. And if God had written Genesis, inspired
07:05 Genesis to be written in 21st century scientific language, nobody could have understood that through history until
07:11 just recently. And two or 30 hundred years from now in the future, people will look back at our time, if science
07:18 continues to progress like it has, they'll look back at our time and say, "Oh, how primitive the scientific
07:24 understanding was of the 21st century." So when we look at these stories, we
07:31 don't want to concentrate on things like when was the world created and how long did it actually take and how can we
07:39 relate evolution to this or in our passage today how could a snake talk or
07:45 what kind of fruit was that? Although I think Edon did point out that it was durian
07:51 and I would agree that's the wor most absolutely the worst fruit in the world. So, it had to be Torian. You either love
07:58 it or hate it. I know. But the first three chapters of Genesis,
08:04 God is trying to communicate to us some very important truths. He's in he's
08:10 communicating to us that God has created everything. But yet, God is totally separate from creation.
08:18 He is not part of creation. Mankind is the crowning point of God's creation.
08:25 And God has given people moral responsibility.
08:31 Just to give a brief outline of the entire Bible, the Bible starts with creation
08:37 and then it ends with a new creation. We see in Genesis 1, God creates the heaven
08:44 and the earth in the beginning. And in the last chapter, last two chapters of Revelation, God creates a new heaven and
08:52 a new earth. So in the beginning we see the glory of God's creation. Everything
08:58 in God's world is very good. Everything is paradise. But by the time
09:04 we get to Genesis 3, there is no more paradise on earth. We see sin. We see
09:11 rebellion against God and the terrible evil tragic results of sin. The loving,
09:17 trusting relationship that had existed between man and God has been broken. The
09:22 loving, trusting relationship between people that had existed has been broken.
09:27 It's like all nature has been broken. It's obvious there's something wrong.
09:32 And then one sin is going to lead to another to another. And we see through the rest of the Bible that sin
09:38 multiplies. But we also see through the rest of the Bible that God is working.
09:44 He's had a plan from the very beginning that he is going to provide a way to
09:50 reconcile rebellious man with himself. God has a plan that fallen sinful
09:57 humanity will be able to find peace and healing and forgiveness.
10:04 So, we can see beginning in Genesis 3 that God does have a plan. And when we
10:09 get to the New Testament, we see the fulfillment of God's plan and what Jesus has done. And then the Bible ends with
10:17 the new heaven, the new earth. So the outline, paradise, creation of a
10:23 wonderful earth, sin, rebellion, God's work to solve that problem, and the end
10:30 once again a new heaven, a new earth, paradise. But the first two things I mentioned is
10:36 contained in those first three chapters of Genesis. Genesis. So, it's important that we understand what's going on
10:42 there. We see some similarities between the first of the Bible and the last of the
10:47 Bible. The first of the Bible in paradise in Genesis chapter 1 and two,
10:53 we see the tree of life. But the people did not eat of the tree
10:58 of life. Instead, they chose to eat of the fruit that God said would bring death.
11:05 The last two chapters of the Bible, we see the tree of life again. And there it pre it produces much fruit and it brings
11:13 healing. It brings wholeness.
11:19 It's important that we understand the problem of sin.
11:25 Understand why we are not now living in paradise on earth. And then we can
11:30 better understand what Jesus has done. So in our text today, we're going to be
11:35 looking at the problem and we're going to see what the problem is. We'll see
11:41 the consequences of the pro problem, but we'll also see some glimmers of hope,
11:47 the promise that there is going to be paradise once again because God will
11:53 defeat evil and he will bring about reconciliation.
11:59 So when we look at these first three chapters of Genesis, let's ask the question, what does God want to communicate to us through these
12:06 chapters, many many important truths and we've
12:11 already looked at many of those in the first in the prior sermons of Genesis, but I want us to review some. For
12:17 example, what do we learn about God in these first few chapters? Think for a
12:24 moment. What have you learned so far? What have we seen so far about God in Genesis?
12:31 We've seen that he's the creator. Everything in the world has been created
12:37 by him. God is not part of creation. Some
12:42 religions they think that the sun or the moon are gods. That the stars or the planets somehow control our destiny.
12:50 That an animal is a god or a rock formation or some kind of a tree. And you see idols and incense by rocks and
12:58 trees. But we see God is the one who created
13:03 these rocks. God is the one who created these trees. He is not identical with them. We've seen so far that God is the
13:11 Lord, the sovereign, the rightful ruler over all creation. We've seen that he is all powerful.
13:18 We've seen that he is all knowing. We've seen that he has no beginning. In the
13:24 beginning, God was already there. What else have we seen about God in Genesis 1 and two?
13:32 We've also seen that God is a personal God. He relates to people. He cares for
13:37 them. He provides for them. He gave them everything in the garden
13:43 except for just one tree. Very generous. He also shares some responsibility with
13:49 them. Rule over the earth. Now this responsibility is limited. They
13:55 are not on the same level as God. But nevertheless, God entrusts us with this
14:02 responsibility. We see that God is also a God who communicates. He speaks. He reveals his
14:09 will to people. And in Genesis chapter 2, we see that
14:14 God sets boundaries.
14:20 And by setting boundaries, that means he gives people moral responsibility.
14:25 We have some freedom of choice. Well, what have we learned so far in
14:31 these first couple of chapters of Genesis about people?
14:36 Think back. What have we learned about people in these stories? Well, we've seen that the crowning point
14:42 of all creation is man and woman because they are the only part of creation
14:48 created in the image of God. Now, this does not mean that we are equal to God.
14:54 It does not mean that we are little gods. It does not mean like some of the new age teachings we are part of God and
15:01 all of us somehow together combined to make some kind of a spiritual force.
15:07 No, we are not God. But this text is emphasizing the fact that we are
15:13 spiritual beings and that we are created to live in a close relationship with
15:19 God. Male and female. Some religions would teach that females
15:26 are secondary. The Bible teaches that men and women both are created in the
15:31 image of God. One is not a subservient secondass type citizen.
15:38 We have seen that the people are given the authority over creation. But this is always under the lordship,
15:46 the sovereign rule of God. We're not equal partners with God. We're
15:53 definitely not God's superior. And that's going to be the problem we're going to look at later when we get to
15:58 Genesis 3. People want to call the shots rather than let God be the boss.
16:06 But we also see, we've seen so far in the first few chapters of Genesis that God has given people the capacity for
16:14 relationships. We're made for relationships between God and man, also
16:19 relationships with each other. And we specifically see the marriage relationship in chapter 2. And we see
16:26 that people have been given moral responsibility. You can eat of all the trees of the
16:31 garden, but not this one. And if you eat of that tree, there are consequences.
16:38 The consequence is death. So we have free will, but we're also
16:44 responsible for the actions, the decisions that we make. So all of this
16:49 we can learn about God and people in just the first two chapters of Genesis.
16:54 That's why it's so important to understand. And now we see right before we get into
17:01 chapter 3, the conclusion, the concluding verse that shows the paradise
17:07 that God has created. Chapter 2 ends in such a wonderful note.
17:14 People truly are in paradise. They have a wonderful, beautiful, glorious life
17:21 there. Couple of weeks ago when Yidian preached, he referenced this verse and
17:26 he said he was going to keep the verse PG-13. I told him later I had hoped that he
17:32 would go a little bit more in the R direction, but I think he was wise when he kept it in the PG-13 direction
17:39 because since this was not a married seminar, really the emphasis here is not
17:44 only on the sexuality that the man and woman enjoy together, but the emphasis
17:50 is that the relationship is unobstructed. The relationship is
17:55 totally open, honest, transparent. Nothing to hide.
18:02 No fear of letting the other person see who you truly are.
18:09 Wonderful relationship. And this is not only between man and woman. This is also
18:15 describing the relationship between man and God. Nothing to hide with God. Not
18:21 trying to impress God. totally open, totally trusting, totally dependent upon
18:28 him. So, chapter 2 closes with paradise. They're living a wonderful life. How
18:35 could anybody want more? How could anybody be so foolish to be
18:40 willing to endanger this wonderful life they have? But a couple of weeks ago, we heard the
18:47 beginning of chapter 3 and we see that people were indeed foolish enough to risk everything they
18:56 have and they lost it. A couple of weeks ago, we were introduced to sin because
19:02 in the first seven verses of chapter 3, we see a description in story form of
19:08 what sin is. And today I want to review what that passage teaches before we go
19:14 on to the consequences of sin. So think back. What have we learned so far in
19:20 Genesis 3 about sin? What sin is?
19:25 First of all, I want to say it's more than just breaking a little rule. Some people totally misunderstand the story
19:32 in Genesis 3. They say, "Oh, they just ate one little piece of fruit. What's
19:38 the big deal? Sin is more than just breaking one little rule. What we see here is
19:45 rebellion against God. People are launching a revolution.
19:51 They're saying, "God, I am not going to listen to you."
19:56 So, it's much more than just a simple act of disobedience. It's rebellion
20:01 against God because it makes me God in place of God. There's the desire to be
20:08 like God. That's what sin is. Do you remember what the serpent told Eve? Oh, you won't die.
20:15 But if you eat of that tree, you will be like God.
20:20 Boy, that's appealing, isn't it? Don't we all have some of that desire?
20:26 I want to be like God. I want to be the big shot. I want to be the boss. I want
20:32 to be the one that says how things are to be. I want to have the final say. I
20:38 want the power. I want to rule. I want to decide for myself what is
20:46 right and wrong. Rather than listening to God, I'll say,
20:51 "No, God, you say that's bad, but it can't be that bad. It looks so good. I'm
20:56 going to declare that to be good." We want to make that decision because we
21:04 want to be God. And so we end we end up regarding God as a rival at best. No,
21:11 God, that's not right. This is what's right. This is what's wrong. A rival or
21:16 at worst we regard him as an enemy because we are trying to take his place.
21:23 This is idolatry. When we put ourselves or anything or anyone else in the place
21:28 of God, it's as if we deod God. That's
21:34 really not a word, but if you can make it a word, we try to remove the power of God from God.
21:42 Now, it's absolutely ludicrous to think that you could do that, but yet we try
21:49 and we place our desires, our our selfcenteredness, our pride in place of God's will and his
21:58 desires. We say, "Oh, yeah, that looks good. I want that. I've got to have that."
22:05 And we ignore what God has said. the greed. My goodness, they had everything
22:11 in the garden except just one little thing and that wasn't enough. They had to have more.
22:20 Also, a lack of trust. Sin shows they didn't really believe
22:25 God. They doubted him. They didn't trust him.
22:31 Instead of listening to him, they trusted and believed a lie.
22:38 We have used chronological Bible stories a lot with different groups of people,
22:43 including people from several different religious backgrounds as a way of communicating biblical truth. And one
22:50 group that we were using chronological Bible stories with when we told the story from chapter 3 about sin, one of
22:58 the young men in the group commented and said, "You know, we're just like those
23:05 first people. We do the same thing they do."
23:10 And that is so true. We experience that greed. We have that desire. We want to
23:16 be like God. We want the world to center around us.
23:23 All people have experienced this. The story is not just about two people a long time ago
23:30 that don't relate to us. It's about them, but it's also about everybody that has lived since then.
23:37 Because we see this is what sin is. I too sin.
23:46 Sin is disobedience. Yes, but it's much more than disobedience.
23:52 It's the rejection of God's rightful authority over our life.
23:59 There's a strange teaching that has spread in some evangelical circles, at
24:05 least in my country. I hope it has not affected this country. But somehow
24:11 evangelicals have tried to baptize the essence of sin and say, "Well, that's
24:16 okay." They don't say it quite in those words. This is how they say it. You can accept
24:23 Jesus as your savior, but don't have to accept him as Lord.
24:29 In other words, you can get a free ticket to heaven, but you can remain in constant defiance to the rightful
24:36 authority of God over your life, never acknowledging his right to rule your
24:41 life. Ridiculous. How in the world can a
24:49 person remain in constant defiance of God's authority and expect to enter into a relationship
24:57 with God who is the ruler of the world? This rejection of God's authority is the
25:02 heart of what sin is. That's what needs to be repented of. When we come in faith
25:09 to Christ, we're acknowledging his rightful rule over our life.
25:15 acknowledging we have not acknowledged his rightful rule. Therefore, we need salvation. Therefore, we need
25:22 forgiveness. And one final thing that we see so far
25:27 in chapter 3, how many sins did it take to separate
25:33 somebody from God? Some people think, well, my good's going
25:39 to somehow outweigh my bad. Some religions teach that on judgment day, God's going to hold a scale and on one
25:46 side will be your good, on one side will be your bad. If you have just one thing on your bad side, it's going to outweigh
25:54 all the good. Adam and Eve committed only one sin
25:59 and they suffered all the horrible consequences that we're going to see because that one
26:06 sin they committed was rejecting God and his rightful authority over their life.
26:13 Sin separates us from God. Just one sin can separate us from God and it brings
26:20 the consequences. So now I want us to look at the consequences of sin. Going
26:26 back to our passage, we see in Genesis chapter 3, beginning with verse 7, after
26:31 they ate of the forbidden fruit, after they defied God, then their eyes were
26:37 opened and they knew they were naked. Now the emphasis again is not on sex.
26:43 Like we talked about the end of chapter 2, like Edon so well put a few weeks ago. The emphasis is on the fact that
26:52 now the open trusting relationship is no more. Now I do have something to hide
27:00 and it's not my physical body. What I need to hide is my moral guilt.
27:06 Their eyes were open. Spiritual eyes as it were. It's not that they couldn't see before this. Is that there was nothing
27:13 to hide before this. And now they saw their guilt. They saw how wrong they had
27:19 been and they tried to hide and they tried to cover their shame, cover their
27:27 guilt with fig leaves, but to no avail. Even they recognized it didn't work
27:36 and filled with shame and guilt. Then when they heard the sound of the Lord
27:42 God walking in the garden, then the man and his wife hid themselves
27:47 from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
27:53 For them to hide themselves, it shows that they understood that what they had
27:59 done was so terribly wrong. Now they had been used to communing with
28:05 God in the garden. It was like every evening in the cool of the evening, Adam and Eve would have had a conversation
28:11 with God as they strolled through the garden in close relationship with him. But now that relationship was broken and
28:19 rather than seeking God's face, rather than seeking communion with him,
28:25 they hid from him for the first time ever.
28:30 And we see the consequences of sin as we continue. The Lord God called, "Where
28:36 are you?" Not because he didn't know where they were. He wanted to give them a chance to
28:42 respond. And then the man said, "Well, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I
28:47 was afraid because I was naked and hid myself."
28:54 Verse continues, "God said, who told you that you were
29:00 naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?
29:08 So we see the sense of shame and guilt and fear that Adam and Eve now felt for
29:14 the very first time and they end up running from God.
29:23 Any of this sound familiar? Have you ever experienced shame?
29:30 Ever experienced guilt? Ever experienced fear?
29:36 Even in some religions, I've noticed that fear is such a very prominent part of the religion.
29:42 And everything you're doing is based out of fear to try to get the spirits or the gods, whoever is out there to leave you
29:49 in peace or not to bother you. Fear plagues people as a result of sin.
29:59 God asking them, "Where are you?" shows us some more truths about God.
30:06 God knew where they were. God knew what they had done. We cannot hide from God.
30:12 God sees and knows everything we do. It's foolish to try to hide.
30:20 But why was God asking the question? He was wanting to give the people a chance
30:26 to respond to him. Wanted to give them a chance to respond by admitting, by
30:32 confessing their sin, by repenting. But we'll see that Adam and Eve did not
30:39 do that. Now, when confronted with sin, people respond in different ways.
30:45 How do you respond when you're confronted with sin? either by another person or when you realize God is
30:52 confronting you with sin. How do you respond? Some people respond by denying it. No, I
30:59 didn't do that. Well, Adam and Eve, that would have been a foolish course. They knew that God knew. It was obvious. Some
31:07 people try to justify, "Well, what I did was not so bad. Just ate one little piece of fruit. No big deal."
31:14 But Adam and Eve knew it was a big deal because God had said, "This is going to bring death."
31:23 The best thing would be just to admit it. Yes, you're right, God.
31:29 You can't fool him anyway. I did sin. I did defy you. I'm sorry. Please forgive
31:36 me. But Adam and Eve did not do that. Rather, they used a more creative
31:41 approach. Yes, I did it, but it's not my fault. Look what happened. The man said,
31:49 "The woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree,
31:56 and that's the reason I ate." So, we see people shifting the blame, blaming
32:01 others. And here he's blaming his wife. H, does that sound familiar to anybody?
32:10 All the wives laughed because yeah, my husband does it all the time. The men, we don't ever do that. Once again,
32:15 trying to cover our wrongdoings. That was the first time a man ever
32:21 blamed his wife, but not the last. And it continues. Yeah, it's my wife's fault.
32:29 And now the relationship that had been so good between the man and woman, it's
32:34 damaged. Up until this time, Adam had never said
32:40 anything hurtful to his wife. It was all loving, compliments, beautiful things.
32:47 And now he says something that just crushes her. You know, she must have
32:52 felt horrible when he in front of God, saying it's her fault.
33:00 A man who up to this point had been sensitive and caring in his relationship with his wife was now being cruel.
33:07 saying horrible things. Relationship broken.
33:12 But not only does he blame his wife, he even blames God. God, the woman that you gave me.
33:20 Now, think back to the sermon that Edon preached a few weeks ago. Sorry I keep mentioning your name, but you had you
33:26 had some good points. So, I want to remind them. When Adam first saw his wife, what did he say?
33:33 Wow, this is wonderful. Oh, she's beautiful. I don't think I can keep my
33:38 eyes off of her. Don't think I can keep my hands Oh, no. Better not go there. That's keep this PG.
33:46 Well, the real text was bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. But what I just said
33:51 is really what he meant. She's a part of me. I love her so much.
33:58 And now rather than thank you God for this wonderful blessing, it's God why
34:04 did you curse me with such a person as this
34:09 blaming God for what he had done.
34:16 God then turns to Eve
34:21 and Eve also tries to shift the blame. It's not my fault. It's the devil's
34:28 fault. Did any of you remember the Flip Wilson
34:33 show? Did that ever show here in Malaysia? Flip Wilson was famous for a
34:39 line that he used in many of his programs. The devil made me do it. And
34:44 he created a character, Geraldine. Oh, the devil made me buy this dress.
34:50 Blaming it on the devil. But notice this little arrow. The devil. Who is it pointing to?
34:59 The devil doesn't make you do anything. The devil did not make Eve eat the fruit. The serpent did not make Eve eat
35:06 the fruit. Yes, the serpent tempted. Yes, the devil will tempt.
35:12 But if we choose to disobey God, we're the ones that are responsible.
35:19 And in a very comic way, Flip Wilson was making a good point. No, it's not the
35:25 devil that made you do it because I'm the one responsible for my own behavior.
35:33 So, we may tend to blame other people, whether it's our wife,
35:38 whether it's our boss, whether it's our neighbors, whether it's the other people
35:44 in our country. We may choose to blame God.
35:49 We can get quite creative at this. Well, I just have a bad temper and I can't help it. That's the way God made
35:55 me. And then use that as an excuse. Or I can't help that I can control my
36:00 sexuality. God gave me a real strong sex drive. Or I can't help my sexual orientation.
36:06 That's the way God created me. Or I can't help that I like the fine
36:11 luxurious things in life and always have to have more and more. That's just the way I am. It's God's fault.
36:20 Or then we can be creative like Eve and Flip Wilson. Oh, it's the devil's fault.
36:26 And then we can think we're excused from everything because I mean, after all, the devil is so much more powerful than
36:32 I am. No excuse.
36:37 In some Christian groups today, there are people who go around quote casting
36:44 demons out of Christians, which is not a biblical practice. You
36:49 never see that happening in the scripture. But what that gives you is an excuse. If I have, for example, the
36:55 demon of adultery and then I commit adultery, then it's not my fault. It's
37:01 the demon's fault and I get him cast out and I'm okay. No, no, no, no, no. If I
37:06 do something wrong, it's my fault. I might be influenced by forces of evil,
37:14 but don't shift the blame. I'm the one. You're the one. In our story, Adam and
37:22 Eve, they're the one. And the truth is, each one of us is morally responsible.
37:28 We will be held accountable for our decisions, for our actions, for our words. And it does no good to shift the
37:34 blame because we will still face judgment. And there is punishment for sin. And we see that when we get to
37:41 verse 14, punishment that then is inflicted. God first of all speaks of the serpent. Because you have done this,
37:48 you are cursed above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your
37:54 belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. If you remember the beginning of chapter 3, the
38:00 serpent was the craftiest, the most cunning, one of the loftiest of the
38:06 creatures of the earth. And now he's the lowest of the creatures of the earth.
38:12 And we see in the next verse, there's going to be constant enmity, constant strife between serpents and the people.
38:21 There's much more to that verse and I'll come back to that in a minute. But I want to continue just right now before I
38:27 come back to that with the rest of the punishment for sin. To the woman he said, I will surely
38:33 multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband
38:41 and he shall rule over you. I think in a woman's life, especially in the life of
38:46 a woman in the ancient world, the two most important relationships in her life
38:51 were that of wife and mother. And now we see there's going to be
38:57 problems in both areas. God has told her to be fruitful and multiply.
39:04 And now it's going to be with pain. There's going to be pain in having children. Pain also in raising children.
39:12 And then the relationship with the husband is damaged. Now that last part, your desire shall be for your husband
39:19 and he shall rule over you. There have been many theories, many explanations offered.
39:27 If you look through the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses, Pentatuk, the first five books, this
39:33 combination of verbs, the desire and then rule is only found in one other
39:40 place and that's in the very next chapter, chapter 4. If you do not do
39:45 well, sin is crouching at the door. Sin's desire is for you, but you must
39:52 rule over it. So to understand the desire and the rule,
39:58 it's best to look at the passage in the very next chapter and see this is
40:05 probably the way that the text in chapter 3 reads. In other words, your
40:10 desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.
40:16 Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. So we see that desire for
40:24 is a desire to control. So probably the best understanding of
40:31 this verse in Genesis, your desire is going to be to control your husband.
40:36 But most the time it's not going to work. He's bigger. He's stronger. And he's going to rule over you. And we see
40:42 there's going to be conflict in what used to be such a beautiful, wonderful,
40:47 caring, loving, trusting relationship.
40:54 And then he turns to Adam with punishment and he said, "Because you
40:60 have sinned, cursed is the ground because of you." Notice he's not cursing
41:05 the man. He didn't curse the woman. The serpent was cursed and now the earth is being cursed. Cursed is the ground
41:12 because of you and in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.
41:19 The exact same word pain in childbirth to Eve. The exact same word used here.
41:25 Pain of your toil, of your labor.
41:31 The earth had been fruitful. It had been a pleasure. It had been a joy. It had been fulfillment to work there in the
41:38 garden. But now the work is going to be hard and tedious.
41:44 Have to work hard. Sweat on the brow.
41:49 And God continues, "By the sweat of your face, you shall eat your bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you
41:55 were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." This brings us
42:02 back to the penalty that we've seen. The penalty for sin is death. We heard that
42:08 back in chapter 2. If you eat of the tree, you will surely die. Now, the serpent denied that. Oh, you will not
42:15 surely die. Notice the first doctrine in the Bible that is denied is the doctrine of
42:22 judgment. Now, get rid of judgment, get rid of accountability, then anything goes.
42:28 But just because you might deny the doctrine of judgment does not mean it is not a reality.
42:37 You will die. What was meant by that? Physical death,
42:42 spiritual death, eternal death. Yes, the answer is yes. All of those are
42:49 meant. Physical death we see right here. You will return to dust. Your body is
42:56 going to gradually deta decay and deteriorate. And some of us that have gone up in
43:02 years, we realize that not everything functions quite as well as it might have 30, 40, 50 years ago. We're susceptible
43:08 to to disease. We're susceptible to pain. Death in a physical way is part of
43:15 the punishment. But more importantly, it's a spiritual death. The broken
43:20 relationship with God that we've already seen by their fear of God. They're trying to hide from God. The lack of
43:27 honesty in responding to God. And when we get to the end of the story, we're going to see that they're driven out of
43:33 the garden, never allowed to come back, showing in a very concrete way that
43:38 relationship with God is broken. They have experienced spiritual death while they're still alive physically on earth.
43:46 And that even though eternal death is not specifically mentioned in chapter 3, when we read later in the scripture, we
43:53 realize that part of the penalty of death is eternal separation from God
43:58 forever in hell if we reject, do not accept his offer of reconciliation and
44:06 forgiveness. Well, of course, sin brings death.
44:11 That's no surprise. If I turn my back on the giver of life,
44:18 what else can I expect? If I purposely separate myself from the source of life,
44:26 death is going to be the result. And so we see that Genesis 4 ends with
44:35 quite a hopeless situation. God drove out the man and at the east of
44:41 the garden of Eden he placed the cherubam and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree
44:48 of life. Sinful man is kicked out of the presence of God. He's not allowed back in. Tragic
44:56 beyond description. And what's even more tragic, this is not
45:02 just true of the first people. It's true about us. Romans 5 tells us that just as
45:08 sin came into the world through one man and death through sin. So death spread to all men because all sinned.
45:16 Every one of us has sinned. Paul has already stated that clearly in Romans the first three chapters. All have
45:22 sinned and we too just like Adam and Eve sin. And so we are facing death.
45:30 It seems like a hopeless situation. And it would be hopeless if it were left for us.
45:37 But remember, the Bible starts with paradise and it ends with paradise. And
45:43 the part in the middle after we've lost paradise to show how God is going to work to bring about hope, to bring about
45:51 the opportunity of paradise. So I want us to look again briefly at our text and
45:56 see how God is going to bring hope into what appears to be a hopeless situation.
46:03 First of all, we're going to see that God takes the initiative. He comes to us. He calls us. We saw that back in
46:12 verse eight and nine. After Adam and Eve sin, God didn't immediately throw a
46:17 lightning bolt and zap them and do away with them and say, "Oh, I'll start over and create me another man." No, God came
46:24 to them and he called them by name. He gave them the opportunity to respond in
46:30 confession and repentance. We also see that God promises that he is
46:38 going to crush the power of evil. He's going to crush sin, crush death. Now, in
46:45 this story, in the first three chapters of Genesis, and especially in this story, there are lots of symbols and
46:50 what's symbolic and what's history. People can argue and debate, but I think most will agree that at least here in
46:56 verse 15 of chapter 3, we do see some symbolism because this story is not just
47:03 about why does snakes crawl. And the story is not just to explain why
47:08 women are afraid of snakes. Not only are women afraid of snakes,
47:13 many of us men are too. But no, more than likely, we're seeing a
47:19 reference to what we find specifically spelled out in the book of Revelation,
47:25 talking about that ancient serpent who was called the devil and Satan. So,
47:30 there's enmity between the serpent and the descendants of the woman.
47:36 enmity between evil and good. But no, enmity between Satan
47:44 and people and a descendant of the woman, specifically Jesus,
47:50 is going to come and crush the head of the serpent,
47:55 crushing the head of Satan, crushing the power of sin, crushing the power of
48:02 death. Have you seen the movie The Passion of
48:08 the Christ? Do you remember the first scene in that movie? In the movie, it
48:16 starts with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane shortly before his arrest, which then goes to his trial and
48:21 crucifixion. And as he is praying, the movie shows the devil in this form releasing a snake
48:30 from his body, symbol of Satan. And the serpent then goes to where Jesus is
48:36 praying as if the serpent is tempting Jesus to turn away from his mission. No,
48:43 do not give your life. Do not pay the penalty of sin. Do not do God's will.
48:49 And the serpent even crawls onto Jesus' hand. And then in the movie as a serpent
48:55 is right there by Jesus, we see Jesus stand up and then he stomps on the head
49:00 of the snake and the serpent is head is crushed.
49:06 That scene in the movie is referring to this passage in Genesis. One is coming
49:12 who is going to kill do away with the power of Satan.
49:18 So how does God bring hope? Well, he takes the initiative. He promises that
49:24 someone is coming. The Messiah is going to crush the power of evil, sin, and death.
49:30 And then we also see that God makes provision to cover our shame. We see
49:36 that in verse 21. The Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and
49:43 clothed them. What Adam and Eve had done earlier to try to cover themselves, it had not
49:50 worked. Human efforts cannot remove the penalty, the curse of sin.
49:57 And human beings cannot go back into the garden and take of the tree of life.
50:03 We're dependent on what God has done. And here we see God in an act of love,
50:08 an act of grace, covering their shame.
50:14 More than likely, an animal was killed. The blood of an animal was shed. More than likely to bring about this covering
50:21 for shame. This is a picture pointing to what's going to happen when Jesus sheds his
50:29 blood, making it possible to cover our shame so that we can receive forgiveness, so that
50:35 we can receive eternal life. So Genesis chapter 3 talks about the
50:43 problem that we all face of sin. It shows the horrible consequences and the
50:48 fact that we can do absolutely nothing about it. But yet we see the hope because God is
50:57 taking the initiative in his love and grace. He is defeating and has defeated the power of sin and Satan. And he makes
51:05 it possible through Jesus that we can have our shame covered when we look
51:10 forward and accept in faith what Jesus has done for us. So how will you respond
51:15 today when God confronts you with your sin? When God confronts you with your need for him?
51:22 Will you be like Adam? Try to hide. try to cover it up by religious rituals
51:30 or good works, community service, blame other people,
51:36 or will you admit, "Yes, God, you're right. I do sin. I have done wrong. I have rebelled. I confess that. I
51:44 acknowledge my guilt. Please forgive me. I acknowledge you as the rightful Lord
51:51 and Master of my life." God is calling your name today. If you
51:58 have never responded in faith to him, you can respond today in repentance and faith and receive Christ as your Lord,
52:03 as your Savior, as your master, and receive forgiveness and enter into a right relationship with God.
52:10 And many of you have already done that. But each day there's still the need to confess our sin, to once again
52:16 acknowledge God's rightful rule in our life. And if you find yourself hiding
52:22 from God, remember what the psalmist said. He said to God, "You are my hiding place."
52:31 Rather than hiding from God and trying to cover your own sin, let him cover your sin and you can hide in him seeking
52:40 his face. He's ready to receive you. He has given us the promise of the future paradise
52:48 when we respond in repentance and faith to him. Let's pray together.
52:54 Father God, we acknowledge the awfulness, the seriousness,
53:00 the tragedy of sin. We see that we're surrounded by sinful
53:06 people. We see that we live in a broken world affected by sin. And father, when we look in the mirror,
53:13 we see a sinful person. So, Father God, we want to confess our sin.
53:20 Ask your forgiveness. Show us when we are just making excuses.
53:26 Show us when we are having flimsy attempts to hide from you.
53:31 Give us the grace to respond to what Jesus has done, crushing the power of Satan, and allow you to forgive us.
53:39 allow you to clothe us in your righteousness. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
