The consequences of disobeying God

[0:00] In other words, these first chapters of the Bible give us a firm basis for our life, for living a good life, for thinking clearly and understanding who we are in this world.

[0:16] ! It tells us, for example, why is there a world at all? Scientists can't answer that question. The Bible can. Why does the world have order and beauty?

[0:30] Again, scientists can't answer that question, but the Bible can. What are the boundaries and roles and order in the world? The Bible tells us those things.

[0:46] Loss of relationship with the Creator and loss of relationship with creation and loss of relationship with ourselves and one another.

[1:56] And that's the sad story that's going to unfold before us as we go through this this morning. I'm going to do a recap because the chapters fit together. I'll try and do it as quickly as possible.

[2:09] The first chapter of the Bible tells us about God's week and God's week has seven days. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

[2:19] And in these seven days, he starts with a world which is formless and empty, like that. And he proceeds, we are told, to produce form by separating day and night, water from water, dry land from water, by doing those three separations.

[2:39] And then populating the spaces with their inhabitants with sun and moon for day and night, birds and fish in the waters, what is above and what is underneath.

[2:53] And then vegetation, land animals and people in this space here. So it's just spelled out for us in a way that anybody can understand.

[3:05] You don't have to be a vastly educated person. Anybody can understand that. And in God's final stroke, he makes man and woman, in particular Adam, in his image to rule over this world.

[3:21] And on the seventh day, God rests and enjoys it. And that's a summary of chapter one. In chapter two, there is a focus on the particular part of the world in which God puts the two people that he's made.

[3:39] And it explains it in more detail, but I'm just going to do this fairly quickly. We have, in this world, the potential for agriculture. Agriculture, so although it's dry, there is a possibility of irrigation, and I'm afraid I still haven't put in the rivers there that I mentioned.

[3:57] There is water. There's a provision for agriculture. God plants a garden in a mountainous area or a high region. And there is a beauty and provision of this garden, which we might speculate was intended to be expanded to cover the whole world.

[4:17] We're told that there's all the features of geography and minerals of various sorts. And God gives permission to the first human couple for them to enjoy and benefit from and utilize everything, including, as I understand it, a special tree called the tree of life.

[4:40] But God says, there's one thing you must not do. There is another tree in this garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God says, you can have all of this.

[4:51] It's fantastically generous, wonderful. But one thing, just one thing you must not do. You mustn't reach out your hand and grab that fruit so that you start to become people who decide what is good and evil.

[5:07] Because on the day you do that, you will surely die. That's what God says. And there is detail about the formation of the beautiful woman to be with the man.

[5:20] And what could be a better situation. That's the Bible portrays the beauty of how God made everything. But it all goes wrong.

[5:30] And we looked at that last time. And I'll try and summarize that. There is a snake in the garden. And the snake, we're told, is more crafty, more shrewd than any of the other animals that God has made.

[5:45] And he says, he speaks to the woman to undermine this trust in God about the fruit that should not have been eaten.

[5:56] And in the end, or actually fairly quickly, she takes the fruit, eats it, gives it to her husband. He eats it. Everything goes wrong now.

[6:07] Their eyes are opened. They realize they're naked. They make belts or girdles or some sort of clothing from leaves. And when they hear God coming, they hide behind the trees in the garden.

[6:22] So that's, we're moving through the story in summary. Perhaps the moment to say, what sort of story do we find this to be? I think it's helpful. I think it's helpful to say, it's told in a way that the makers of this map tell their story.

[6:41] This is a map of the London Underground. And it's there for the everyday user. So the map maker has put it so that it makes absolute sense to the user.

[6:54] So everything is done in straight lines. All the stations are equidistant. And you can see very clearly, very simply, how to use the underground. That'll be different from a map produced for building the underground.

[7:12] Because if you needed a map for that, you'd find that the lines aren't straight. They're curved. And that the stations aren't equidistant. Some of them are close. Some of them are far.

[7:23] And that's the sort of map you'd know if you're trying to, you'd need if you're trying to build the underground. And God has not told us the story so that we can make a heaven and an earth.

[7:34] He's told us the story so that we can get to heaven. It's true. This is a true map. It's true. And Genesis includes the history of a real historical Adam and Eve.

[7:52] We know that from the rest of the Bible. But there's lots of it that's not to scale. Lots of it where the emphasis is for the user, for us. Rather than, you know, if you're an astrophysicist, well, God says, I'm not really putting this down there for you.

[8:08] I'm putting this down there for believing people. From the believing Israelites to believing people in the 21st century. And if they follow what the guidance I give them, they will be able to get to their destination.

[8:23] So what we're told is very understandable, is very profound, very insightful. And its use is to get us to our destination, which is heaven.

[8:35] So I just throw that in because I think that's just helpful to know what sort of way we're to read this. Now, carrying on the story, it all went wrong.

[8:47] Now, am I doing... Oh, yes, that's right. It all went wrong. And God asked three questions. To Adam, he asked, where are you? Who told you that you were naked?

[9:00] And to the woman, he said, what is this you have done? So God begins to work through what terrible thing has happened. And today, we'll look at verses 14 and onwards.

[9:15] And it is a sad story. We'll look at God speaking to the serpent, the snake. That's in verses 14 and 15.

[9:26] Then he speaks to the woman. That's in verses 16. And then he speaks to Adam in verse 17. And then God expels them from the garden.

[9:39] And that is in verses 20 to 24. So that's what we're going to do this morning. I gave that introduction as quickly as I could. And we'll look at, just go through it a step at a time, what happens in the rest of the story.

[9:55] That's the expulsion. Okay. Let's read it. So in verse 14. The Lord God said to the serpent, So going through this a bit at a time.

[10:39] Now, God says to the snake, Because you have done this. What did the snake do? The snake was the one who spoke to the woman to deceive her.

[10:55] To make her misunderstand what God had said. To make her misperceive who God was. And in the end, to make her to contradict God and disobey God.

[11:12] Because you have done this, you are cursed above all the livestock and all the wild animals. You're more cursed than any of those.

[11:23] Interesting that we were told he was more shrewd than any of the other animals. And now he's more cursed than any of the other animals. So now into this world which was full of beauty and harmony and delight and potential comes this horrible word, curse.

[11:46] Perhaps worth stopping to weigh or get the weight of that word. It's the opposite of blessing.

[11:57] And previously God has blessed. The blessing says, Good things for you. Multiplication.

[12:18] More of you. Going more places. Doing more things. Enjoying more. Going forward. Blessing. And now he says, Curse.

[12:29] Curse. And just as God was in on the blessing and propelling it forward, So too, this curse is not just a word, it's a power.

[12:44] A powerful force propelled by God. Into this world comes a curse. And I have to say that this curse on the adversary, on Satan, goes on through the Bible, goes on through the Bible, this curse is not softened.

[13:06] This curse is not atoned. This curse is not removed. The only thing you could say about this curse is it's delayed in its full implementation.

[13:22] It's worth noting that. Because I'm going to talk about curses that do get removed. And judgment that does get taken away.

[13:33] And that's a wonderful thing. But worth noticing, God doesn't always do that. God doesn't always take away curses.

[13:44] This curse is there and it stays and remains. And he goes on to say, Upon your belly you will go.

[13:55] Now, our version says crawl. Have you got crawl in verse 14? It's, I think it is, my memory is failing me on this.

[14:06] I think it is the same word. No, it is a very similar word to the word about the voice of the Lord moving in the garden. So it doesn't necessarily mean crawl.

[14:19] It just means move. It could even mean walk. But I think the belly is the thing here. You're going to go on your belly.

[14:30] That's how you're going to walk and move in future. And this is the first statement of a dysfunctional universe.

[14:42] Because in the Bible, the first person's people to read this would say, Oh, moving on your belly, that's always wrong. That's always a bad thing to be doing.

[14:54] The animals that do that are, by definition, unclean. You could look that up later if you like. But to the Israelite, there's a set of ways that things ought to happen.

[15:06] And when you get exceptions to that, it's put into the category of unclean. And so this form of movement is unclean and unholy.

[15:22] So you now enter that realm of things. The snake is unholy and unclean. And you will eat dust.

[15:34] I take this to be a metaphorical statement rather than a statement about the digestive system of snakes. It's saying, oh, I should point out, there's going to be quite a bit about eating.

[15:46] The problem came in with eating. And there's going to be quite a bit about eating. And there's also going to be quite a bit about dust. And here both of these thoughts are combined.

[15:59] You, snake, will eat dust all the days of your life. I take it to be a way of saying, you're going to be low. The expression, the enemies will lick the dust is a way of saying that they are cast down, not allowed to rise to the heights that they wanted to.

[16:23] Put down. You will eat dust. That's what's said to the snake. And it said, verse 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers.

[16:41] So I put a line there for enmity between the snake and the woman. So into a world in which all the divisions previously, God had said it's good.

[16:54] It's good to separate light from darkness rather than have them all jumbled up. It's good to separate the water out from what's above it. It's good to separate the dry land from the seas.

[17:05] It's all these things are good. But here's a division. Here's a between and between, which is not good. This is an enmity. This is a battle. This is a tension and a conflict, which is now announced by God.

[17:20] I will put enmity between you, snake, and woman, between your offspring and hers, between Satan's seed and the woman's seed.

[17:33] That's the word that'd be used in the original. And there's all sorts of things about this I don't understand and all sorts of questions that are raised. When you read that, you think, is this singular or plural?

[17:46] Are we talking about a whole group of Satan's seed and a whole group of the woman's seed? I think that must be correct. But there's also a singular part of it.

[17:57] And is this a division between what in this world now we see as snakes and humans? It certainly is that. When I go to Sri Lanka and walk around, they say, if you're walking at night, you should be very careful of snakes because they're always out to get you and you always need to be out to get them.

[18:14] So there's a sense in which that's a true observation. But I think the Bible is taking us deeper than that. between Satan, the adversary, the devil, and the seed of the woman.

[18:34] Now, does this mean Satan's followers, i.e. Satan and his other supernatural allies? Or could it mean those who are human who follow Satan?

[18:48] Is this a division that actually goes right inside the human race as well? Jesus certainly accused some of his opponents as belonging to Satan.

[18:59] You are of your father, the devil, he said to them. So perhaps there's a number of possible meanings and maybe all of them are right and true.

[19:11] So here is division brought into the human race or brought into this situation. There's a conflict now. an ongoing cosmic spiritual conflict.

[19:29] And if you're not used to thinking about that, that might strike you as a rather bizarre thought. But have a second thought about that.

[19:39] Because we do know that this world contains evil. And we do know that there are evil forces. and it would make a lot of sense to think that this is not just a human psychological thing, but involves persons beyond just the human beings that we can see.

[20:07] An ongoing cosmic spiritual conflict. conflict. That's what's being announced here. And I would like to ask in that conflict, whose side are you on?

[20:27] That's a good question, isn't it? Whose side are you on? And how are you fighting?

[20:42] What weapons are you using? In some cultures, of course, this would be not a problem. There's good and evil. But the weapons that would be used, you'd say, oh, well, I can fight evil by having a little statue on my mantelpiece.

[21:00] Or burning a candle. Or saying a few sort of magic words. Or you think of it, putting a little figurehead outside my door.

[21:15] That will ward off evil. And I want to say that there's all sorts of ways of fighting that are completely misguided. You're not actually fighting at all.

[21:27] You're still on the wrong side using the wrong weapons. And luck, which in some cultures is a very powerful thought, in Christianity luck is just not one of those weapons at all.

[21:43] I'll explain a little bit more about the conflict in a moment. But here we're reading there is enmity. And I'll go on to the next sentence. He, so we now seem to be in a singular seed, will crush your head and you will strike his heel.

[22:03] Now it came as a bit of surprise to me to relearn that the words crush and strike in the original are exactly the same. So in the translation we think, oh there's two different verbs being used, but they're not.

[22:17] It's the same verb, but two different parts of the body get hit. You will crush, sorry, he will crush your head, you will crush, strike, bruise, hurt his heel.

[22:35] A head wound is a fatal wound, a heel wound is not. So the he we think is singular. This is a prophecy of a person.

[22:46] Whoops, excuse me, let's go back. there's the foot of the serpent crusher and there's the impact.

[23:03] When I did it at home it spun and it went like that, but anyway there we are. Didn't quite do the effects, special effects. The crusher gets wounded on his heel, so he doesn't come out of this unscathed.

[23:22] The wound to the head seems to be talking about the final doom, the final end of the snake.

[23:36] And if you go further on in the Bible, Jesus, we would say that Jesus is the one who's been spoken of. In the conflict with Satan, when Jesus died on the cross, he was not unscathed.

[23:53] He was wounded. Those wounds stayed with him. In his resurrection he invited Thomas, wasn't it, to check out the wounds that he still had in his hands and side.

[24:08] He still has scars. And there is a hymn which says, and I could remember it when I wrote this down on here, but whether I can remember it now, somebody help me, we'll gaze upon his scars.

[24:22] With what? Oh dear. Anybody help me with this? Let me think. I think it says in heaven, with what wonder, with what wonder, we shall view the Saviour's scars.

[24:42] was. Probably better than that, but it's not far from that. The fact that Jesus was scarred for us will be for Christian people a never-ending source of praise and wonder.

[25:02] He was scarred for me. He was wounded. wounded. And Jesus, we are told, came to destroy Satan and all his work.

[25:16] And if there is a description of the serpent crusher, Jesus fits that description exactly.

[25:27] And the Bible even goes on to say in places like Romans 16 verse 20 that Christian people themselves being part of that conflict are also part of the victory that Jesus achieved.

[25:44] And it said to Christians, God will crush Satan under your feet soon. It's a wonderful thought, isn't it? That in this conflict we're not bystanders, we're not impotent, with what gladness, that's even better, isn't it?

[26:06] With what gladness we shall view the Saviour's scars. And God brings us into this conflict on the victory side.

[26:20] Amazing thing. Let's go on. To the woman, verse 16, to the woman he says, I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing.

[26:34] With pain you will give birth to children. Now the second word pain there we need to spot because it comes up again. The ideal picture is in Psalm 113 verse 9 of a joyful mother of children.

[26:53] What a wonderful picture that is of fulfilment in this will, being a joyful mother of children. But this announcement here, it's not said to be a curse, it's an announcement, is that this, that ought to be most joyful, and indeed can still be joyful, is marked by dysfunction at this point.

[27:20] What should otherwise have been just wonderful is marked not always, not always so much, but it's painful.

[27:35] So here's another part of dysfunction, at a very fundamental, you know, heart really, level of human existence, human experience.

[27:48] And I just stop to point out, in the New Testament, there's a slight tweak to this, because in the New Testament, singleness is also a blessing that God gives in his kingdom.

[28:03] So it's still a blessing to be a mother, it's still a blessing to have children, but it's also a blessing, God can make it a blessing to be a single person, and a blessing to live a life in which you don't have your own children.

[28:16] So in the New Testament, single people don't miss out on God's blessing. Let's go to verse the next that said to the woman, your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.

[28:35] Your desire will be to your man, he shall rule over you. There's again, one of these things where it's not quite absolutely clear what the way to translate it is, or the way to take it.

[28:46] It could be, you will want him, and in the Song of Songs, which is a love song in the Bible, that word is used for wanting. I want, the woman wants her man, she desires him.

[29:02] Sometimes the translation of this word might be, you want to dominate. So which of those is here? Maybe it's both of them. You will want your husband, or maybe you will want to dominate your husband, but, whatever it is, there's a but, but he will rule over you.

[29:24] And that's a dysfunctional thing. The order that was in creation is of man and woman, equally valuable, different roles, and the role works that the woman is the helper to the man, not his master or mistress, the helper to the man.

[29:51] But this now becomes dysfunctional at this relationship level in marriage and in sex that to love and cherish, which is what it ought to be, becomes to desire and dominate.

[30:10] And you only have to look at the priorities on the Sussex Police Commissioner's website for domestic violence to realise that we still live in a world in which ruling and dominating and wanting has all got out of place, just like it says here.

[30:36] And yet, the woman is still the one who has the privilege in the fullness of time of bearing the Saviour. And although we won't follow that thread this morning, there is a thread which takes us through, in particular, the experience of Mary as the one who has the privilege in motherhood of bringing the Saviour into the world.

[31:00] God sent his son, born of woman, born under the law, it says in Galatians 4.4. So there is what is said to the woman.

[31:12] And now we'll come finally to what is said to Adam. And you'll notice here that eat crops up several times, ground crops up several times, dust crops up several times, and you remember that in creation there were links between ground, adama, and Adam, and dust, and certainly there was a lot about eating, and these come up again as well.

[31:39] So to Adam, because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, you shall not eat. So eating there twice. Because you listened to your wife, now it doesn't mean that it was wrong just to listen to his wife, wife.

[31:58] But it was wrong for him to listen and obey his wife when God had commanded the opposite. That's what's being said. It's not always wrong to listen. In fact, it's a very good idea to listen to one's wife.

[32:10] But when God had said, you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't have listened to your partner and done the opposite of what God said, the plan is that in a marriage, he and she should help each other do what God commands, not pull each other in the opposite direction.

[32:30] Because of this, so here's the second curse, curse is the ground because of you. So you, Adam, came from ground and your disobedience now is reflected onto the ground from which you came.

[32:49] Through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Now that painful toil word is the same word as in verse 16, with pain will you give birth to children.

[33:01] So the pain in the woman's characteristic experience is modeled in the pain of the man's characteristic experience of work. So work now becomes unpleasant.

[33:13] And verse 18, it will produce thorns and thistles for you. You will eat, notice eat again, the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food.

[33:26] So thorns and thistles now come up. So this is saying that whereas before there was certainly work to be done, but it would be enjoyable and fulfilling and positive, that now the created system has got something in it which opposes and fights back and makes, and is hostile and indeed dangerous to the man as he does his work.

[33:53] Thorns and thistles will come up and by the sweat of your face you will eat your food. So work makes you sweat, makes you uncomfortable, it's hard and it's draining.

[34:08] So you see here dysfunction again. Something that was meant to be good and fulfilling and still is good and fulfilling has a twist put on it that it becomes hard, it becomes a matter of conflict and contains unpleasantness.

[34:29] And the third thing that's said to Adam is this, you will return to the ground, verse 19, since from it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will return.

[34:46] So the word to return is an interesting word, it means to reverse, to go back in the opposite direction. Dust you are, to dust you will return.

[34:59] So here's dysfunction in the human life itself. Adam was created.

[35:13] Eve was created. the breath of life was given to Adam, was said that it was very good, but now this all goes into reverse, something bad happens.

[35:27] Life drains out. The man that was alive and productive dies. He was taken out of dust and ground and he returns to dust and ground.

[35:39] And that's a hugely sad thing. It was not meant to be. If you've ever been to a funeral, you will know in your heart, it's not meant to be like that.

[35:53] People are not meant to die. It's a horrible thing for people's lives to come to an end as we see in a funeral. They become unmade, dead, not alive, and lost.

[36:08] lost. And that's why the Bible is so right to talk about death as being an enemy. It comes into human experience, doesn't it?

[36:20] Not as a friend, not as a natural part of existence, but as an enemy, a foreigner, an invader.

[36:32] Jesus wept at the graveside of Lazarus. Jesus, because he himself sensed and knew, this is wrong. And I would guess that if you've ever been to a funeral, you have felt that, and you know that too.

[36:54] And that's why Christianity has such a powerful thing to say, because the central hero of Christianity, Jesus, defeated death.

[37:10] Read about it. It's not a fairy story. It's a historical fact, amazingly, that he was put to death, but death could not hold him, and God raised him from the dead and gave him new life, and he conquered this enemy, the last enemy to be destroyed, his death, where, oh, death, is your sin.

[37:37] God gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. So let's go on now to verse 20, what happens after this.

[37:52] Adam named his wife Eve because she would become mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. So two things going on here.

[38:03] So Adam calls his wife Hava. So we asked our Saudi Arabian student what Adam's wife was called, and he said Hava.

[38:16] And I think, how did the English people manage to mangle it so much that we think she was called Eve? Does anybody come from a country in which that would be pronounced Eva?

[38:31] Aha, right, okay. See, that's where you got it right, we got it wrong. Hava, Eva. That's more understandable. But English people, for some bizarre reason, they're ignorant, basically.

[38:46] They think that she was called Eve. And so Adam names his wife Eva, Hava, because she would become the mother of all the living.

[38:58] The word for mother is M, I think. I think I'm correct. It's interesting, the word for mother in most languages has got a M, isn't it? Ma, a ma.

[39:10] So she's called something like that. And the Lord God made garments of skin, made coats of skin, and clothed them for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

[39:28] So let's just notice those two things. There's the garments. Two actions of hope and mercy. It's a sad story really, but here's one glimmer of hope, that Adam can rightly call his wife Eva.

[39:48] She's a living word, because she's going to be the mother of all the living. that's positive, isn't it? It's looking forward and saying, actually, in this very bleak day, there is a future to look forward to, and there will be life that comes, even from this day that has death hanging over it.

[40:08] That's a wonderful glimmer of hope. And here's this other glimmer of hope, that God doesn't just leave them trying to fend for themselves, rather clumsily making clothes out of fig leaves.

[40:22] Now they realize they're naked and vulnerable, and they try to sort that out themselves. But in this great gesture, the Lord clothes them with proper clothes, so not just fig leaves that are going to fall off, but a proper clothing.

[40:40] The word is just used to imply proper clothing. And although this thread is not pulled, you wonder what was involved in making this clothing, because it's made out of skins.

[40:56] So presumably some animal died. So we now have a world in which sacrifice is made within this world for the benefit of, here for the benefit of Adam and Eve.

[41:16] And it wouldn't be such a long shot to link that with what happened to the Israelites when they would say sacrifices, we know about that. Because every day animals are sacrificed for us to cover our sin.

[41:30] And one day the prophet Isaiah will say a person will come and be sacrificed and the punishment that belongs to us will be upon him and he will be sacrificed and he will cover us.

[41:46] He will cover our sin perfectly. Well, that's taking a thread on quite a long way. And now God says in verse 22, the man has now become like one of us knowing good and evil.

[41:59] That's what the snake said would happen. He must not be allowed to stretch out his hand or send out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat.

[42:11] Notice eating again and live forever. So the Lord sent him from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. So we're reminded of what should have been.

[42:23] And they no longer have access to the tree of life. You could take the tree of life two ways. You could say either they never got as far as eating from it in the first place or you could say that they did eat from it but what you need to do is keep eating from it and they're not allowed to keep eating from it because that will keep them living forever.

[42:46] I tend to the latter view. They're not allowed to retain access to the tree of life sending out their hand to eat that tree so God sends them from the garden and it says he drives them out verse 24.

[43:00] He drives them from the garden the place where he could be found the place where there was beauty and order and promise and potential all of that they're now banished from that.

[43:16] They're banished from God's holy presence and God installs verse 24 these two temple guardians the Israelites would have known about this because cherubim a number of the ancient cultures had creatures like this they attend God they're like his security officers they guard the way from coming to him you can actually see some Assyrian cherubim I think in the British Museum so I think it's a drawing taken from one of those photos so there's cherubim let's assume that they look something like that they're not rosy cheek little chappies they're fearsome creatures that's what cherubim are and this mysterious flaming sword which flashes back and forth so I've no idea how to draw a flaming sword that flashes back and forth the flaming could be lightning because in the Old

[44:18] Testament lightning is flames of fire so maybe I'm now thinking Star Trek and force fields and things like that you see anyway some really powerful way of preventing us ever getting back into the garden through that route and that is where we get to and I'll just conclude with a few thoughts how cunning the deceiver was because all that he said was actually half true he said you won't surely die if you eat it you won't and actually they didn't drop dead that moment did they not in the physical sense he says you will become like God's knowing good and evil well God says they have become like us knowing good and evil so he was sort of true in that but he made out that this step would be for their salvation and exaltation and actually this step was for their destruction

[45:24] Satan's really malicious and deceptive and we need all our spiritual wisdom to resist him and the power of Jesus Christ how true the judge he says on the day you eat it dying you will die and the sentence is passed without delay there's no messing about he brings them up speaks to them and gives his sentence but how merciful the judge is now I should go back and say that they did enter death that moment they entered the realm that we live in of death and sin and condemnation but how merciful the judge is because he didn't say okay on that day you will surely die full stop so the bible actually contains three chapters that's all end of story he doesn't do that he says actually it will take a long long time to rewind this and to redeem this but I'm prepared to do that and so we have all the rest of the bible all the centuries down which god follows through his plan to bring the seed of the woman to crush the serpent's head how merciful the judge is he clothes them in their new found vulnerability and spares them and gives them a future and promises a long expected redeemer what shame now attaches to humanity outside the garden in a hostile world of dysfunction at some very profound levels as we've seen a world of sin and death and condemnation that's the world we live in isn't it the bible is true the bible speaks truly this is our experience we live in a world where there is where the ecosystem itself is hostile where our experience of sex family work life is all marred and mangled in exactly the way the bible says and we know that's wrong we know it's not where we ought to be and what a hope what it's only a glimmer in this chapter but there is a glimmer of hope a way back well not that way but if only we could get to the garden some way and in the original there the source of life was a tree a vegetable if you like and

[48:22] Jesus comes along and says I can restore what Adam lost and the secret is not a vegetable but a person eating is the key again and Jesus says I am the living bread in other words if you eat me you live forever if you keep eating me you keep living forever if you eat me you will not die Jesus says I am that to eat him is to come to him in faith to have him in your life as if you're eating bread or something like that goes in and becomes part of you that's what it is to believe in Jesus to eat me says Jesus I am the bread of life and Jesus is the serpent crusher the seed of the woman when he died on the cross he says now is the judgment now is the prince of this world cast out

[49:25] Satan dealt with the battle's been accomplished it just remains for the final implementation and in that space of time that's left Jesus calls out and says would you like to be on board with this I've won the victory do you want to be on the victory side I've defeated Satan would you like to have that victory in your life so that you are no longer under Satan's thumb come come and join me put your faith in me be on my side I've sorted it out you still have time to do that you have trusted himยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยยย