January 9, 2022 - Teddy Tash

[0:00] We welcome you to the media ministry of Bethel Community Church. Knowing Jesus, making Jesus known. Jeffrey's not in here, but he told me a couple weeks ago that when I speak, I have the tendency to look off to my right.

[0:18] So I'm going to just turn this way today and maybe I'll look at you guys, but no. Well, good morning. Good morning. We are starting a new series, if you will, a new lesson series, if you will.

[0:34] So kind of a two-fold purpose today. The first purpose is to introduce said series. And then the second purpose would be to go ahead and give the first lesson on that.

[0:47] We have studied, as you guys probably know, the Book of Romans. I don't even remember when we started that study, but we went verse by verse all the way through the Book of Romans. I thought that was a very good study.

[0:58] Obviously, the Book of Romans has a lot of the foundational doctrine of why we believe what we believe. So that study was a real blessing. But then, of course, we had Christmas, and then we had Christmas again, and then we had the New Year's message.

[1:12] And so we've taken almost a month off now from Romans. And now, here in 2022, we're going to start our new series. So the series we're going to go through, I think, is around 12 weeks or so, and it's going to be on the Book of Genesis.

[1:26] And you should kind of breathe a sigh of relief when we say it's only 12 weeks, because there's a lot of books in the Book of Genesis. And it would take probably literally over a year to go through chapter by chapter.

[1:39] So what we're going to do is kind of a little bit different from what we normally do. It's almost like a character study, if you will. So we're going to pull out some of the major characters in Genesis. So, for instance, today I have Adam, and we're going to look at how that relates to us now.

[1:55] And so what we're going to do in just a second, we're going to watch a video kind of on why Genesis. And that will sort of be our introduction to the study. But just real quick, I would say, if you look at the major characters in Genesis, for instance, Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Joseph, all these guys, Noah.

[2:18] They come up all the time in the New Testament epistles. I mean, all the time. Like, I was blown away in this study of Adam, how much Adam comes up. He's in 1 Corinthians, he's in Romans, he's in 1 Timothy.

[2:30] I mean, it is the New Testament church, you know, which we are a part of the New Testament church in the church age, is chock full of examples from Genesis. So, anyway, that's kind of going to be the next, I don't know, two, three months will be some of the highlights of Genesis.

[2:46] But Ken Ham, we're going to watch this video. It's just about five, five and a half minute little clip. Ken Ham is a guy who has a ministry called Answers in Genesis, and he can do a lot better job than I can in regards to laying out why is Genesis relevant today to us in the church.

[3:04] And I think he does a really good job of that, so he'll do that in just a sec. Obviously, Ken Ham, if you don't know, he's the one that has the Ark encounter down in Kentucky. He's debated Bill Nye.

[3:16] His real big thing is creation, which obviously comes from Genesis. But this clip in particular is just talking kind of why Genesis. So, anyway, this will be our introduction, and then we'll get into the actual study for today.

[3:28] So, you can go ahead, KJ. Moral issues, the moral relativism that is pervading our culture in America and through our Western world. The structure is collapsing.

[3:39] What foundation? The foundation of the authority of the Word of God. And, you know, in this day and age, God's Word has particularly been attacked in regard to the book of Genesis, in regard to that history in Genesis 1 to 11.

[3:53] We live in an era of history when even much of the church has said to us, and many of the church leaders and our Bible college professors and Christian college professors and seminary professors have told us, you can believe in evolution, you can believe in millions of years, you can believe in the Big Bang, we just reinterpret the days of creation, we reinterpret the history in Genesis.

[4:09] That doesn't matter as long as you trust in Jesus. But people, what they have done is really take the pagan religion of the age. That's what evolution of millions of years really are. It's really the pagan religion of the age that the secularists use to explain life without God.

[4:24] And we, just like the Israelites, have adopted a pagan religion into our culture, and it's contaminated the Word of God, and we wonder why we're losing our culture.

[4:35] You see, as a Christian, when we say that you can add millions of years in evolution into the Bible, and we reinterpret what Genesis clearly teaches, we do two things.

[4:46] One, we undermine the history that's foundational to all doctrine. But secondly, we undermine the very Word of God itself. Let me explain to you. In Matthew 19, when Jesus was asked about marriage, He said, haven't you read?

[5:00] There's the authority of the Word. Haven't you read in Genesis 1.27 and Genesis 2.24, because that's where He quotes from, that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, this is the reason a man leaves his mother and father, cleaves under his wife, they'll be one flesh.

[5:15] You become one in marriage because you're one flesh. It's based on the fact that the woman came from the man. She didn't come from an ape woman. And if the woman came from an ape woman, you destroyed the whole basis of marriage. She came from the man.

[5:26] You see, what Jesus was showing was that the doctrine of marriage is founded upon Genesis 1-11. But not just marriage. Do you realize, ultimately, every single biblical doctrine of theology, directly or indirectly, is founded in Genesis 1-11?

[5:38] Why did Jesus die on a cross? Genesis 1-11. Why is there sin in the world? Genesis 1-11. Why is there death? Genesis 1-11. Why do we have a seven-day week? Genesis 1-11. Why do we need a new heavens and a new earth?

[5:49] Genesis 1-11. Why do we wear clothes? Genesis 1-11. Do you think Genesis 1-11 is important? It's the foundational history for the whole of the rest of the Bible. You see, I've had many parents come to me and say, Oh, when my little Johnny came home from school, and my little Johnny said to me he was taught millions of years, or Big Bang, or Evolution, I said to him, You know what, Johnny?

[6:08] It doesn't matter. And I asked the pastor of our church, and he said, It doesn't matter either. It doesn't matter what you believe about Genesis. You know, that's not that important, how God did things, or whatever. You know what's most important, Johnny?

[6:19] That you trust in Jesus. But friends, I want you to think about this for a moment. If we were born again Christian, we would believe that Jesus Christ bodily rose from the dead.

[6:32] Is that correct? Let me ask you a question. How do you know Jesus Christ bodily rose from the dead? Where did you get that from? You got a movie rerun? Did you go back and see it? Were you there? How do you ultimately know Jesus rose from the dead?

[6:45] Where do you get that from? Oh, the Bible. Oh, you want me to take this authoritatively? Oh, but wait a minute. The secular scientists say a man can't rise from the dead. Shouldn't we, on the basis of the secular scientists, reinterpret the resurrection?

[6:58] You can't do that. This is the Word of God. Huh. I suppose you people believe in the virgin birth. Where'd you get that from? Oh, you want me to take the Bible seriously?

[7:08] Oh, I see. I suppose you believe that a fish swallowed a man. How do you know a fish swallowed a man? Because the Bible said so. Ah. I suppose you believe Jesus walked on water.

[7:19] How do you know that happened? Because the Bible says so. In fact, we could go all the way through this book. How do you know the Israelites crossed the Red Sea on dry land? And how do you know Jesus fed thousands of people as a miracle?

[7:30] And how do you know that the walls of Jericho fell down? How do you know all these things? Because the Bible says so. And then we come to Genesis. And in the average church in our Western world, in the average church in America, the average Bible college, seminary, Christian college, when we go to Christian leaders, professors, when we go to pastors, elders, deacons, and we say, well, in Genesis says God created in six days, it was a global flood, Adam from dust, woman from his side, death came after sin.

[7:58] You know what we hear? Oh, we're not sure about that. Oh, we don't really know. Well, actually, you've got to listen to what the secular scientists are saying. And we've got to reinterpret the Word of God. And do you know what happens? See, do you know what happened in England? Back in the late 1700s, early 1800s, when the idea of millions of years was popularized by deists and materialists, people who didn't want to believe the Word of God, who were trying to come up with a so-called scientific justification for saying God's Word is not true, instead of believing Noah's flood laid down the most of your fossil layers, they said those layers were built up over millions of years.

[8:28] And you know what many church leaders in England did? They said we can take the millions of years and reinterpret the days of creation. And along came Darwin. And they said, oh, we can take evolution and say God used evolution. And along came the Big Bang.

[8:39] Oh, we can say that God used the Big Bang. And what they did was they unlocked a door. You know what the door was they unlocked? You don't have to take God's Word as written. You can use man's ideas outside the Bible, reinterpret the Bible.

[8:50] People, what do you notice in Scripture? When there's compromise or sin in one generation, is it usually to a greater or lesser extent in the next? Greater. And you know what happened? The next generation pushed that door open further. And the next generation pushed that door open further.

[9:02] If you go to England today, even most of your conservative churches will not take a stand on a literal genesis and stand back and look at the nation and say, can't you people see what's happening? You're losing. Yeah, I think he does a really good job of that.

[9:24] He talks about basically how if you undermine Genesis and you don't really take that as the authority from God, it's an issue of authority, right?

[9:35] You undermine the whole thing, all the doctrines that the church is built on, they're all found, right, in Genesis 1 through 11. So very important stuff. I think that it is certainly worthwhile for us as a New Testament church to be studying the book of Genesis here.

[9:52] So that's kind of the introduction. I kind of want to talk in an Australian accent after hearing that. You know, good day and all that stuff, but I won't. So real quick, let's pray, and then we'll talk about Adam, okay?

[10:06] Father God, just thank you for loving us. Thank you that you have given us your word. Thank you, Lord, that it is a revelation of yourself to us. Lord, we know it contains all the answers to life, and so we're so thankful for that.

[10:19] It's just an amazing story, Lord, and the fact that it was written over such a long length of time with so many authors is just a remarkable and miraculous thing. So we're thankful for it.

[10:30] We pray you bless this study, not just today, but the next 12 weeks or so. And we would ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so we'll go to Genesis chapter 1, and we're going to spend a little bit of time just introducing Adam.

[10:47] Obviously, he's the main character for today. And then we're going to look at kind of three points about Adam's life that I think will be relatable to us today in the church age.

[11:03] So a little bit of introduction first on Adam. Genesis 1, verse 1, it says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. This is a pretty familiar verse, right?

[11:15] Pretty familiar passage. And then it's going to go all the way through, and he's going to talk about on the first day God created light. And then second day he created some water. Third day he created dry land.

[11:26] Fourth day the sun, moon, and stars. That's actually one of my favorite verses. Verse 16, it says, He made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day. That would be the sun. The lesser light to rule the night.

[11:37] And then he just throws this in. He made the stars also. You know, you think about how cool the stars are. And it's just a one-line throwaway. Ah, he made the stars too. I think that's pretty cool.

[11:49] Fifth day he makes some animals. Sixth day he makes some more animals. And then you get to verse 26, and here's Adam. It says, Then God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.

[12:01] Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over the cattle, so on and so forth. Verse 27, So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him.

[12:14] Male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it. So that's kind of the account of Adam and Eve, right?

[12:27] It says he created him in his own image. In the image of God he created them, male and female. Well, if you go to chapter 2, it gives a little bit more detail about Adam and Eve's creation.

[12:38] It gives a little more of the account. And it says this in verse 4. It says, This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord made the earth and the heavens.

[12:50] And so it's kind of, he gives us the abridged version in chapter 1 and then goes into more detail in chapter 2. And in chapter 2, verse 7, if you'll pick it up with me again, it says, The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

[13:10] And man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And then verse 9, he obviously causes the garden to grow.

[13:25] And then you get to verse 15, and it says, The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend it and keep it. And so at this point, Adam is around.

[13:37] Eve is not around. God has made a garden. God has put Adam into the garden. But that's where we're at so far in chapter 2. This is, like I said, a little more detail as far as how the creation went.

[13:49] So we've got, you know, all the stuff that's been created days 1 through 5. Here we are halfway through day 6. Adam is in the garden. It's all good.

[14:00] And I mean that, like it's all good, right? Like you go through day 1. Let there be light. There was light. It was good. Let there be water. It was good. It was good. It was good. It was good. Six times it was good. And then you get to verse 18.

[14:12] We've got Adam. He's in the garden. It's all good. Six times it was good. And then you get chapter 2, verse 18. And the Lord God said, it is not good. Right?

[14:23] There's like the brake noise, the record scratch. What's not good? The Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. Thought I'd maybe get like an amen or something there from some of the fellas.

[14:37] I don't know. The Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. There it is. Hey, there you go. I will make him a helper comparable to him.

[14:47] And so then it says, out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field, every bird of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them, whatever Adam called them. That was its name. So Adam gave names to all the cattle, the birds of the air, to the beasts of the field.

[15:02] But for Adam, there was not found a helper suitable for him. And so it's not good, right? Man is alone. We've got all the animals. None of them are suitable for Adam.

[15:16] And so verse 21 says, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam and he slept. He took one of his ribs, closed up the flesh in its place. Then from the rib which the Lord had taken from man, he made into a woman and he brought her to the man.

[15:33] And Adam said, this is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of the man. Verse 25, they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. And so that's kind of the creation of Adam, the creation of Eve.

[15:48] They're alone in the garden with no shame, no evil. It is all good. And in fact, after Eve is created, which just happened in chapter 2, at the end of Adam and Eve being created in chapter 1, it says, and indeed it was very good.

[16:06] So, life is all good in the garden. That is how chapter 2 ends. We have Adam and Eve, they are together in the garden, naked, no shame. And it takes all of one more verse, right, for things to unwind.

[16:21] Because in chapter 3, that's when the serpent comes in. And so that's the, what we're going to start looking at now, is Adam and Eve are in the garden, and we're going to see Adam being passive.

[16:34] Or maybe the title, if you were going to take notes, would be like Adam's passivity. Or Adam's hesitancy. And this is something I think we can learn from even, you know, now in the church age.

[16:47] So let's read the account of the fall here. It's, I know we're reading a lot of verses, but it's a topical study, and I can do what I want. So that's great. Genesis chapter 3, verse 1.

[17:01] Talking about the fall. It says, Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

[17:15] And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it lest you die.

[17:26] Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that in the day that you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

[17:51] That's obviously the fall right there. You know, that's when sin came to this world. It's interesting just a little side note. You don't have to turn there.

[18:03] But in 1 John, I think John gives a really good definition of sin. I think sin of any kind, any type of sin can fall into one of these three categories.

[18:15] This is from 1 John 2, 16. It says, All that is in the world, and then it gives three sort of categories, if you will, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.

[18:30] So you have the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. I think any sin can fall into that category. That says that that is all that is in the world. And so you look at the temptation here with Eve, and it says that she saw it was good for food, lust of the flesh.

[18:46] She saw that it was pleasing to the eyes, lust of the eyes, and it was desirable to make one wise. It's the pride of life. Oh, if I eat this, I'll be like God. I'll have knowledge of good and evil.

[18:56] I'll know more than Adam does. There's this pride of life. And so Satan tempts with everything he's got, right? Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. And it says she took of its fruit and ate.

[19:09] Now this is a story, you know, that most of us probably learned in Sunday school. We have a couple kids at the house, right? And it's interesting, children's Bibles, if you have like a children's storybook Bible, 90% of it is the Old Testament stories.

[19:26] Right? You've got Adam and Eve, you've got the garden, you've got Noah and the flood, you've got Abraham and Isaac. And then the other 10% is like Jesus' life, the nativity scene, up to the cross and resurrection. And that's kind of all that a children's book is.

[19:38] So it's interesting that the children are always talking about Genesis, but we never are. But anyway, in Sunday school growing up as a kid, I always took the account of the fall like this, that Satan, you know, the serpent, and Eve were off in one section of the garden, and then Adam was just like off by himself somewhere, and then Eve eats the fruit and then walks over to Adam and hands it to her.

[20:01] This is just how I interpreted it as a kid, and that's always what I had in my brain, that Adam really didn't know what was going on, Eve gets deceived, and then she goes and like deceives Adam. That's just how I, as a child, interpreted this.

[20:14] But look at the rest of the verse. It says, You know, in the book of Timothy, Paul says that Eve was deceived, but Adam was not.

[20:32] So think about that. Adam is standing right there watching this unfold. He's watching his wife get fooled and deceived by the serpent, and he just stands idly by, right?

[20:46] The Lord has created this good, imperfect garden. Evil is attacking it, and Adam just kind of is along for the ride. He allows his wife to eat of the fruit, and then he stands there and does the same thing.

[21:04] It's a moment of passivity. It's a moment of just hesitancy, not being willing to fight for good. And so how does that relate to us today? I mean, I think it's a pretty obvious connection, that we as men, specifically men, were created to fight for what is good.

[21:22] And that includes our families, our wives, our children. But just in general, we are created by God to fight for what is good. We are created in the image and the likeness of God.

[21:34] And there's no way you can read through the scripture and see that God is not a warrior. I mean, it says the Lord is a warrior. A warrior is his name. He is strong and mighty in battle. And he put that into us, right?

[21:48] And that is so under attack as a man in our lives. Just something as simple as, you know, we went out to eat this week. This is totally a silly example. We went out to eat this week.

[21:59] We had a reservation at 7, but we kind of wanted to eat at like 6.30. So we showed up at 6.30. And the first thing they ask is, do you have a reservation? And it would be really easy to say, yeah, but it's not until 7.

[22:09] It's okay. I don't want to cause, you know, no conflict. It's okay. We'll wait until 7. But I said, no, we do. We have one at 7, but we'd kind of like to eat now if you have something. And sure enough, we waited like two minutes and they seated us, right?

[22:20] And that's a silly battle, right? That's a small conflict battle. But it's really easy, and I think guys in the room would understand to kind of cower away from that, shy away from that. But it is so important that we battle for what is good, a lot more than just, you know, dinner reservations.

[22:37] And there's a, a line in this book or a little passage I want to read. This is Fathered by God by John Eldridge, who I really like his, his work.

[22:47] But he talks about Adam's sort of hesitancy, if you will. He says this. He says, when it comes to the record of men in particular, our worst moment has to be Adam's failure in the introduction of sin, which got us into the whole mess in the first place.

[23:03] It was a failure marked by passivity. Eve was deceived, says Paul, but not Adam. He sinned for other reasons unspecified. But when we look at the story, we have some evidence to go by. Adam does not engage.

[23:15] He does not intervene. He does not do a thing. He is created to act. He is endowed with the image of a mighty God who does act and who does intervene. Adam did not.

[23:26] And here's the line. And whatever else got passed on to us men from the first man, we know that paralysis, another word for passivity, is certainly one of them.

[23:38] Then he goes on to give the example of, you know, if his wife's upset at him and he knows it, it's a lot easier to go work on the car for five hours than to go talk to his wife. Right? That's an example of being passive. Or if his kids need help with something and he knows it but he doesn't want to get into the emotional side of it, it's a lot easier to go mow the grass than to go talk with his kids.

[23:55] And so us as men, we have got to face, you know, these fights, these battles for the good of those around us. For time's sake, I won't go into it, but you look at the children of Israel later on after they get freed out of Egypt.

[24:11] You know, God does a bunch of miracles to get them out of Egypt. You know, he splits the Red Sea and then he kills all their enemies by causing the Red Sea to go back onto the enemies. And he tells them, go into the land of Canaan.

[24:22] I'll deliver you. Don't worry about it. It actually says, I'll carry you like a father carries his son. That's what he says. And what do they do? They send in spies and they're like, ugh, the land's nice and all, but, you know, there's some giants in there.

[24:35] I don't think we could take on these giants. And they're scared to fight. They're not willing to go in and go to battle. And so what happens? They've got to walk around the desert for 40 years and they all die out there. Every one of that generation, except for the two good spies, dies out in the wilderness.

[24:50] It's like, well, that wasn't good. You know, they didn't want to risk going to battle because they were afraid of the cost. Well, it cost them a whole lot more not to go to battle. Does that make sense? So anyway, Adam's passivity.

[25:00] I think that's something that we can learn from here. In the quote I just read, and KJ, if you want to pull the slide up there, buddy, it said, whatever else got passed on to us from Adam.

[25:16] And that is what I want to look at next, is that Adam, I want to look at Adam as a type of Christ. So as we look through Genesis, we're going to see this word type come up a lot.

[25:29] Type, like T-Y-P-E, type. And a basic definition of a type would be a divinely purposed illustration of truth. So it is a divinely purposed illustration of truth.

[25:42] That is what a type is. And so there's a lot of types, particularly in Genesis. For instance, a good example, an easy one to understand, would be Isaac. Isaac. Isaac was a type of Christ.

[25:54] How so? Well, think about the definition, a divinely purposed illustration of truth. Isaac is a type of Christ because he was the only son. He was going to be offered up as a sacrifice.

[26:06] There ended up being a substitute, the ram, and so it says that Abraham received Isaac as it were from the dead. So Isaac, the only son, is sacrificed. He's resurrected.

[26:17] It's a picture of Christ. Does that make sense? That's what a type is. And so Adam is a type of Christ. We know that because it says it there in verse 14 of Romans 5.

[26:30] And as a type of Christ, the way that he is an illustration of Christ is that through Christ, we inherit quite a few things. And that's what we're going to look at in a second. But through Adam, we also inherited quite a few things.

[26:44] And so that is how he's a type of Christ. By Adam, we received a few things. And by Christ, we're going to receive a few things. And there's two main passages that talk about Adam as a type of Christ.

[26:56] So if you want to turn real quick to 1 Corinthians 15, this is one of the two. I thought it was really interesting as I prepared for this message. I just happened to read that chapter in Fathered by God.

[27:09] And then at the funeral for Jim Fitzgerald, Jimmy Fitz talked right out of 1 Corinthians 15 and right out of Romans 5, both of these Adam passages. Kind of a cool deal.

[27:20] But these are two passages that talk about Adam and talk about Christ. And what you'll notice is there's a similar structure to these two passages.

[27:32] Each verse as it goes by, or as the verse goes on, will say, by Adam came X, you know, came this, and by Jesus came that. So by Adam came X, by Jesus came Y.

[27:45] That's the structure of each of these verses. It's Adam this, Jesus that, so on and so forth. That's kind of how they're structured. And in Corinthians 15, it talks about, it's mostly talking about the resurrection.

[27:58] In Romans 5, it's mostly talking about like salvation. But in 1 Corinthians 15, it's kind of talking about the resurrection more than anything. So it's talking about Adam having a natural body, a body formed out of dust.

[28:12] And then Jesus being the spirit-giving body, and that's what we're going to be raised in in the resurrection. Right? That's kind of what he's talking about with Nicodemus, when he says, you have to be born again. Nicodemus says, well, I can't go back into my mother's womb, can I?

[28:26] And he says, no, you need to be born of the spirit. So anyway, you have these two passages, and Casey, if you want to pull up the next slide, instead of reading through these, because there's a lot of verses that talk about it, this is kind of a synopsis of it.

[28:41] So you see on the left-hand column, by Adam, we have death, but by Christ, and this is just verse by verse, it goes through, we have resurrection from death.

[28:53] By Adam, all die, by Christ, all who believe are made alive. We have the natural body and the spiritual body. We have living beings, we have spiritual beings.

[29:05] What we get from Adam is kind of lousy. I mean, it's kind of a terrible list, honestly, on the left-hand side there. You know, death, because of him, all of us are going to die.

[29:20] You know, this worn-out body, living beings, versus what we get with Christ, way better, right? Sonny Williams, anytime you get a thorn in his hand, he'd say, you know, darn it, Adam, he would curse Adam, because from Adam we got thorns, right?

[29:37] So then in Romans, again, in Romans, it's talking a little bit more about salvation, less so about the resurrection, but we see that sin entered the world, right?

[29:48] By Adam's disobedience, the rest of us were made sinners. But by Christ's obedience, grace abounded, and the free gift, which is salvation, came along.

[30:00] So you see just all these things. So Adam, we get, not so good of an inheritance. In Christ, we get a lot of good things. If you go to the next slide, these are just kind of the two summary verses from each of these passages that I think are worth reading.

[30:18] These kind of sum up the whole of the two passages. The one in Corinthians says, for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. And then obviously in Romans, by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

[30:31] So by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. And of course, you know the next verse there in Romans says that where sin did abound, grace did much more abound.

[30:46] And so, I mean, that's the gospel in a nutshell, right? Sin entered into the world and death by sin, separation from God. But then another man, Christ, came and through his obedient act, grace did abound.

[30:58] And so, that's kind of a cool thing that we can look at from Adam, even though Adam's part of the story is kind of lousy in this instance. So Adam as a type of Christ.

[31:09] So then the last thing I want to talk about with Adam, well, I want to ask a question before I tell you what it is because your answer to the question will be affected if I tell you right away.

[31:23] So in your own brains and in your own mind, I want you to answer a question for me, not out loud. I'm curious more than anything.

[31:34] I think it will go the way that I'm thinking it will go, but I'm more curious than anything else. So in your mind, answer this question. God is the perfect blank. God is the perfect blank.

[31:46] So whatever comes to your mind, don't say it, but God is the perfect fill in the blank. I'll give you a sec to think of an answer.

[31:59] And then just out of, like I said, my own curiosity's sake more than anything, how many, just a quick show of hands, how many of you would have said God is the perfect judge?

[32:10] Was the judge that came to anybody's mind? Maybe Kurt. Okay, thank you, Kurt. You helped my example. I agree with that. God is the perfect judge.

[32:21] How many of you said father? Oh, look at you, Bethel. Yes, that's the right answer. Well, they're both right. Kurt, you're also right, buddy. I will say this, that as believers, God is no longer our judge.

[32:38] Judgment was executed on the cross. Yes, our actions will be judged at the judgment seat of Christ, but that is just our actions, right? That is whether or not we get reward or whether or not we lose reward.

[32:50] It is not our judgment, our eternal judgment. That has been dealt with. God is now our father if we are believers. So here's what I want to look at is Adam as God's son.

[33:01] Now, obviously, I'm not saying that Adam is the son of God. God only has one son. That's the Lord Jesus, obviously. But if you think about it in kind of a father-son relationship, Adam did some cool stuff with God, right?

[33:15] He walked with him in the cool of the day. He had a great, intimate time with God. He got to see God make all of the animals and then bring them one by one. I mean, how cool would that be? You know, to have God sort of as almost like a father figure showing you all of creation.

[33:31] And in fact, in Luke 3, it gives the genealogy of Jesus and it ends with the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. So, you know, it's not too much of a stretch to say that they had this father-son type of relationship.

[33:46] Kind of a side note, I always wonder how long after Adam and Eve were in the garden did the fall come? You know, was it like a couple hundred years? Was it like a week?

[33:57] You know, how long did they enjoy that intimacy with themselves and with God? That's just kind of a side note. But anyway, Adam as God's son, son in quotes, I'm not saying he was the son of God, but he enjoyed it.

[34:11] Certainly he enjoyed a father-son relationship with God. So when sin comes into the world, that relationship is cut off, right?

[34:22] They hide themselves from God. God has to make a sacrifice for their sins and then he kicks them out of the garden. So that relationship gets cut off. And that is what is so cool about the redemptive story of the Bible is that God then sends his son, the Lord Jesus, to come and redeem Adam, which I would put all of us into Adam there, right?

[34:47] Mankind. So that we can once again have that father-son relationship with God. That is so cool to me. Does that make sense? Adam and Eve enjoyed that type of relationship with God.

[34:59] It gets cut off by evil. God sends the Lord Jesus who redeems us and now we are welcomed back in and adopted his sons again. You look at the story of the prodigal son, it's in Luke 15.

[35:12] You don't really have to turn there. But it's a really cool story. And you guys know it, right? The man has two sons. One takes his inheritance early, goes off and spends it on sinful ways, right?

[35:26] On harlots and whatever. And he comes back and what does he say? He says, I'm not even worthy to be called your son. I don't want a position as son. I'm not worthy of that.

[35:38] I've sinned. I've sinned greatly. Will you just let me be a servant at your house? I just need a place to say, put me in the same echelon as the servants. I don't want to be a son anymore.

[35:49] And what does the father do? It says, He arose when he was far off and ran to greet him, fell on his neck and kissed him. And it's like, well that doesn't make any sense. You know, that is just pure love and pure grace shown by the father.

[36:04] And not only that, it says that he kills the fatted calf. They have a huge celebration and he says, why? He says, for your brother was dead and is alive and was lost and is found. It's the redemption story.

[36:18] What's really cool about the father's response is there's no judgment at all. There is no judgment. It is only celebration. There is only rejoicing, being merry, like I said, killing the fatted calf.

[36:29] The other son was out. It says, as he came near to the house, he heard music and dancing. That was the father's response when his son came home, right? There was no judgment at all.

[36:46] In Galatians, chapter 4, just talking about Christ here. And just talking about the redemption story. It says this, when the fullness of time had come, Galatians 4, 4, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons.

[37:12] And because you were sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father. Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

[37:25] If the musicians want to come up here, just think about how wild the gospel is, you guys.

[37:36] I mean, God creates Adam. He was perfect. The garden was perfect. Eve was there. It was perfect. Evil comes in and destroys that unity, that relationship.

[37:51] But God redeems it. He sends his son as a sacrifice and by one man's obedience, right, the second Adam, the Lord Jesus, that relationship is restored and he is no longer our judge, but our father.

[38:06] I mean, that's a wild story, right? But it is so cool. And I love this. It says that we are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

[38:18] And then he gives us an inheritance on top of it. I think it's awesome. So anyway, that's Adam. I don't know who we're doing next week, but probably Noah.

[38:28] I don't know. But we're going to look through Genesis. I hope that you guys got something out of that. And we'll go ahead and pray and then have another song. Father God, we love you and we thank you for your plan of salvation.

[38:42] We thank you that you've given us answers as to why sin is in the world, why death is in the world. Lord, we're called to give, be ready to give a defense, and Lord, the answers to a lot of those questions come straight from Genesis and certainly, Lord, they come from your word.

[38:59] So I pray that we would be a church that looks into your word and studies it and knows it. We thank you that you've saved us. We thank you that you have bought us back and brought us back, Lord, as sons.

[39:13] Thank you that you are a good father to us. And thank you, Lord, that you are willing to send your son as that sacrifice. And Lord, that he didn't just stay dead, but you gave him power over death through the resurrection.

[39:26] And Lord, that's the hope that we have one day that we will be resurrected as well as spiritual beings. And Lord, we know that all of this is from you. And so, we thank you for all of it in Jesus' name. Amen.

[39:39] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[39:50] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[40:00] Amen. Amen. Amen.