[0:00] It is now turn to Genesis chapter 3 where we have read together. Genesis chapter 3, we may again read at verse 9, verses 9 and 13.
[0:25] But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And verse 13, then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done?
[0:50] Genesis certainly is the book of beginnings. It is the beginning of all that we know by way of creation, the beginning of family, the beginning of sin.
[1:09] And we see in this particular chapter the place where sin actually showed its true colors in the world.
[1:25] And the place where sin infiltrated the experience of the human family. It is a crime scene that we have before us.
[1:40] And because of this initial crime scene, there continues to be a crime scene throughout the world, in every nation, in every heart, ever since then.
[2:00] There is a program running on one of the TV channels entitled CSI, Crime Scene Investigation.
[2:13] And without being flippant, I think we have before us here a crime scene described, an investigation, illustrated, and at the end of the world, in every nation, in every nation, in every nation, in every nation.
[2:31] And at the end of it all, hope given to mankind who have sinned against God. Because it comes to verse 15 in this marvelous chapter.
[2:48] Although it has so many shadows caused by sin, it nevertheless has the bright ray of hope concerning the coming Messiah.
[3:00] God, who was going to destroy the works of the devil, and conquer the devil, in his work as mediator on the cross.
[3:15] So I'd like to consider, first of all, this crime scene before us. And it's one of the most surprising parts of this whole chapter, that such a blessed place could have become such a horrendous place.
[3:37] I mean, the Garden of Eden was a blessed place indeed. And the Lord had placed in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, and they were created in a holy and a happy state.
[3:55] And the Lord gave them liberty, and the Lord gave them fellowship with himself. And everything that they stood in need of, by way of fellowship with one another, because the Lord saw that it was not good for the man to be alone.
[4:16] So he made a help meet for him, a helper suitable for him to meet not only his physical requirements, but also his psychological requirements, his spiritual requirements.
[4:31] And in Eve he had a help meet, and they were perfectly happy in a holy environment. But we see at the beginning of this chapter that the serpent appeared in such a holy environment.
[4:52] And this is something that, in our own fallen world, we always have to be aware of. However happy our condition, however blessed our circumstances, however wholesome our family circle might be, remember that the serpent is intent upon breaking into all of these blessed situations in this world.
[5:24] He broke into this situation in the Garden of Eden. And of course, the hearts of Adam and Eve were holy and hallowed also.
[5:36] No sin had entered prior to this particular situation. They were totally consecrated to God in heart, in mind, in affection, in will.
[5:52] Everything they did, everything they said was focused upon glorifying God. How could such a blessed situation be turned upside down?
[6:07] How was it possible? Well, the devil had sinned against God already. I won't go into that. And here he presents himself in the form of a serpent.
[6:24] And he engages Eve in conversation. And this is so often the way the devil works. He engages us in a dialogue.
[6:37] And once the devil gets you into the arms of his dialogue, it is so, so difficult to extricate yourself from that situation.
[6:49] He is cleverer than you. He outsmarts you at every turn. And except for the grace of God, he would drag us into the darkness of hell with him forever.
[7:02] This evening I want to highlight, first of all, that our hearts, our lives, are a continuing crime scene situation.
[7:19] Because we haven't got a clean slate, as Adam and Eve had at the beginning of their experience.
[7:29] We have fallen in Adam, and we come into this world with the baggage of original sin. And not only so, but we have sins of thought and word and action every day of our lives.
[7:48] In fact, our whole heart and our lives by nature are a walking crime scene because we sin daily in thought, word, and in deed.
[8:01] Let's examine the kind of crime that occurred in the Garden of Eden. See, first of all, at the beginning of this chapter, we find that the serpent said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
[8:28] God had said things. And we find these things that the Lord had said in chapter 2. The Lord had put exclusivity around this particular tree in the center of the garden.
[8:47] It was exclusive to God himself, but everything else in the garden by way of trees that bore fruit and so on, they were made available by God to Adam and Eve.
[9:00] But God had said, if you eat of this tree that is in the midst of the garden, the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. The Lord laid down rules.
[9:13] The Lord made prohibitions. The Lord said things. And they ought to have taken note of them. And we see here that the beginning of the crime can be found in not believing and disobeying what the Lord God had said.
[9:38] The sin of unbelief. The devil made the suggestion, did God actually say? And then the devil goes on to say, no, you shall not surely die.
[9:51] The devil places this before the mind of Eve. What God said is not true. And what did Eve do?
[10:02] But she embraced what the devil said and she turned away from what God had said. And we find in that action of Eve a template for what happens in the lives of men and women down through the centuries right to our day even in our own situation.
[10:29] What does the catechism say that sin is? Any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. And you see that happening here.
[10:41] Adam and Eve did not conform to what the Lord had said. They disbelieved it by their very actions. And they turned away in disobedience and rebellion against what the Lord had said.
[11:00] So refusal to believe and obey God's word. That's the first thing. And then we see also that this crime scene was marked not only by that rebellious spirit against the word of God and against God's law but the crime scene is also marked by a breaking and entering by a transgression.
[11:32] Transgression actually means going over boundaries that have been set. You transgress. And transgression in a spiritual sense means going across the boundaries that God has laid down.
[11:52] In other words jumping over God's law. If the Lord has erected walls shall we say that the word of God in its ten commandments are like walls and people who break the commandments it's as if they leap over these walls.
[12:14] They break and enter and we see that's exactly what we had here. The devil pointed to this tree and Eve said well it is a beautiful tree to look on aesthetically very very attractive and also the fruit of it looks so good and she stretched forth her hand and took of the fruit of it and she ate it and gave to Adam and he also ate.
[12:47] It's as if they were breaking through what God had said this is sacrosanct this must not be done and when they broke through they broke through in a rebellious and an unholy act stretching forth their hand to any of the other trees in the garden would not have been an unholy act but doing that on this particular tree in the center of the garden was unholy it was a rebellious act it was in contravention of what the Lord had laid down and having broken and entered they continued their crime and they committed a robbery what was the robbery oh they certainly took the forbidden fruit but the robbery was greater than that the robbery actually it was against
[14:01] God himself God's person against God's truthfulness against the veracity of the word of God and when they stretched forth their hand to receive the fruit and eat the fruit they were actually saying God is not telling the truth he had said the day that you eat it you will not die you will die the devil had said you won't die they sided with the devil and his interpretation of things actually going along with the devil's reasoning they were actually saying God you are not true and we are stealing from you the great name that you have as the living and true God the God whose word is as his person is without change have you ever thought that that is what your sin does also you break and enter into an area that doesn't belong to you and in doing so you commit a robbery you take away an aspect of God's revealed glory oh you cannot touch
[15:29] God's essential glory the Bible says my glory I shall give to none other nor my praise to graven images but God's declared glory what we see of him and what is written of him the people can stamp under their feet people can turn away from and disbelieve people constantly do as it were spit in the eye of God and treat him like dirt rather than lauding him as the God he is and as the psalmist in psalm 95 commended to us all come and let us worship him let us bow down with all and on our knees before the Lord our maker let us fall the exact opposite to that happened here they didn't fall before the Lord no they went in as it were and ransacked his throne room and tried to unseat him from his very throne and that's exactly what they tried to do they tried to make themselves gods they sought to become center stage themselves rather than being the creatures created by the great
[16:56] God who ought to have lived in love and obedience and humility and service to the God who made them they sought to have his place and his position what a robbery that is and it's one thing talking about Adam and Eve having committed that robbery but actually the seed of that very sin is in the heart of each one of ourselves that is why the scripture speaks of self-righteousness establishing our own righteousness bringing ourselves into the center of things so that things revolve around us that's a great sin we ought to focus upon our God worship and adore and serve him because he is worthy of all our worship all our praise and you see the picture we have in revelation of the church gathered in heaven and they are gathered around the throne and they sing a song unitedly in praise of him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood in other words the focus is upon
[18:19] God particularly there in that verse upon Christ the mediator he is focused on and he is praised the way he ought to be but here the thing was different it was a gross robbery of the worst kind and we see also before I go on in committing this robbery and this breaking and entering they committed murder Adam and Eve committed murder the Lord had said in chapter 2 verse 17 in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die thou shalt surely die and they actually committed spiritual murder of their own souls and at the same time they introduced into their very beings the seed of temporal death by their sin against
[19:27] God you know this spiritual murder it was the separation of their soul from God God one can just imagine the cold draft that would have enveloped their heart and their soul as they were separated from God in their souls who can understand what difference sin brought into their experience must have been but you see this is the way we also are and you say well they were mad to have listened to what the devil said especially since the Lord had said in the day you eat of it you will surely die how come they didn't remember how were they so foolish why were they not happy with what the Lord had given to them the garden was full of good things and they themselves were blessed by God and how was it that they veered off the straight and narrow and into this quagmire of sin bringing sin upon themselves and all their posterity you ask yourself the same question why do you sin when temptation comes your way the voice of the temptation becomes stronger and stronger the voice of conscience is suppressed the stronger the voice of sin becomes the voice of conscience is weakened and before you know it every room in your mind and in your heart resounds to the voice and the demands of sin and your carnal nature seeking to have gratification in one particular direction that is sinful now what happens you and
[21:39] I yield to that sin the voice of sin drowns out the voice of conscience the voice of sin is powerful and because we are sinful by nature there is a receptor within us that opens its arms to the voice of the temptation and we fall in the temptation time and time again thirdly we come to the actual interrogation of what had happened in verse gate we read that the Lord walked in the garden in the cool of the day sin had come in but now the Lord walks in the garden the word cool of the day there could also be translated the spirit of the day the same word as is used for spirit in some other parts of the scripture and some commentators suggest that this may mean that when
[23:00] God came into the garden in the spirit of the day that it meant that he came in as it were as the judge whose eye looks minutely upon every aspect of the crime that has been committed and is about to pass judgment on what has happened that may be what it means but he certainly came into the garden in the cool of the day and the word that he speaks to the man Adam where are you where are you Adam had discovered his own nakedness and he had tried to hide his nakedness by sewing fig leaves together and making himself an apron and also Eve did the same and when they heard the voice of the
[24:03] Lord God in the garden in the cool of the day they tried to hide themselves among the trees of the garden from the all-seeing eye of God sin makes us foolish as it made this man Adam foolish he ought to have known that he couldn't hide himself from the all-seeing eye of God nevertheless sin wants to hide itself and this is what Adam did he ran and tried to hide himself where are you I heard your voice in the garden and I hid myself because I was naked who told you you were naked the voice of conscience that had been drowned earlier in your experience before you actually sinned the voice of conscience that you had suppressed in favour of committing the sin now the voice of conscience is heard again and conscience says you shouldn't have done it conscience says you're guilty before God and only in the presence of the
[25:29] Lord who convicts us of our sin only in the presence of the Lord do we realise what sin really is and the psalmist says in Psalm 51 against thee thee only have I sinned in thy sight I have done this ill who told you you were naked have you eaten of the tree that I told you not to eat of and then Adam responds he deflects the question and he says the woman whom thou hast given to be with me she gave me the fruit and I did eat and you find that that is so often the case when you interrogate a sin even within yourself or maybe with someone else that they just don't come clean they try and shift the blame onto someone else and what's interesting here is that Adam tries to shift the blame not just onto Eve but what he says is the woman that you have given to me she gave me in other words
[26:57] Adam is blaming God for the sin that he himself has fallen into someone has written this in connection with this point since Adam could not be like God in divinity which he aimed at he now desires to make God like himself in iniquity he who sinned against God in trying to become like God he now tries to drag God down and blame him for all that's happened well my friend we cannot blame God for our sin every one of us must stand before the judgment seat of Christ and receive according to what we have done in the body whether it be good or bad it is not
[28:00] God who is to be judged at the judgment day it is us it is my sin and your sin and Adam here tried to draw God down as it were and make him guilty like himself oh how awful a thing sin is when it is in the ascendancy and when it is dominant and when it is a tyrant in your life how greatly we all stand in need of the power of sin to be broken in our hearts and in our lives and then the Lord asks Eve what is this that you have done what have you done and then she says the same kind of thing the serpent beguiled me and I did eat another case albeit a little bit differently of shifting the blade shifting the blade well my friend we all have to come to this point that we realise that sin is where I am there's an I at the centre of the word sin sin sin and sin is where you are and sin is where I am and the sooner we realise that the better for us but the Lord didn't leave the crime scene dark as it was without a glimmer of hope without a ray of sunshine and that brings us to the last point there is hope in the face of sin when the Lord
[29:49] God speaks to the serpent he speaks to the serpent as one who is cursed but in his words to the serpent he speaks a word of great hope for mankind in verse 15 the Lord God speaks to the serpent I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring he that is the offspring of the woman shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel in the words of condemnation spoken to the serpent to the devil the Lord actually brings words of hope to mankind to have fallen in Adam and the words are so marvelous it talks about the seed of the woman and when the apostle
[30:55] Paul speaks of this in Galatians he speaks again in the singular he is talking about one the seed the seed that is Christ Christ Christ is the one who is going to bruise the head of the serpent and herein lies the hope of mankind who have sinned against God in a crucified saviour I'm going to highlight two or three verses the blood of Jesus Christ God's son cleanseth us from all sin so says the apostle John when he commends to the church in his day to walk in the light as he is in the light then shall we have fellowship one with the other and the blood of Jesus Christ God's son cleanseth us from all sin and actually the verse 15 here speaks very pointedly of blood he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel when Christ
[32:15] Jesus went to the cross we all know that his blood was shed and who was motivating those who crucified him you say the Jews yes at one level but the devil was behind it at another level and the devil sought to do his worst upon Christ even on the cross before that also down through his life but on the cross also and this in effect was Satan bruising the heel of Christ his humanity being the heel of his person and the devil did his utmost to bruise his heel but at the same time Christ was bruising the head of the serpent they say that a serpent can survive if you can if you cut even parts of its body off that it can heal itself as long as you leave its head intact it's got a good chance of surviving but once you crush its head that's the end of it and this is what the Lord
[33:34] God is saying to the serpent here to the devil the time is coming when one greater than you is going to crush your head and bring your whole kingdom of darkness down upon your head crashing so that there shall be only one kingdom the kingdom of Christ the God man mediator in Revelation chapter 7 we see the question asked about those who are surrounding the throne in heaven who are they clothed in white robes and where have they come from and the answer comes these are they who have come through the great tribulation and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb their robes of character have been made white through application to Christ's blood or simplifying it more if I can those who have been made impure and besmirched with sin and by sin they have believed in
[34:56] Jesus and the blood of Jesus Christ in whom they believed savingly has washed their sins away there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty states today is a day of confession of our sins a day of fasting traditionally in the order of services for communion if we confess our sins not just today but every day the Bible says he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness oh but you say my sins are so hard to forgive they are so deeply ingrained listen to what the Lord says again though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow though your sins be like crimson they shall be as wool and the
[36:17] Lord himself is able to do it and he undertakes to do it for his people listen to the words of Isaiah finally the Lord says I I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and I will not remember your sins oh how great thou art that he is able to remove from us all our transgressions that he is able to correct us in our heart in our conscience in our affections in our whole being so that at last he will present his people faultless before his throne with exceeding joy there is joy for the believer although this was a very dark chapter in the experience of mankind this crime scene was a horrendous one the pretend
[37:20] TV detectives would be soon out of their depth in this particular situation but the Lord is not out of his depth and he has made provision for the sins of his elect people and this evening may each one of us know the way to his throne the blood is on the way that leads to his throne and may we apply to him for forgiveness on the basis of the blood shed on Calvary may each of us thank him this evening in our hearts for giving us a hope against the darkness and hopelessness that sin brought into the experience of mankind let us pray help us
[38:21] Lord to be thankful for thine own word to be thankful for what thou has provided for us by way of escape from the consequences of our sins we pray for thy blessing to be upon this congregation and upon each individual gathered here this night as we leave this place we pray that our minds would remain focused on the things of God to our edification and our growth in grace forgive our many sins we pray for Jesus sake Amen