You Were Born Into A World That’s East of Eden (Covenant of Works part 2)

[0:00] So, you can please turn in your Bible to Genesis chapter 3. All the way back at the beginning, Genesis chapter 3.

[0:15] We're beginning this semester a series on covenant theology. So, it's an approach to understanding and interpreting the Bible that focuses on how God has made a relationship or a covenant with people.

[0:30] The divine covenants throughout the scriptures. The first covenant that we're looking at, it's how we received it in God's word. It's how the story is told in Genesis 1, 2, and 3.

[0:41] And over time, the church has come to call it the covenant of works with our first king, Adam. So, last week was part one on the covenant of works. This week is part two.

[0:52] Our sermon text today begins with Genesis chapter 3, verse 6. I'll try to call out where we're reading next, and we'll catch the key verses through these chapters.

[1:05] As I read this, remember that this is God's inspired, inerrant, infallible, clear, and sufficient word. It's God's very own word for you and me, His people. So, after we've heard God's word, let's respond with the word of the Lord.

[1:19] Thanks be to God. All right, Genesis chapter 3, verse 6. Verse 7.

[1:45] Now look at verse 17.

[2:29] To Adam, God said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it.

[2:40] Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you, and you shall eat the plants of the field.

[2:52] By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Look at verse 23 next.

[3:07] Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that returned, I'm sorry, a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

[3:30] Genesis chapter 4 verse 1. Now Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.

[3:44] And again she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.

[4:03] And the Lord had regard for Abel in his offering, but for Cain in his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.

[4:14] The Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? Why is your face fallen? If you do well, will not you be accepted? If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.

[4:27] Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. Cain spoke to Abel his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

[4:42] Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is your brother? He said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? And the Lord said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground, and you are now cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

[5:05] When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

[5:17] Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.

[5:29] Then the Lord said to him, Not so. If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him.

[5:42] Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

[5:54] You may be seated. The Bible says that the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Let's pray.

[6:06] O Lord, your word is effectual. When your word goes forth, what you declare happens.

[6:20] You spoke this world into existence, and your word goes forth and it regenerates. It does not return to you void, but it does prosper in your purpose.

[6:31] May your word go forth today, Lord, for your glory. May all who have an ear to hear from their creator hear your word clearly. Please guard my lips, and may your Holy Spirit press into the souls of each one today your truth.

[6:46] We ask this in Jesus' name and for your glory alone. Amen. Amen. Well, some call winter restlessness cabin fever, but it doesn't get better.

[6:59] We get to the spring and then we complain about spring fever. Mark Twain pointed something out about the human soul that's insightful. He says, when you've got it, you want, oh, you don't know quite what you want.

[7:13] You do know you want something, and it just fairly makes your heart ache that you want it so badly. That's what it is. It's a restless heart. We saw last time how the Lord God created this world.

[7:29] He said it was very good, and then the Lord rested. So the Lord rests. He sits enthroned over his creation, but yet we, his creatures, even though we were made good, we are so restless.

[7:44] Why is that? I feel like today the purpose is really to answer that question. We are in a broken curse. You know, the covenant with Adam was a tripwire, and all of the effects are still at play on those born into this fallen, broken world.

[8:05] We were created to share in God's rest, but we know that we don't have that fully yet, and we desire that, don't we? Some days we desire that more than anything else.

[8:17] So one way to describe this restless state that all the world is in is that we are east of Eden. We saw last week how the garden was the temple, presence of the Lord.

[8:30] Did you pick up on that phrase that was repeated twice in our sermon text today? Look at chapter 3, verse 24. Therefore, God drove out the man east of the garden of Eden.

[8:47] And then look again at the very end of our sermon text, chapter 4, verse 16. The next generation, Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and he settled in the land.

[8:59] What direction? East of Eden. So in Hebrew narrative, when we get a phrase like that repeated, it bookends a passage. That's why our sermon text is a bit longer, because it all goes together.

[9:11] We're supposed to pick up on that clue. That means something. And as God's word unfolds, we know that the temple was to face a certain direction, the same direction as the tabernacle.

[9:22] What direction does the door of the temple face? It faced east. So to the extent that the garden of Eden was a prototypical dwelling presence of God, it's facing east, and man is being driven out of that holy presence of God.

[9:44] So as we walk through that, I want to try to answer for you Covenant of Works Part 2, what are we born into? You were born into a world that's east of Eden, and it affects everything.

[9:59] Number one, God's holy presence filled Eden, leaving no room for sin. God's holy presence filled Eden, leaving no room for sin.

[10:16] Eden was a garden temple, but when Adam and Eve sinned, it changed their relationship and their standing and even their inner being.

[10:27] So first, sin makes you feel exposed before the holy God. Take a look again at chapter 3, verse 6. They ate. Verse 7 then says, their eyes were opened.

[10:39] They knew that they were naked. That's because sin makes you feel exposed before the all-knowing, omniscient God. And then what comes next?

[10:49] Well, feeling exposed, man works to cover himself up. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

[11:01] They get to work. We got to make this right. Sinful man tries to then hide himself from God, but notice where they're trying to hide. They're trying to hide within God's own temple.

[11:14] It's in Eden. Look at verse 8. They heard the sound of the Lord God, and where was the Lord God walking, so to speak? He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

[11:29] The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God, and where did they try to hide? Among the trees of the garden. They're still inside Eden.

[11:41] Now that word, the cool of the day, the word is ruach, and that means wind, spirit, or breath. Literally, verse 8 is translated this way, Yahweh Elohim walking in the wind, the spirit of the day.

[12:05] So here's the temple presence of God in the garden of Eden, and here comes the great wind that they hear. It's rustling the leaves and the grass.

[12:17] And this represents the presence of God filling up his temple, leaving no room for their sin. That same word is used associated with new creation.

[12:30] Remember at the very beginning, the spirit of God hovered. There's the picture like a great eagle hovering its wings, the flapping in the wind, hovering over the waters of the deep. And then we're told later in Genesis chapter 8, after the world had been destroyed, a ruach, a wind, spirit, breath, blows away the waters of the flood.

[12:53] And this allows them the dove of peace to settle and bring back life to show there's going to be a new beginning for mankind. We can go all the way to the new covenant.

[13:04] Remember in Acts 2, there's a wind, a ruach, that fills up the early church. And the spirit of God says, these people are my temple.

[13:16] I dwell with them. And Adam gives a priest's report of what he experienced in verse 10. Look at that. He said, I heard the sound of you, God, in the garden.

[13:31] And what effect did it have on Adam? I was afraid. Why? Because I was naked. What did you do? I hid myself anywhere I could, even within the temple, garden of Eden.

[13:47] Do you see the curses of this broken covenant of works changing these humans, these image bearers? man is afraid. Man feels naked.

[13:58] He's working himself to cover up his own shame. And he feels like he's got to get out of here and hide somehow, somewhere, from this glory presence of God.

[14:12] Well, east of Eden, God still makes the weight of his glory known. Without God, we know we are lost.

[14:23] we know we need to hide when we encounter him, the sacred creator, without a mediator to stand between us. We can look at our own lives, our own past, and many buildings that call themselves churches of all different, you know, sects that are working to make things right for themselves with God.

[14:45] It's a religion based on man's work, man trying to cover up the shame of sin. 2 Corinthians 4.17 says that this light, momentary affliction that Christians in this world east of Eden experienced, it prepares us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

[15:08] sin. This first point is that God's holy presence filled Eden, leaving no room for sin. The best illustration I've ever heard is from Newton's first law of motion.

[15:25] To paraphrase it, it says that a greater external force will move in to set lesser things in motion. So let's try to visualize this.

[15:36] If we had a big cylinder right here full of water, let's put something of lesser weight in there. Let's put petals, flower petals in there. And then we took something a little bit heavier like raisins.

[15:47] We dropped raisins in. As that raisin goes down, you'd be able to see those petals being put in motion because the raisin is a little bit more weighty and it sets those lesser things in motion.

[15:58] Now picture a great boulder, rock of ages, cleft for me dropped in here. That rock, the weight of God's glory, as it pushes down, it sets everything into upheaval and into motion.

[16:12] And then when it's settling, it's the weightiest thing upon which everything else will find its rest. So here's the temple, Garden of Eden.

[16:24] And as the glory presence of God moves in, Adam and Eve are like those petals and those raisins set in motion trying to cover themselves and hide wherever they can, the weight of God's glory so fills His dwelling place that there's no room for sin.

[16:39] It's going to be drawn up and stirred and pushed out. So when you and I as saved sinners, if you're a believer, when we encounter the Holy God, it's that same weight of God's glory filling His temple, leaving no room for sin in us His people.

[17:02] Praise God, right? It's slow and gradual, but we want the weight of God's glory to push everything else into its proper place. Number two, in Eden, Adam broke God's moral law that was written on his heart.

[17:21] We're trying to understand what it is to be east of Eden, in this world, east of Eden, but we got to start back in Eden. And what was it that was in the conscience and the heart that so stirred up Adam?

[17:33] Well, let's shed some light on this shadowy part of the Bible from Romans chapter 2, verses 14 and 15, which say, lawless pagans, so those east of Eden that know nothing about God, they do by nature what the law requires.

[17:51] You got to stop right there and ask yourself, what law is this? What law is it that pagans do by nature? It's not the ceremonial law of killing a lamb on a Passover or something like that.

[18:03] And it's not necessarily the civil law. It's referring to what the church has called over time the moral law. It's the law that is attached to the character and the attributes of God himself.

[18:14] It's what has always pleased God and always will please him. It's the moral law of God. And this shows, says Romans chapter 2, that the work of the law is written on their hearts.

[18:27] while their conscience also bears witness. So in the inner man, the heart and the conscience, God has written his moral law. Well, we can take that truth and we can try to make more sense now of what was it on Adam's heart that was written.

[18:46] The church has wrestled with it. I think there was a really helpful clarity in the 1800s in Scotland. It was called the Marrow Controversy. And in this little book on law and gospel, one author, showed how this could be true.

[18:59] And Romans chapter 2 could be true of Adam. How was it that Adam broke the moral law as they were expressed and codified in the Ten Commandments given later in redemptive history?

[19:11] And here's what the Marrow of Modern Divinity, that little book from the 1800s in Scotland, said. Let's walk through the Ten Commandments with Adam in mind. Number one is to have no other gods.

[19:24] Well, Adam obeyed the servant's word instead of the Lord's word. And instead of his creator, he chose Satan as his God. Number two is have no idols before God.

[19:38] Philippians 3.19 says that man has made his belly his God. So Adam's lust to eat the forbidden fruit was an idol. It was idolatry. Number three is the name of the Lord.

[19:52] By taking Satan's bait, which was did God really say, Adam took the name of the Lord in vain, undermining God's goodness attached to his name.

[20:04] That's who God is. Number four is to keep the Sabbath day as a day of rest made for man to worship the Lord. And Adam did not keep the rest in which God had set him.

[20:18] Number five is to honor your father. Adam dishonored his heavenly father and therefore his days were not prolonged in that land, Eden, that the Lord had given him.

[20:30] Number six is don't kill. But Adam murdered himself and all his posterity. Number seven is don't commit adultery. And both in his eyes and his mind, Adam committed spiritual adultery against his Lord with whom he was in the covenant of works.

[20:50] Number eight is don't steal. Well, Adam trespassed the boundary God gave him and he unlawfully stole that one thing that God said was not his to take.

[21:03] Number nine is false witness. In obeying Satan, Adam bore witness against God. And number ten, don't covet. Adam coveted that one thing God said he may not have.

[21:20] So in the words of Romans chapter three verse 19, we know that what the law says it saith to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.

[21:37] So we ask the question, how is it that the whole world could become guilty before God? How is it that the world deserves the wrath of God? It's because in Adam's fall sinned we all.

[21:52] We are born under the curses of the broken covenant of works. But that moral law, those ten commandments, God has still put in the heart and the conscience of all mankind east of Eden.

[22:05] So in Eden, Adam broke God's moral law that was written on his heart. Number three, the weight of God's glory in Eden, it exposed the sins of both the body and the soul.

[22:24] My point here is that this is so pervasive. It affects every aspect of a human being, this fallen sinful nature. Well, we know that Adam and Eve, they sinned with their bodies.

[22:37] They saw the fruit with their eyes. They saw that it was pleasing to the eye. They ate the fruit with their teeth, their mouth. And then they saw that they were naked.

[22:48] So their bodies are exposed as being sinful. But notice where God's three questions to Adam go. God uses his three questions to deal not with the outer man.

[23:01] God gets always. He's getting at the heart. God goes after the inner man. Look at verse nine. Here's the first question. The Lord God called to the man and said to him.

[23:14] Notice who the Lord is addressing here. He's going to the federal head. He's going to Adam, who represents that type of a federal head who, you know, his works, obedience or disobedience, will affect all of his posterity.

[23:30] And the first question is, where are you? Where are you? The second question is in verse 11. God said, who told you that you were naked?

[23:43] And the third question, have you eaten of the tree in which I commanded you to eat? We saw in Sunday school, referring back to last week as well, there are three offices in the Old Testament that are anointed.

[23:59] You know what they are. prophet, priest, and king. I think there's a connection between those three offices and these questions that the Lord is asking. See, Adam was the viceroy.

[24:12] He was the first king of mankind. And the Lord asks him, where are you? In other words, Adam, you forgot. You were in God's kingdom. I made you the first king of mankind, but you're a vassal servant.

[24:26] God himself is your covenant lord. Where are you, Adam? You're trying to hide in the temple behind the trees inside of Eden? This is my garden, says the glory of God.

[24:39] And the presence filling up the whole temple. Where are you? You're in my temple. You're in my kingdom. Adam had received the word of God directly from God.

[24:53] Adam did not Eve. So Adam was a prophet to Eve and his family and his posterity. He was the one to declare the truth of God. God asked him, Adam, who told you otherwise?

[25:07] You failed as a prophet. Who told you? You know what I told you, Adam. So you failed as a king, Adam. You failed as a prophet.

[25:21] In Luke chapter 3, verse 38, we're given the reverse genealogy that goes all the way back to Adam. And then Adam is described as the son of God. And Adam, as God's son, did not love God with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength.

[25:37] Nor did he love his neighbor, which is his wife, and all mankind as himself. So Adam broke God's positive law. He failed to represent well his posterity.

[25:54] And the Lord asks him, who told you you were naked? So he's exposed now. He's laid bare before God. I don't want to force this too much, but it made me wonder, like, the role of a priest, you know, of all those anointed offices, that was the only one that was clothed in special garments.

[26:15] And we know that in the New Testament, we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ. And Christ is depicted in Revelation as being that great high priest whose, you know, whose robes shine like precious jewels adorning him.

[26:28] And that's the picture we're given in the Old Covenant with the ceremonial law, the high priest, those from the line of Aaron, they had to wear these jewels representing all the tribes. But Adam is not clothed like a glorious high priest.

[26:43] There's no glory bouncing off and radiating the beauty of God to the people. Instead, he's naked. He's failed as a priest. He's exposed. And God's justice requires that the first federal head and all those under him received the curses of breaking this covenant of works.

[27:06] Adam had been put in the Garden of Eden as a probationary period of testing. And instead, he failed in his appointed office, prophet, priest, and king, transgressing the whole moral law that God had put in his heart.

[27:21] So the consequence we read in verses 23 and 24. Therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove the man out at the east of the Garden of Eden and placed the cherubim with a flaming sword that turned in every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

[27:43] And that's the world we are born into, the world east of Eden. You picture a glass of water that has just one drop of something else.

[27:57] And that something else is poison. The whole cup is poisoned. So all of us born east of Eden are under these effects of sin. We're not as wicked as we could be because God is showing preserving mercies.

[28:11] But every aspect of us has the taint or the poison of the original sin. So number three, the weight of God's glory in Eden, it exposed sin, both in the body and in the soul of man and mankind.

[28:31] Number four, east of Eden is a world under this curse of sin, but it's also under the providence of a merciful covenant Lord.

[28:42] And if you pay attention to the language that comes next, you get on almost every verse you get both. You get, here's the effects of the curse and here's some preserving mercy. You get that all the way through. Let me give you some examples.

[28:54] Look at Genesis chapter 3 verse 17. God says, cursed is the ground because of you. In pain, there's the curses part, but now look at the preserving mercy.

[29:06] You shall eat of it all the days of your life. Now the curse of covenant breaking is death, but God's still giving them some days of life and he's still giving them food to eat to preserve them longer.

[29:18] You see both there? Curses of the sin, but also preserving mercy. They shall eat, but it shall be in pain. Now look at verse 18. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you.

[29:32] In other words, your work will bring forth bread. You'll be able to survive, but only with thorns and thistles. You shall eat of the plants of the field, but only, verse 19, by the sweat of your face shall you eat bread.

[29:46] So you will live on for some days in life, but only until you return to the ground. You are dust and to dust you shall return. What does this mean for all of us now?

[29:59] East of Eden, under the curses of the covenant of works. Because of Adam's breach of the covenant of works, all people are doomed to perish in the state of sin and misery into which Adam fell.

[30:14] We are born spiritually dead, spiritually detached from God. Adam fell out of communion with God into a depraved, defaced, and enslaved nature.

[30:28] And that's what we're born into. We're not as corrupt as we possibly could be. The imago Dei, the image of God is still on all people, but it's defaced, it's scratched.

[30:39] Picture taking a penny, you can see Abraham Lincoln's silhouette, and then you scratch it with rocks. That's what we are, born under the curses of sin. There's no part of us in the state that we're born into that is untainted.

[30:57] He says that you will die and you will return to dust, but I will mercifully allow you to work and to eat and so live on. So that's the providence of God over all of mankind.

[31:10] The days of man are numbered. Every single soul, the Lord knows how many more days he will give them. Then we read in Genesis chapter 4 verse 1 that Adam knew his wife and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.

[31:27] There's God's preserving mercy. We deserve death. We deserve for our line to be cut off. But the Lord, with his help, has given us children. This fulfills and shows us what Romans chapter 2 verse 4 describes as the riches of God's kindness, forbearance, and patience.

[31:49] His kindness, the kindness of God in dealing with them in the curse this way, Romans chapter 2 says, is meant to lead you to repentance.

[32:01] All of the curses are in effect, but God is patient and kind. Why? So that man will repent and see God's goodness.

[32:13] Turn to Genesis chapter 5. I want you to see something really cool with the genealogy. Genesis chapter 5.

[32:24] We're given the line of Adam's descendants all the way to Noah, which is important for a few reasons, but what I want to point out to you is this pattern and the way that it's recorded. Look at verse 5.

[32:37] Genesis 5 verse 5 says, So in all the days that Adam lived, there's God's preserving mercy, giving him many days. They were 930 years. God is patient for man to repent.

[32:50] But then what does it say next? And he died. So the curses are still in effect. Now look at verse 8. So all the days of Seth were 912 years.

[33:01] God is patient for man to repent. And he died. The curses are in effect. Verse 11. So all the days of Enosh were 905 years.

[33:12] Because God is patient for man to repent. But he died. Because the curses are still in effect. Last one, verse 14. So all the days of Kenan were 910.

[33:23] Because God is patient for man to repent. And he died. Because the curses are still in effect. So dear friends. In our 18 months or so as a church plant here.

[33:37] We haven't had to do a single funeral. But the day is coming. And it will be heartbreaking. Let's think about that.

[33:49] Each one of us. We don't know our days. You will live blank more days. On earth. Every day is a gift from the Lord. Because God is patient.

[34:01] For you and me to repent. To behold his kindness. Then you and I one day will die. Because the curses are in effect. Don't be found on that day.

[34:16] Under the curses of the covenant of works. There's more good news coming. Let's look at number five. So to recap. Number four is that east of Eden is a world.

[34:27] Under the curse of sin. But also under the providence. Of a merciful covenant Lord. Number five. East of Eden man must work hard to survive.

[34:39] But no amount of work will earn your return to the tree of life. East of Eden man must work hard to survive. But no amount of work will earn your right to the tree of life.

[34:54] We see in verse 23. Chapter 3. Therefore the Lord God sent them out from the garden of Eden.

[35:04] To work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man. And at the east of the garden of Eden. He placed the cherubim. With the flaming sword. Lord. We cannot earn God's favor.

[35:21] We cannot earn eternal life. By keeping the moral law. Even though it's written on our heart. New Testament makes this very clear. No man is saved by his own works. That none should boast.

[35:33] We are saved by grace alone. For the glory of God. Then we have to ask the question. If the moral law of God is written on all of man's heart. Even after we've been banished from God's presence.

[35:44] We're living east of Eden. What purpose does it serve to have the moral law? The ten commandments known in our conscience and our heart. The Westminster Larger Catechism answers it this way.

[35:55] What use of it is? The moral law is of use to all men to inform you. Of the holy nature and will of God. And of your duty to walk accordingly. To convince you of your inability to keep God's law.

[36:08] It exposes the sinful pollution of your nature as Adam's heir. And God's law humbles you. To sense how real your sin and misery is.

[36:21] The law of God is put on our hearts. Even before we're saved. To drive us to the cross. To show us that we cannot merit life for ourselves.

[36:32] And this is good because it helps us to get a sight of our need for God to condescend. To come to us in mercy and in saving grace.

[36:43] We need the perfect obedience of Christ in our place. So East David and man must work to survive.

[36:53] But it's never going to be saving work. Isaiah 24 5 says the earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof. Because they have transgressed the laws.

[37:06] They have changed the ordinance. Broken the everlasting covenant. Romans 2 2 says the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. For God shows no partiality.

[37:19] And Romans 2 6 says God will render to each one according to his works. So the covenant of works was between God and Adam as the first federal head.

[37:31] But the effects of the covenant of works are for all of us. And God will render now to us our works. However much good you do. Is that going to be enough to save you?

[37:43] And under the curse of Adam there is no access to the tree of life. Our works cannot save us. We have fallen. We have been too far broken. We are hopeless unless God himself will save us.

[37:59] Number six. East of Eden all God's image bearers still owe their creator right worship. Our bookends where it's described as being east of Eden.

[38:09] It starts with Adam but it doesn't stop there. It includes that next generation. That has to be for a reason. What are we supposed to learn from this contrast between Cain and Abel? Well there's a lot to learn from Abel but that's not our focus on the covenant of works.

[38:21] Let's stick with Cain for today. Cain knew God exists as the ruler over all creation. And how would Cain and Abel both have learned to bring offerings and give a sacrifice to God?

[38:35] How would they have learned that? It would have been from their parents. So Adam and Eve knew what pleases the Lord and they taught their children that. But each child has to respond for themselves.

[38:49] So Cain knew that he owed worship to God because his parents had trained him. We can infer this. And also because Romans 1 chapter 20 says, For God's invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world.

[39:08] In the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Cain had no excuse. You and I have no excuse. God has made himself known since the creation.

[39:20] So we read in chapter 4 verse 2 that Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain a worker of the ground. Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground.

[39:33] In verse 4, Abel brought a blood sacrifice. A lamb, the firstborn of the flock. As their parents had taught them that God requires.

[39:44] And the Lord had regard for Abel in his offering. But Cain in his offering God had no regard. I have questions about this. I'm sure you probably do too.

[39:56] John Milton in a classic book. He was also a Puritan. It's called Paradise Lost. He wrote, Neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible except to God alone.

[40:12] And when the Lord did not accept Cain's offering, Cain was very angry and his face fell. Galatians 3.10 says that all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.

[40:25] For it is written, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law. And do them. Your own works, the work of your hands, cannot please God.

[40:40] You must obey everything, the entire moral law, in order to merit any favor for yourself. And the Lord was merciful. He said to Cain, look in verse 7, Cain, if you do well, will you not be accepted?

[40:54] Cain knew what was pleasing to God. He knew what it was to do well. As Aldous Huxley mocked, he said, You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.

[41:09] And so Cain gets mad. He knows the truth. Do well, and God will be pleased. Romans 1.28 says, Since we did not see fit to acknowledge God, and this is Cain's sin, God gave us up to a debased mind to disobey the law of God.

[41:28] And that's exactly how it pans out. Cain kills Abel. East of Eden, sin inside man is deadly.

[41:41] The world is dark and dangerous. The world east of Eden is a scary place. Amen? And that's the world we are born into.

[41:53] East of Eden, though, all of God's image bearers still owe the Lord God, their creator, right worship. We owe that to him. Let me see if I can pull this together.

[42:09] Covenant of works for today. Our only hope of life rests in a new federal head who can fulfill the covenant of works now, east of Eden, on our behalf.

[42:24] We need a federal head to come into this fallen, dark, scary world, east of Eden. And we need him to fulfill this covenant of works that the righteous and just God requires.

[42:39] Not because he lacks anything, because we need that to be done for us on our behalf. The Son of God himself must enter this cursed world east of Eden.

[42:51] His whole life, he would delight in good, and he would never know evil. As prophet, the Son of God would preach God's word truthfully.

[43:05] As priest, he would be clothed in true righteousness. And as king, he will rule with true peace within his kingdom on this broken world.

[43:16] God the Son, the Creator, would submit himself to the corrupt judgment and unjust condemnation of man in the manly temple.

[43:28] And he would be driven out east of the temple. He would be sent out away from this earthly temple. He would have to exit those courts.

[43:40] And he would have to go stand in the cursed land, the hill of the skull. He would be surrounded by bones and flames.

[43:53] Golgotha, with the valley behind, east of the temple in Jerusalem, a picture of death, corruption, and curse.

[44:07] It's the polar opposite of the Garden of Eden, the temple garden. John Milton again wrote, long is the way and hard that out of hell leads up to light.

[44:22] And so the Son of God would bear the curse of covenant breakers, the full wrath of the Holy God on the tree of death. death. And so God himself would fulfill the demands of his own justice to inaugurate his new creation, he himself becoming the tree of life.

[44:51] Brothers and sisters, we were born east of Eden in a restless world. Augustine of Hippo, he had chased pleasure in his life, he had chased money, and he had chased fame.

[45:08] But as an old man writing to the church, he confessed, Lord, you created me for yourself, and my heart was restless until it found its rest in you.

[45:21] So the good news for us is that Jesus Christ fulfilled that covenant of works east of Eden on our behalf. And he says, come unto me all you who are tired and heavy laden.

[45:38] And I was born east of Eden for this purpose, to give you rest in God. Let's pray. From Romans 6, 12.

[45:57] Lord, we find our rest in you. We are no longer in this perishing world as slaves.

[46:09] We are now here as adopted children. We belong to the kingdom of heaven. And we ask, Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit, therefore, for sin to not reign in our mortal body so that we obey its lusts and to not go on presenting the parts of our body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness.

[46:30] But help us, Father, to present ourselves to you, God, as those who are alive from the dead and your body parts as instruments of righteousness for God.

[46:43] We thank you that sin shall no longer be master over those who you purchased and adopted. We are no longer under the covenant and the curses of law-breaking, but now in Christ, by faith alone, through grace, we are under the covenant of redemption.

[47:04] We belong to you because you loved us before the foundation of the world in Jesus Christ, our Savior. To him be all glory and honor, now and forevermore. Amen.

[47:15] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.