WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.720 Now, if you have Bibles beside you, please turn back to Genesis chapter 3. As we continue 00:00:09.679 --> 00:00:16.240 in its early stages, look at the story of the Old Testament because that story involves us, 00:00:16.960 --> 00:00:22.640 and it helps us to understand not only about Jesus Christ and the gospel, but about who we are, 00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:31.760 and about the world around us. Surprising though, that may seem in the 21st century, 00:00:32.719 --> 00:00:40.079 is hugely relevant and hugely significant, none more so than this chapter 3 of Genesis, 00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:45.679 which we're only going to look at the beginning of because there is so much in it. 00:00:45.679 --> 00:00:52.880 Now, I wonder if you've ever thought of the relationship between being in control 00:00:54.000 --> 00:01:01.200 and also trusting, because there is a very close, there's an interesting interface between the two. 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:10.960 Now, being in control and the pursuit of knowledge are also linked, and pursuing knowledge, 00:01:10.959 --> 00:01:18.159 pursuing information is absolutely natural, and it's good. But it can, in our lives and in our 00:01:18.159 --> 00:01:28.319 world, as we know, become about obsessive control, that we need to know because we need to be in 00:01:28.319 --> 00:01:34.799 charge of our lives. We don't like variables that are outside of our control. We like to be 00:01:34.799 --> 00:01:45.439 able to control who we are and what we do and where we go and how we live. And when we're not in 00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:55.359 control, it can lead to, in our lives, it can lead to frustration or anxiety or fear. And I think 00:01:55.359 --> 00:02:00.640 the pandemic that we are going through has exacerbated, it's highlighted that for many people 00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:08.719 in their lives, all that they thought they had, at least some control over, has gone. And decisions 00:02:08.719 --> 00:02:17.120 and choices and careers and life and relationships are no longer areas of their lives that they can 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:28.319 control. But interestingly, control also always at one level battles with trust when we think about it. 00:02:28.319 --> 00:02:40.639 And spiritually, it can be, there can be a relation between our desire for control and our ability to 00:02:40.639 --> 00:02:51.359 trust in God, because the two are sometimes mutually exclusive. The root of our challenge, 00:02:51.360 --> 00:03:04.720 sometimes in life, is our desire to be sinfully sovereign over our lives, to be in charge of our 00:03:04.720 --> 00:03:15.680 life. That what I say matters more than what God says. And what I want to do is more important 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:24.560 than what He wants me to do. Excuse me. And we know that in that area of our lives, 00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:33.760 as well as in other areas of life, control is challenged by relationship. Relationship 00:03:34.800 --> 00:03:41.120 challenges control, and particularly loving relationship challenges control. Because the 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:50.560 moment we enter into loving relationships, they're messy. And they challenge our ability 00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:56.240 to be in control of everything, because we recognize and we see that there needs to be 00:03:56.240 --> 00:04:03.040 compromise in relationships and there needs to be trust. And sometimes that means we relinquish control. 00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:13.919 And so in our lives spiritually and just generally, it's tremendously important to recognize that 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:26.639 trust involves a different attitude towards control. And as Christians, that's one of our 00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:35.839 big challenges, isn't it? It's to enable or be enabled to trust God to do the right thing and to 00:04:35.839 --> 00:04:44.079 be in control, maybe especially at a time like this. And we're reminded of verse in Deuteronomy 29 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:54.000 and verse 29, where God sets out that there are things that are secret to us, that we can't control, 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:58.800 that we don't know, that we will never find out, but that we are to trust Him in this. The secret 00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:03.360 things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children 00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:08.399 forever, that we may do the works of the law. So there are things that we can know, there are 00:05:08.399 --> 00:05:15.279 things we can't control, and life is about entrusting ourselves as believers to the living God. 00:05:16.639 --> 00:05:22.480 Now, this passage goes right back to the very beginning of that issue in many ways. And I've 00:05:22.480 --> 00:05:30.560 entitled this sermon, Breaking Bad, and I'll explain why in a moment, because it's the account 00:05:30.560 --> 00:05:39.920 after God's good creation of where it all went wrong. Now, very often and historically and 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:47.360 theologically, this chapter is referred to as the fall, and it's entitled that in our ESV. 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:58.800 Now, that title is not a biblical title. There is illusion to falling off at various points 00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:04.480 in the Bible, but it's not necessarily the most accurate description of what happened here. 00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:12.400 It's more than just a stumble or a fall. It is much more about the breaking of a relationship, 00:06:12.399 --> 00:06:18.959 the breaking of a covenant with God, breaking of trust. That's ultimately what it is, 00:06:19.759 --> 00:06:29.759 and it is a bad breaking of trust, as we shall go on to see. And it's a difficult passage, 00:06:29.759 --> 00:06:36.479 and it's a difficult area in many ways to understand, because what we have here are some 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:44.960 really significant answers to humanity and to our spiritual condition and to our need, 00:06:44.960 --> 00:06:52.000 but we don't have all the answers, and we're left with many questions, even when we know 00:06:52.720 --> 00:07:01.360 this passage tremendously well. And part of the reason for that is because sin itself 00:07:01.360 --> 00:07:11.520 doesn't make sense. If you look at 1 John chapter 3 and verse 4, we're told there that everyone who 00:07:11.520 --> 00:07:19.920 makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness, because sin is lawlessness. And that word 00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:28.960 there for sin as lawlessness is the word that we get anomalous from. It's an anomaly. You know, 00:07:28.959 --> 00:07:36.319 it's acting against or without any real sense, or it's a distortion of love, 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:51.120 and a distortion of reason, and it's a removal of relationship from its author. Sin is senseless. 00:07:52.799 --> 00:07:58.799 It doesn't really have a reason behind it. And you think of today of violence and of greed and of 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:08.160 pride and of selfishness and of hatred, it's senseless. It's senseless not to love. It's senseless 00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:16.319 to distort and to twist love and to wrench it from its author God. And there's no reason. 00:08:17.519 --> 00:08:25.199 There's no reason here why Adam sinned. None. He was perfect. There was no defect. There was no 00:08:25.199 --> 00:08:31.759 trigger within him. There was no pressure. There was no threat. He was innocent. We're not given a 00:08:31.759 --> 00:08:41.039 reason. We're given this situation and what happened, but there's no reason behind what he 00:08:41.039 --> 00:08:50.399 chose to do. He chose, and he could have chosen, to trust God, to trust God to be in control, 00:08:50.399 --> 00:08:57.759 not to overstep the secure and perfect boundaries of their humanity. But he chose not to, and there's 00:08:57.759 --> 00:09:06.159 no reason that we know of, ultimately. And of course, the origin of evil itself within this context. 00:09:07.120 --> 00:09:14.960 We have no answer to that. We know that it is there, and we know that Satan fell from heaven, 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:21.920 but we don't know how a perfect angelic being could have done that. So there's things that we 00:09:21.920 --> 00:09:28.160 don't know, things that we can't control and understand and have perfect knowledge of, but we 00:09:28.879 --> 00:09:41.920 recognize that sin itself is without reason and doesn't make sense. So in Genesis, we are reminded 00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:48.319 and particularly from what Thomas said last week, that humanity was created really good, perfect. 00:09:50.719 --> 00:09:59.039 The entrance of sin and selfishness and evil is post-creation, and that's good, and that's important 00:09:59.039 --> 00:10:06.159 because we were not created evil. We were not created as sinners. Therefore, there's hope for 00:10:06.159 --> 00:10:12.559 change, and there's a recognition that this world in which we live is not how it was originally 00:10:13.919 --> 00:10:22.959 created to be in the presence of God. But we also know that we are helpless. We're helpless to 00:10:22.959 --> 00:10:30.639 change our hearts. We can't put it right. We can't be in control. We can't make things better, 00:10:30.639 --> 00:10:38.879 and we need to listen to God and entrust ourselves to His care. So what we have here is the 00:10:39.919 --> 00:10:45.360 chapter that speaks about the character of sin, and I hope that although it may seem very far 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:52.000 away from our experience, the characteristics of sin are very evident still and very significant. 00:10:52.639 --> 00:10:58.799 Now, sin itself, the word is, again, it's not mentioned in this passage, but undoubtedly its 00:10:58.799 --> 00:11:10.559 characteristics are revealed. And we do find here that sin is exposed to the degree that it 00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:18.079 reflects the damage between our relationship with God, our relationship between God and humanity. 00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:27.920 So we come to this story, and we recognize and we know that evil is already present in the world. 00:11:29.920 --> 00:11:36.400 As a concept, it was at least known and understood, or maybe not understood, but known to Adam and 00:11:36.400 --> 00:11:43.040 Eve. They knew of the prohibition that God gave them, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of 00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:48.799 good and evil, so they knew that good and evil existed. And they also knew about death because 00:11:49.599 --> 00:11:58.399 that would be the reality if they did break God's command that they would die. So they knew about 00:11:58.399 --> 00:12:05.120 death and they knew about evil. And they were aware, presumably, that God was protecting them from that. 00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:17.200 There was stuff that he didn't want them to know about evil and about death, and maybe even about 00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:24.720 Satan. We're not told whether they had a pre-existing knowledge of Satan, but they may well have had 00:12:25.440 --> 00:12:34.320 that there was angelic forces against God even at this point. But Satan certainly did exist by 00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:43.360 this point. And Revelation 20 and verse 2 speaks about this dragon, the ancient serpent who is the 00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:48.160 devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. So there's always been this knowledge 00:12:48.960 --> 00:13:02.320 in biblical teaching of the serpent being Satan and being this angelic force and person 00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:13.920 who resisted the living God. And it's the story of his introduction of sin into the experience 00:13:13.920 --> 00:13:18.640 of humanity. And there's so much we could say about this, but we're just going to focus on 00:13:19.520 --> 00:13:26.560 one or two things in terms of the character of sin. The first is that he introduces deception 00:13:26.559 --> 00:13:33.359 into the world. Eve herself recognizes that and says in verse 13, then the Lord said to the woman, 00:13:33.359 --> 00:13:39.199 what is this you've done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. So deception was 00:13:39.199 --> 00:13:47.119 at the very core of sin and at the very core of the temptation that was meted out to Adam and Eve. 00:13:47.119 --> 00:13:50.959 And what did that look like? Well, I said there's three things that that deception looked like. 00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:58.879 In the first place, it introduced disorder into God's creation. Now, the serpent, verse 1, was 00:13:58.879 --> 00:14:03.759 more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord had made. And he said to the woman, 00:14:03.759 --> 00:14:08.960 now, there's disorder there. There's something weird happening. 00:14:08.960 --> 00:14:21.600 Eve was aware of the reality of evil and of darkness and of something forbidden. 00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:28.800 And she was aware of the punishment of death. And whatever is going on here, it seems to be 00:14:29.759 --> 00:14:36.240 very unnatural. There's a disorder happening here. There's something potentially dangerous 00:14:36.240 --> 00:14:43.680 happening here that maybe Eve shouldn't be inquisitive about or encourage or seek to control 00:14:43.680 --> 00:14:51.519 and have authority over because God made animals of a different order from humanity. 00:14:51.519 --> 00:14:58.240 And they weren't, as we saw in chapter 1, they weren't suitable companions or chapter 2 for Adam. 00:14:59.200 --> 00:15:05.919 They weren't of the same, they weren't made in God's image. And they were simply 00:15:05.919 --> 00:15:18.559 a different reality from Adam and from Eve. And maybe potentially here was Eve dealing with 00:15:22.079 --> 00:15:31.519 a serpent, an animal, but who was conversing with her. And it was disordered, an animal with 00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:37.279 guile, with authority who knows about God. There's something wrong here. There's something against 00:15:37.279 --> 00:15:46.559 God's natural order. Should have, should have sounded alarm bells for her. So there's disorder. 00:15:46.559 --> 00:15:56.559 But then the second thing about the deception is the original fake news that we find in verses 1-3 00:15:56.559 --> 00:16:04.159 that as Satan speaks to Eve, he is immediately questioning truth and he's introducing 00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:10.879 what is the very first fake news into the universe. He's portraying a different 00:16:10.879 --> 00:16:17.599 truth and inverted commas about God. And what we recognize is it's an absolute character assassination 00:16:17.599 --> 00:16:25.039 of God. That Satan's great enemy is God here. And he wants to give the impression by asking questions, 00:16:25.039 --> 00:16:33.919 by insinuating certain things that God is harsh, he's defensive, he's oppressive, he's controlling, 00:16:33.919 --> 00:16:41.919 he's not letting Adam and Eve share in the universe fully as he should. He's introducing 00:16:41.919 --> 00:16:49.120 doubt into God's word, God's love, God's justice. He's appealing through that to her ambition. 00:16:49.120 --> 00:16:54.799 You know, Eve, why don't you decide what's good? Why can't you and Adam decide what's desirable? 00:16:54.799 --> 00:17:00.159 And what will make you wise? Why should God do that? You can do these things. Come on, sin. 00:17:00.719 --> 00:17:05.039 It can't be that serious. And it's only another tree. Look at all the trees here. What makes 00:17:05.039 --> 00:17:10.159 this one so different? It's only a piece of fruit and it's for your freedom and for your wisdom. 00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:18.559 And what he's doing all the time is introducing fake news and challenging God's truth and God's 00:17:18.559 --> 00:17:27.039 reality to destroy God in her eyes and also to destroy the relationship between them and God. 00:17:28.159 --> 00:17:31.519 For Satan, humanity has always been just collateral damage, 00:17:32.399 --> 00:17:38.639 because they're image-bearers of God. His real enemy is God. And it's God he wants to destroy. 00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:50.480 And he's trying to get them to grab and control and be in charge of what or want things that 00:17:50.480 --> 00:17:57.520 God has already always promised them, fake news. And also, he does so with subtlety. 00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:05.200 The deception is subtle, isn't it? He simply plants seeds of doubt. He asks questions. He deflects 00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:10.799 attention. He uses inquisitiveness. He makes sure God isn't walking with them in the garden at the 00:18:10.799 --> 00:18:18.559 time. He never reveals himself to Adam at all. He's just behind the scenes, so that he uses Eve 00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:31.200 to speak to Adam. Eve, Adam's beloved lover. And the guard would have been down with Adam 00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:36.480 when he was speaking to Eve. He wouldn't have sensed any alarm bells as she spoke with him. 00:18:37.360 --> 00:18:47.120 It was mediated temptation through someone who Adam loved that he brought this desperate temptation. 00:18:47.120 --> 00:18:54.480 So he introduces deception, disorder, fake news, and subtlety. And that reminds us of the world in 00:18:54.480 --> 00:19:01.839 which we live today. Not many things have changed. There is chaos and disorder as soon as entered 00:19:01.839 --> 00:19:11.839 into the universe in which we live. And we're always trying to control a world that is disordered and 00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:19.759 that should really sound alarm bells in our hearts and lives that something is desperately wrong. 00:19:19.759 --> 00:19:26.720 We try to be in control, but it's like grasping the wind. And ultimately death is the great... 00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:34.079 It makes everything seem so senseless in our desire for control because it's the one thing 00:19:34.079 --> 00:19:42.079 that ultimately we have no control over. The world that we live in and our humanity, it seems like 00:19:42.079 --> 00:19:49.519 we're sweeping, sweeping leaves in a hurricane trying to control the chaos. It's not how it should be. 00:19:50.159 --> 00:19:56.879 It should make us think. And we are deceived by our ability to be in charge and to be in control 00:19:56.879 --> 00:20:03.039 of the chaos. And it is also, is it not a world that is absolutely full of fake news, 00:20:03.599 --> 00:20:10.639 that is denying God's truth and has believed the lie about God, making up our own truth, 00:20:10.640 --> 00:20:18.720 making up our own ideas. I've used this illustration before to paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, 00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:25.920 when people stop believing in God, it's not that they believe in nothing, it's that they believe 00:20:25.920 --> 00:20:31.520 in anything. And so today people and the world in which we live in this city increasingly is 00:20:31.520 --> 00:20:40.080 believing in anything. There is no such thing as truth. And nothing is sacred at that level in 00:20:40.079 --> 00:20:47.839 terms of truth other than what we decide truth to be. What is real today? What's fake? It's harder 00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:52.639 and harder to tell the difference. Who are we as human beings? What is our gender? What is life? 00:20:52.639 --> 00:21:00.960 What is love? You know, sin isn't so bad, and we're all ultimately good, and death is natural, 00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:07.359 and we can fix it. We're a universe of Bob the Builder's, we can all fix it. And yet 00:21:07.359 --> 00:21:16.959 God is denied in the reality of God, and His truth is often particularly the focus of 00:21:18.399 --> 00:21:23.679 venom in the world in which we live. But at the same time, it's subtle, isn't it? 00:21:24.879 --> 00:21:30.879 Satan appears as an angel of light. He knows Scripture. He's super intelligent. He prefers 00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:39.360 the shadows. He's happy for us to mock His own existence, but He is an implacable hatred toward 00:21:39.360 --> 00:21:51.280 God. And anything, He will do anything and has done everything to stop us loving God, believing 00:21:51.279 --> 00:22:02.639 the truth, bowing to His God's sovereignty, and He will twist that every which way He can. 00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:10.160 Or He enables us to forget that God generously is willing to give us 00:22:11.119 --> 00:22:16.720 everything that sin wants to grasp and misses anyway. 00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:27.600 So we see the character of sin here. I think we also see here the consequence of sin. Now, 00:22:27.600 --> 00:22:33.279 I'm not going to apply this to today's life. You can do that yourselves as you listen, 00:22:33.279 --> 00:22:40.640 because it's very simple. The applications remain the same. The consequence of sin is so destructive. 00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:53.040 In verse 10, after they have eaten of this fruit, and God comes and calls to them and says, 00:22:53.040 --> 00:22:58.480 where are you? Adam says, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was 00:22:58.480 --> 00:23:05.600 naked and I hid myself. And then maybe if you go back to chapter 2, in verse 25, you have these words 00:23:05.599 --> 00:23:11.839 which are pertinent here, and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. There was no 00:23:11.839 --> 00:23:19.119 shame. And that is replaced immediately as the relationship of trust is broken with God 00:23:20.159 --> 00:23:25.359 by them giving into the temptation. It's immediately replaced with fear and shame. 00:23:26.639 --> 00:23:29.839 They weren't afraid of God before, but now there's fear and shame. You see, 00:23:29.839 --> 00:23:36.639 it's framed relationally, isn't it? And very powerfully relationally, 00:23:38.639 --> 00:23:45.759 with the focus being on their nakedness. And I think that's both symbolic and real. 00:23:46.559 --> 00:23:51.839 In other words, sin has affected them physically, in their physicality, sexually, 00:23:51.839 --> 00:24:01.599 and also at a deeper relational level. There's hiding from their nakedness so that the perfect trust 00:24:02.639 --> 00:24:07.839 and the perfect honesty is gone. There's vulnerability, there's exposure, there's 00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:12.959 immediately some kind of self-centeredness that affects the way they look at each other. 00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:21.680 There's a need to hide at one level from each other and certainly hide from God and run from 00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:31.840 Him. So there's a deeper guilt, an instinctive guilt, and there was a fee and being afraid of 00:24:31.840 --> 00:24:38.160 God, which certainly wasn't there before, because they were now relating to Him differently as a 00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:44.640 judge, not as one who loved them and protected them and cared for them, but one who would expose 00:24:45.600 --> 00:24:52.640 their guilt. And there's a birth here. There's a brokenness and a death, but there's a birth of 00:24:52.640 --> 00:25:01.440 selfishness in all its consequences. And there's the very pathetic cover-up of fig leaves, both, 00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:08.400 I think, literally and metaphorically, a poor attempt to cover up for something much, much deeper 00:25:08.400 --> 00:25:16.880 and some much greater breaking of trust. So there's fear and shame, which we know about, 00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:23.039 and there's also blame, isn't there, in verses 12 and 13 that's fascinating. The man said, 00:25:23.039 --> 00:25:27.759 you know, the woman that you gave me to be with me, she gave me the fruit and I ate, 00:25:27.759 --> 00:25:34.960 and then the Lord said to the woman, what is this you have done? The most tragic question 00:25:35.519 --> 00:25:42.240 that was ever asked, what is this you've done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate, 00:25:42.240 --> 00:25:47.519 at least she recognizes that she was deceived. But there's blame, isn't there? There's blame. 00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:54.480 They're blaming one another, they're blaming the serpent, and Adam blames God. You gave me this 00:25:54.480 --> 00:25:59.839 woman, it's your fault. There's immediate defensiveness. There's that immediate sense in 00:25:59.839 --> 00:26:10.160 which humanity says, I'm right, you're wrong, and it is always looking at others so that the basis 00:26:10.160 --> 00:26:16.880 of justice has moved from God to themselves, self-justification. And it doesn't matter who gets 00:26:16.880 --> 00:26:26.080 hurt in the blame, it can be each other, it can be the devil, or it can be God, anyone but me. 00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:32.560 And you know, these characteristics, we still see, don't we, so strongly, fear and shame, 00:26:33.360 --> 00:26:40.960 blame, and the third thing is brokenness, is brokenness, isn't it? So that's, I'm saying, 00:26:40.960 --> 00:26:53.360 it's more than just a fall. It's the deep breaking of the covenant of trust between God and humanity. 00:26:53.360 --> 00:27:03.279 The perfection of that is lost. This insatiable desire to be God's, to be in control, is embedded 00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:12.000 deep in the heart of sinful humanity, or of humanity that makes them become sinful humanity. 00:27:14.399 --> 00:27:21.119 And it's not just the one relationship between Adam and God that is affected, but as a representative, 00:27:21.119 --> 00:27:36.079 the whole of humanity becomes part of this brokenness, the covenant breaking. In Romans 5, 00:27:36.079 --> 00:27:43.519 12 to 14, it explains that representativeness of Adam. Therefore, just as sin came into the world 00:27:43.519 --> 00:27:49.199 through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sin, for sin 00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:53.440 indeed, was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there's no law. 00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:59.279 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the 00:27:59.279 --> 00:28:05.920 transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. And so we find the type between 00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:14.559 Adam and between Christ, which is another 10 and 20 and 100 sermons. But it's the death of life, 00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:25.279 isn't it? Now, Adam we know wasn't like us. On our behalf, he could have chosen not to sin. 00:28:25.279 --> 00:28:29.279 Now, we can't do that. We have sinful natures from the beginning. 00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:38.720 And if he had chosen not to sin, whatever that would have meant for humanity, we don't know. 00:28:38.720 --> 00:28:50.240 But we are like him in that even had we been there in his place at the beginning as a 00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:57.600 representative of humanity, we would have made the same choice to rebel. The brokenness would 00:28:57.600 --> 00:29:04.480 have happened. So very briefly and in conclusion, where do we go from here? Well, the rest of the 00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:11.920 Old Testament that we'll dip into as we move towards Christ, it helps us to see the outworking of 00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:17.839 sin and brokenness in the world. And it's something, as I've said, we see all around us, that fear, 00:29:17.839 --> 00:29:26.160 that shame, that guilt, that blame, and that brokenness, and that rebellion. And more than just 00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:33.360 the results of sin, naturally as it were, of the broken covenant, it's also the judgment of God 00:29:33.359 --> 00:29:39.759 as part of that, which we really haven't looked at at all in the second half of chapter 3. 00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:51.679 The reality that God brings the results of a broken relationship into the world in which 00:29:51.679 --> 00:29:58.240 you live, into the universe, and into the relationships between man and woman and humanity, 00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:06.240 and between ourselves and God. We can never say sin is just not so bad. 00:30:08.400 --> 00:30:14.079 So where do we go from here? What do we do with this reality when we think of our hearts and fear 00:30:14.079 --> 00:30:20.880 and shame and frustration and lack of control and our attitude to God and our thinking of truth? 00:30:20.880 --> 00:30:27.520 There's only one place that we can go, or there's only one word that I want to leave with you, 00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:35.360 and it's the word mercy. It's a great word in the Old Testament, loving kindness, 00:30:37.600 --> 00:30:44.720 mercy, loving kindness, love. It's described variously. It's God's willingness to 00:30:44.720 --> 00:30:55.519 break into our fallenness and our brokenness and our sin to provide the answer which we 00:30:55.519 --> 00:31:02.640 cannot provide ourselves. And we see it here, although we didn't read it towards the end of 00:31:02.640 --> 00:31:08.160 the verse, they'd used fig leaves to cover their nakedness, and in verse 21 we have 00:31:08.160 --> 00:31:15.200 this great verse, and the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them 00:31:16.480 --> 00:31:23.600 coverings. So the Lord reaches into their lives and He says, in many ways He says, 00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:29.840 own your own guilt. Yes, you're guilty. Yes, you need to be covered. I know that, 00:31:30.400 --> 00:31:36.880 and I'll cover. I'll provide the coverings. Don't hide the fact that you're guilty, and don't just 00:31:36.880 --> 00:31:43.600 try and cover it with your own fig leaves. I'll provide covering for you. I'll provide 00:31:44.400 --> 00:31:51.200 protection for you. And of course it points forward in different ways. It may be that this was, 00:31:51.840 --> 00:31:56.960 because it was an animal garment of skins, it may be reflective of the fact that God sacrificed 00:31:56.960 --> 00:32:03.200 animals on behalf pointing forward. But it also just points forward to another part of the Old 00:32:03.200 --> 00:32:10.480 Testament, and sorry, that's me having to finish my sermon. In Exodus chapter 28 and verse 12, 00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:16.400 which speaks about the priests and the covering that the priests... It's the same word, the linen 00:32:16.400 --> 00:32:22.400 undergarments is the same words as the tunics is used here, and they were to wear that to cover 00:32:22.400 --> 00:32:33.120 their naked flesh. And then at the end of that verse it says that lest they bear guilt and die. 00:32:33.120 --> 00:32:38.960 So there was a sense that the priesthood that God was ordaining in the Old Testament was to have this 00:32:38.960 --> 00:32:43.840 symbolic covering as well, to cover their nakedness and their sin and their guilt, 00:32:44.480 --> 00:32:50.960 lest they die. And of course it was pointing forward to something much better, pointing forward 00:32:50.960 --> 00:32:57.279 to the promise or the promise that's spoken of here, which we also didn't read, 00:32:58.079 --> 00:33:03.600 is pointing forward to something better. And verse 15, in the judgment on Satan, 00:33:03.600 --> 00:33:07.519 I will put, eminently between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring, 00:33:07.519 --> 00:33:14.880 he shall bruise your head, you shall... and you shall bruise his heel. And that points forward to the 00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:22.720 seed of Eve, the seed of the woman who ultimately is the Lord Jesus Christ, the judgment on Satan, 00:33:23.680 --> 00:33:29.360 the destruction of Satan would be that Satan's head would be crushed by the Christ who would come. 00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:36.800 And the Christ who would come went to the cross, and on the cross he was naked. 00:33:36.799 --> 00:33:44.399 And the cross he was lifted up, like the serpent from Moses, from the story of Moses, 00:33:45.039 --> 00:33:56.000 because the serpent on the cross is represented of sin and death that Jesus took on himself, 00:33:56.000 --> 00:34:05.119 our sin and our death that he took on himself on our behalf, and was raised so that we might live 00:34:05.119 --> 00:34:13.599 in his power, so that we are people who are also covered in his righteousness. Isaiah 61-10 00:34:13.599 --> 00:34:18.079 speaks about that beautifully. He says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall exalt 00:34:18.079 --> 00:34:24.639 my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of 00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:31.119 righteousness, the robe of righteousness. We are covered in his righteousness. Galatians 3, 00:34:31.119 --> 00:34:38.960 27 also speaks about that, says we are baptized. As many of you, as we're baptized into Christ, 00:34:38.960 --> 00:34:46.799 have put on Christ. That is that we are covered in his righteousness. That's the covering that we 00:34:46.799 --> 00:34:52.719 need. That's the covering that he gives us. That enables us to have the Holy Spirit in our hearts 00:34:52.719 --> 00:35:02.799 so that we don't feel the need to control everything but to trust the God who, for whom, who has given 00:35:02.799 --> 00:35:11.039 us everything, who is good and who is sovereign and who is king, that we don't need to be gods. 00:35:11.039 --> 00:35:20.719 We trust in him and we know to trust in him in the good times and in the times that we don't 00:35:20.719 --> 00:35:26.799 understand and the times that are difficult. And when Satan whispers in our ear to say, 00:35:27.759 --> 00:35:36.000 he's not worth it, don't trust God, did he really say, does he love you? We banish these thoughts 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:42.079 because we recognize and we know and we understand that there's no greater love than what God has 00:35:42.079 --> 00:35:48.319 shown as the sovereign King of kings, the Creator of the universe who in the person of his beloved 00:35:48.320 --> 00:35:55.840 Son was nailed to a cross and who faced Satan and destroyed him and his deceit and his lies, 00:35:56.640 --> 00:36:04.160 defeated him and his deceit and his lies and his deceit and who will one day destroy him completely. 00:36:04.960 --> 00:36:13.120 And we need to be on the side of God and of truth and recognize what his word, how it reveals 00:36:13.119 --> 00:36:23.839 this world and our need both cosmically but also much more significantly personally in our 00:36:23.839 --> 00:36:32.719 relationship with our Creator, which sin has broken and which only Christ can heal. Amen. 00:36:34.239 --> 00:36:39.759 Lord God, we pray that you would teach us to understand you better, to understand what the 00:36:39.760 --> 00:36:50.640 truth of your word says and how it reveals the very genesis of, to use that word, the book is called 00:36:50.640 --> 00:36:58.240 very genesis of our need and the very beginnings of destruction that sin brought into the world, 00:36:58.240 --> 00:37:05.920 both at a cosmic level but also at a very personal individual level. May we recognize 00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:14.559 that the fundamental relationship that needs to be put right in our lives is our relationship with 00:37:14.559 --> 00:37:23.519 our Creator, which sin has broken and which leaves us under your judgment and under your 00:37:25.039 --> 00:37:33.440 just wrath unless we come to Jesus Christ for forgiveness, to deal with the fear and the shame 00:37:33.440 --> 00:37:39.599 and the guilt and the brokenness. So help us to do that and may that transform our lives 00:37:40.240 --> 00:37:46.320 and transform how we are able to be doers of your word and not just hearers only and enable us to 00:37:46.320 --> 00:38:04.000 suffer well, to serve well and to speak well for Jesus. We ask it in His name. Amen.