WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.560 Vicki is going to come and read for us from Genesis chapter 3, verses 1 to 15. So Genesis 3, 00:00:05.759 --> 00:00:12.439 verses 1 to 15. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord 00:00:12.439 --> 00:00:18.539 God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say to you, you shall not eat of any 00:00:18.539 --> 00:00:23.839 tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in 00:00:23.839 --> 00:00:28.839 the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the 00:00:28.839 --> 00:00:35.219 garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not 00:00:35.219 --> 00:00:41.539 surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, 00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:48.719 knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight 00:00:48.719 --> 00:00:54.179 to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. 00:00:54.179 --> 00:01:00.659 And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened 00:01:00.659 --> 00:01:06.599 and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 00:01:07.539 --> 00:01:13.239 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man 00:01:13.239 --> 00:01:16.980 and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 00:01:17.960 --> 00:01:21.060 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? 00:01:21.060 --> 00:01:27.579 And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid 00:01:27.579 --> 00:01:34.480 myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:40.680 not to eat? And the man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree 00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:47.079 and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And the woman said, 00:01:47.079 --> 00:01:53.579 the serpent deceived me and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, 00:01:54.019 --> 00:01:59.500 curse to you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go 00:01:59.500 --> 00:02:06.340 and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and 00:02:06.340 --> 00:02:11.759 between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. 00:02:11.759 --> 00:02:13.139 This is the word of the Lord. 00:02:15.599 --> 00:02:19.719 All right, well, we read from the Garden of Eden story from Genesis chapter 3, 00:02:20.519 --> 00:02:27.199 and we looked at it last week and we saw that the world, the problems that we face in this world, 00:02:27.620 --> 00:02:31.699 that we can say that most of those problems come from us, human beings. We broke the world 00:02:31.699 --> 00:02:37.340 from the very beginning of human history. And so the human heart is the source of most of the problems 00:02:37.340 --> 00:02:42.860 that exist in our world. And we see right here at the beginning that we became self-centered people 00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:47.939 from almost the moment that God made us. And so this shows up in the book of Genesis. The book of 00:02:47.939 --> 00:02:55.140 Genesis, Genesis, the word Genesis just means beginnings, foundations. And the foundations really 00:02:55.140 --> 00:03:02.439 are just this, that God made every single one of us and we are his creatures. And we, in the beginning 00:03:02.439 --> 00:03:08.259 of human history, tried to invert the pyramid of creation. God, the creator, made us all creatures. 00:03:08.599 --> 00:03:12.879 But Adam and Eve, when they took and they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and 00:03:12.879 --> 00:03:19.139 evil, they tried, they attempted to flip the pyramid upside down where God was treated like a creature 00:03:19.139 --> 00:03:25.560 at the bottom. And we became gods. We became as if we were the creators of the world. We could define 00:03:25.560 --> 00:03:31.699 who we are. We could define our reality. And it all began in verse 1, we looked at this last week, 00:03:31.840 --> 00:03:38.580 with an attitude. So Satan tempted, the serpent tempted Adam and Eve and said, 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:47.219 did God really say? And so the world broke because of attitude, a snark, a snark against God, 00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:52.340 mocking God and saying, that is ridiculous, God. Did God really try to tell us what to do? 00:03:52.340 --> 00:03:59.800 Did God really attempt to say that to us? And so in that act, the snark, the attitude against God that 00:03:59.800 --> 00:04:05.840 exists in the bottom of all of our hearts, we inverted. We were made to be the image of God, 00:04:05.920 --> 00:04:11.140 we in that moment. And it's true of all of our hearts, we want to be gods. And that's what broke 00:04:11.140 --> 00:04:16.920 the world. And so Nietzsche, the 19th century philosopher, he was an atheist, but he had a real 00:04:16.920 --> 00:04:22.100 moment, I think, of expressing the truth in his heart. He says this through one of his characters, 00:04:22.339 --> 00:04:29.959 to reveal my heart to you, my friends, if there is a God, then I wouldn't be. Therefore, there is no 00:04:29.959 --> 00:04:36.379 God. It's not an argument, it's an attitude. It's a snark at the bottom of our hearts against God. 00:04:37.479 --> 00:04:42.199 And I wonder if you could come, as we come back to Genesis 3 today, can you say, are you willing to 00:04:42.199 --> 00:04:49.059 say today that my greatest problem this very day is at the bottom of my heart? I don't trust God, 00:04:49.060 --> 00:04:53.720 I don't believe God loves me. I don't want to be created. I don't want to be a creature. I want to 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:59.420 be the creator. I want to be the maker. That is the deep problem in the human soul, at the heart, 00:04:59.879 --> 00:05:05.879 at the bottom of every one of our hearts. And oftentimes we've called this story the fall story, 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:10.139 so the fall from what humanity should have been. But another way to say it, maybe even better, 00:05:10.139 --> 00:05:17.479 is to call it the trespass story, the story of us trying to overreach our limits, to not be 00:05:17.479 --> 00:05:26.120 dependent creatures, but independent creatures. And in Milton's Paradise Lost, he writes about this 00:05:26.120 --> 00:05:32.399 scene, and the way he talks about it is when Eve eats from the fruit of the tree, she bows before the 00:05:32.399 --> 00:05:38.539 fruit. And C.S. Lewis commenting on that moment in Milton, he says, at the very beginning of human 00:05:38.540 --> 00:05:45.860 history, humanity first worshipped a vegetable. And, you know, he's being slightly cheeky about that, 00:05:45.939 --> 00:05:52.960 but it's true that ever since then we bow before creatures. We take all these little things in this 00:05:52.960 --> 00:05:57.640 world, things that are creaturely, that God made, and we treat them as our gods, our saviors. 00:05:58.259 --> 00:06:02.120 Seeking self-salvation, we could take anything, sex, money, power, whatever it may be, a career, 00:06:02.400 --> 00:06:06.680 and we turn it into the vegetable that we worship, bow before the tree that we really worship. 00:06:06.680 --> 00:06:14.000 And so let's broaden this story today and ask the question, because of this inversion, because of 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:19.079 this self-centeredness at the bottom of our souls from the very beginning of human history, what do we 00:06:19.079 --> 00:06:25.160 now face? And so for three weeks, the next three weeks of looking at Genesis 3, we're going to look at 00:06:25.160 --> 00:06:31.699 consequences, what this has cost us in the world. And so I just want to give you two of those today, 00:06:31.699 --> 00:06:38.860 and the two consequences that we face today are we are up against a war, and we have the problem of 00:06:38.860 --> 00:06:46.560 shame. And then ask, what do we need in the midst of those things? So first, this war that we now face. 00:06:47.919 --> 00:06:53.620 All right, verse one, we've got an internal problem, self-centeredness, wanting to be God rather than 00:06:53.620 --> 00:06:59.519 be the image of God that we were made to be. But we also know from the experience of our lives and 00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:04.199 from this passage, we've got a lot of external problems as well. And the very first external 00:07:04.199 --> 00:07:09.519 problem that we see here is the problem of the serpent, verse one, the serpent who comes and he is 00:07:09.519 --> 00:07:16.740 crafty and subtle and deceptive. And this is the greatest of all external problems that we face is 00:07:16.740 --> 00:07:24.259 the serpent. This is the moment where we learn from the Bible that there is a personal, conscious, 00:07:24.259 --> 00:07:34.240 evil tempter that exists and seeks to destroy our lives. And the Bible calls this serpent Satan, 00:07:34.480 --> 00:07:41.480 and nine other names the Bible uses for Satan. And Satan here, this is, Satan here, Satan is a spirit 00:07:41.480 --> 00:07:49.620 in the Bible. And so Satan is using a physical being, a serpent, to speak and to work. And here he is 00:07:49.620 --> 00:07:55.420 crafty, he's a beast. He's, the word, the Hebrew word that's used for the serpent here is a word that 00:07:55.420 --> 00:08:04.040 can be translated to dragon, dragon-like, serpentine. And you might come to this as a modern person and 00:08:04.040 --> 00:08:09.860 say, as soon as I open the Bible, I encounter a talking animal. And I struggle with that as a modern 00:08:09.860 --> 00:08:16.939 person. But look, in verse one, that is exactly the point. See, because in verse one, when the serpent 00:08:16.939 --> 00:08:25.120 speaks, it's meant to say, reader, beware. Adam and Eve were supposed to be as shocked as you are 00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:30.420 as a modern person, because Adam and Eve had been given dominion over all the animals. 00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:36.039 And even to name them, and as soon as that story ends in Genesis 2, you flip the page, Genesis 3, 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:44.480 1, and there is an animal speaking, taking dominion over Adam and Eve. And they should have thought the 00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:50.620 same thing you think, modern person. What in the world? A talking animal? It shouldn't be. And they 00:08:50.620 --> 00:08:56.820 should have run and rejected this. So this was Satan working through the midst of a creature. 00:08:57.420 --> 00:09:02.840 And it was an inversion of the order that God had made, Adam and Eve dominion over the beast of the 00:09:02.840 --> 00:09:08.279 field. And so in the rest of the Bible, we learn in Revelation chapter 12, we learn verse 9 that this 00:09:08.279 --> 00:09:14.480 is the great dragon who was, John the apostle says, thrown down, the ancient serpent called the devil, 00:09:14.799 --> 00:09:20.240 called Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. And in Jesus, in Luke chapter 10, verse 18 says, 00:09:21.100 --> 00:09:28.899 that he, he says, I saw Satan, the dragon, fall from heaven like lightning. So Jesus says, the Son of 00:09:28.899 --> 00:09:36.519 God says, I saw the great deceiver who was a holy angel made by God good, a spirit, fall from heaven. 00:09:36.519 --> 00:09:42.519 Because of his pride, because of the same very issue that Adam and Eve face, his self-centeredness, 00:09:42.579 --> 00:09:47.419 his trespass that he didn't want to be a creature, he wanted to, he wanted to be God. And so he fell 00:09:47.419 --> 00:09:55.960 like lightning from heaven in the very beginning. And so C.S. Lewis writes a book about, about Satan and 00:09:55.960 --> 00:10:02.519 demons and their devices. And in the beginning of this book, he paints a picture, a spectrum for you. 00:10:02.519 --> 00:10:08.399 And I think, I wonder, can you find yourself on the spectrum today, on this spectrum? Here's what 00:10:08.399 --> 00:10:14.079 Lewis says. He says, there are two equal and opposite errors into which our race, human race, 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:21.279 can fall when it comes to the devils, Satan. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to 00:10:21.279 --> 00:10:26.899 believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. So he says, on the one hand, 00:10:26.899 --> 00:10:32.079 you can disbelieve. You can say, I'm a materialist. I don't believe in this. On the other hand, you can 00:10:32.079 --> 00:10:38.240 have an unhealthy obsession with the spiritual realm and with the devils, the serpent himself, 00:10:38.299 --> 00:10:43.840 with Satan. And that's exactly what we see in our city. Here's another way to put it. Maybe you've 00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:50.379 encountered this before. If you do a little bit of a search of history of the ancient Near Eastern world 00:10:50.379 --> 00:10:57.820 where this story takes place during the time of the people of Israel. Many, many other religions, 00:10:58.019 --> 00:11:03.820 many, many other people groups had stories about a paradise lost, a serpent that came and deceived 00:11:03.820 --> 00:11:09.820 people. Many other traditions, many other religions had a story about a great worldwide flood that looks 00:11:09.820 --> 00:11:15.720 a lot like Genesis 6 to 9. Many did. And it's the same spectrum. So you can come to that as a 00:11:15.720 --> 00:11:21.360 materialist and say, look, everybody was just sharing the same mythologies. Or I think a better 00:11:21.360 --> 00:11:26.600 way, a true way, is to come and realize the reason that all these different religions in the ancient 00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:32.120 Near East told this story, but in a different way, is because they were sharing in half truths 00:11:32.120 --> 00:11:38.960 a collective idea of a real history by which the world was broken through a serpent, through a 00:11:38.960 --> 00:11:43.100 deceiver, a paradise lost. And they had twisted and distorted that truth and written different 00:11:43.100 --> 00:11:49.700 mythologies around it. But they all have the basic idea, the same story, a half truth. And so let me 00:11:49.700 --> 00:11:55.060 just, before we move on, let me just say, I want to give you, in just a sentence each, three reasons 00:11:55.060 --> 00:12:03.259 why you should believe, I think, you should be compelled to believe in Satan and a personal, conscious, 00:12:03.560 --> 00:12:10.320 evil tempter that is at work to deceive the world. And here they are. Number one, if you are convinced 00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:16.920 at all by theism that God exists, that there is a God, then it is no stretch, not a stretch in the 00:12:16.920 --> 00:12:22.120 slightest to believe in a supernatural realm. So if you believe that in God, that God is a spirit, 00:12:22.260 --> 00:12:27.860 it is not, it's not stretched to then go and say, and there are other spirits as well. There are other 00:12:27.860 --> 00:12:32.100 supernatural beings as well. That's not a stretch. That makes sense. That follows from the first, 00:12:32.200 --> 00:12:37.760 first idea that God exists. The second reason is that most people, and I think we're safe to say 00:12:37.759 --> 00:12:43.439 99, and I think we're probably safe to say 99.9% of all human beings in all of world history 00:12:43.439 --> 00:12:49.759 have believed in evil spirits. And even in a city like ours in Edinburgh, where we think everybody's 00:12:49.759 --> 00:12:53.759 modern, everybody just says, well, I don't believe in that because I believe in science, which is a 00:12:53.759 --> 00:12:58.720 silly thing to trade off on. Most people actually in Edinburgh, I think, still believe in the realm of 00:12:58.720 --> 00:13:04.500 the spiritual. And many, many people, thousands of people, in fact, in Edinburgh dabble in the 00:13:04.500 --> 00:13:10.460 spiritual realm. And the question is, are you dabbling in good things or evil things? And here 00:13:10.460 --> 00:13:15.240 we learn that these spirits, quite often, they're evil. That this is very well. But here's the third 00:13:15.240 --> 00:13:22.179 and final, and I think maybe the most important. For me, this is the one that helps me the most. 00:13:22.919 --> 00:13:31.539 It is a great relief intellectually, not to the heart, but intellectually, to believe in a personal, 00:13:31.539 --> 00:13:36.939 conscious, evil tempter called Satan that is at work in the world. Why? Because when you look out at the 00:13:36.939 --> 00:13:44.740 horrors of this world, and you are able to say, there really is a tempter, there really is utter evil, 00:13:45.039 --> 00:13:52.319 there really is a great deceiver, then it provides real intellectual relief of explaining why the world 00:13:52.319 --> 00:13:57.719 is so broken. When you look out and you see that many, many cultures, many, many religions have 00:13:57.720 --> 00:14:02.600 sacrificed humans at the heart of their religious practices. You can look at that and say, that is 00:14:02.600 --> 00:14:07.899 satanic. I have the power to look at that and say, that is great evil. You can look out and say, many, 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:12.480 many cultures throughout world history have looked at ethnic people groups that are not them, and said, 00:14:12.620 --> 00:14:17.519 the most important thing, our mission in life, is to wipe out an entire ethnicity because they are the 00:14:17.519 --> 00:14:24.000 problem. And you can look at that and say, that is satanic. There is a great evil, a great tempter at work 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:30.600 in the world doing very evil things. It's not a stretch at all. It's an intellectual relief to be 00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:41.039 able to say that there is an evil tempter, liar, deceiver. Now, in Genesis 3, verse 14, God curses Satan 00:14:41.039 --> 00:14:50.019 and says, on your belly you shall crawl, like below the other beast of the field. Is this the moment where 00:14:50.019 --> 00:14:58.620 snakes lose their legs? No. No, not at all. He's not talking about snakes in general. God is talking 00:14:58.620 --> 00:15:07.240 here to the serpent, Satan. And he's using language, normal, phenomenal, earthly language, to say something 00:15:07.240 --> 00:15:13.159 that we all recognize. And that's, if you go and say to somebody what is said here, you will lick the 00:15:13.159 --> 00:15:20.439 dust. If you will eat the dust. That is a curse. That is an insult if you say that to somebody, 00:15:20.980 --> 00:15:28.639 right? What is he saying? He's saying, you, Satan, will lick the dust. Meaning, you have lost all glory. 00:15:29.539 --> 00:15:34.719 You have no glory. You were made glorious, but you have lost all glory. And you are now to be lower than 00:15:34.719 --> 00:15:41.360 the low. And what we learn here in the very next sentence is God says, I will now put enmity between 00:15:41.360 --> 00:15:46.720 you and the offspring of Eve, humanity. And we'll come back next week to look at Genesis 3 15 closely. 00:15:47.740 --> 00:15:52.919 But today, I just want to say that, are you aware, do you know, do you believe that there is a war? 00:15:53.399 --> 00:15:58.080 One of the great consequences of our sin in the fall of Satan is that there is a war going on, 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:04.259 a spiritual war, a real war. There is enmity. And enmity is not just, you know, a little bit of 00:16:04.259 --> 00:16:11.039 temptation here and there. It is saying, Satan hates you, hates us, hates humanity, and wants to do 00:16:11.039 --> 00:16:16.839 everything you can to deceive and corrupt and break this world and get every single one of us to stay 00:16:16.839 --> 00:16:24.939 exactly where we are. Passive. To never get serious about Christian faith. To say, that's silly. I 00:16:24.939 --> 00:16:30.339 couldn't believe in a talking service. See, but that is exactly what he wants. His greatest hope is that 00:16:30.339 --> 00:16:36.860 you never believe in him. That's his deception. That's his great deception. I've got to move on. 00:16:36.860 --> 00:16:43.120 But C.S. Lewis, at the end of his book, he talks about the experience of writing a book about Satan 00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:51.919 and the demons. And he says that, though it was easy to twist my mind into the diabolical attitude, 00:16:51.919 --> 00:16:59.039 it was not fun. Or not for long, at least. The world in which I had to project myself was all dust and 00:16:59.039 --> 00:17:06.819 grit and thirst and itch. And every trace of beauty, freshness, and cheer had to be excluded. 00:17:07.500 --> 00:17:13.000 Now, what is Lewis saying? He's saying, did you catch it? He's saying, when I tried to write a book 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:17.959 where I put Satan's devices into my mind to try to rewrite them in a way that people would understand, 00:17:18.379 --> 00:17:23.740 he's saying, it was not hard for me to get my heart into the diabolical attitude of the serpent. 00:17:24.679 --> 00:17:28.839 And he's saying, but when I got there, I realized it was nothing but dust. It was a wasteland. What is 00:17:28.839 --> 00:17:35.599 he saying? He's saying, it was not difficult for me to think with a diabolical snark against God. 00:17:36.339 --> 00:17:41.559 He's saying, it was natural to me. He's saying, at the bottom of my heart, I realized that it was not 00:17:41.559 --> 00:17:47.599 hard for me to be tempted to think like Satan thinks. And I wonder if you've ever found yourself 00:17:47.740 --> 00:17:55.259 feeling like your heart, your soul is in a bit of a wasteland. Grit, itch, thirst. That's what he says. 00:17:55.299 --> 00:18:00.240 They felt like a wasteland. But that's where you are. You know, you're so overcome all the time by sadness 00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:08.700 and anxiety, by fear. You say, you know, it kind of feels like my heart is in a wasteland. And let me 00:18:08.700 --> 00:18:14.960 say to you, Christianity explains why. The best explanatory power you can latch on to is that 00:18:14.960 --> 00:18:19.700 Christianity tells the story that God made the world and it was good. And Satan and us alongside 00:18:19.700 --> 00:18:24.980 him broke it. And now we have a snark in the bottom of our souls. And sometimes our hearts feel like we're 00:18:24.980 --> 00:18:31.880 living in a wasteland. That's the great problem we face. Now, second problem we face is that one of 00:18:31.880 --> 00:18:38.120 greatest, Satan's greatest tools is his use of shame. And so in verse 7 here, the first consequence 00:18:38.119 --> 00:18:43.559 we see of the fall is that Adam and Eve, it says their eyes were open and they realized they were 00:18:43.559 --> 00:18:49.759 naked. And in chapter 2, verse 25, it says, before that they were naked and unashamed. And so it's 00:18:49.759 --> 00:18:57.919 implied here that as soon as they take and eat, they are now naked and ashamed. Shame. The idea here is 00:18:57.919 --> 00:19:03.279 not mere physical nakedness. That's not exactly what it's talking about, though that is there. But it's 00:19:03.279 --> 00:19:06.299 talking about something more. It's saying as soon as they realize their physical nakedness, 00:19:06.299 --> 00:19:11.940 they realize spiritual nakedness. And spiritual nakedness, this reality they experience when 00:19:11.940 --> 00:19:19.240 their eyes are open and boldened, is this experience of exposure, of saying that if I were to be known 00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:24.980 all the way to the bottom of whom I am, I would be naked. I would be exposed. I would deserve judgment. 00:19:25.159 --> 00:19:30.079 And so we're told here that they experience in the very beginning shame for the first time. So shame, 00:19:30.139 --> 00:19:36.119 what is shame? Shame is the flip side of the coin of guilt. So guilt, judicial guilt, 00:19:36.119 --> 00:19:41.419 guilt is that we are not righteous. We are not the people God made us to be. But the flip side of 00:19:41.419 --> 00:19:47.719 that coin is shame. And that's the emotion of the experience of guilt. That where you awaken in your 00:19:47.719 --> 00:19:53.199 inner soul, your heart, your emotions, and says, I am not, I feel guilty. I am not who God made me to 00:19:53.199 --> 00:19:59.799 be. I have committed sins. And you feel that. And shame can be good in the world of sin. It can protect us 00:19:59.799 --> 00:20:06.899 sometimes. But shame can also become a condition, a bitter morsel that you continue to eat that won't 00:20:06.899 --> 00:20:13.779 go away. And so here in verse 7, one of the first things that happens is they have to cover, they 00:20:13.779 --> 00:20:19.639 cover themselves with fig leaves. They know immediately, I need covering. I'm not who I'm 00:20:19.639 --> 00:20:26.919 supposed to be. This is an act of atonement, a sacrifice. Quickly, I've got to break a branch off a 00:20:26.920 --> 00:20:31.840 tree and cover myself. As soon as sin enters the world, there's this feeling that we need sacrifice. 00:20:31.980 --> 00:20:39.680 We need atonement. We need covering. Or we'll never be clean. I know, I don't know if you've ever had 00:20:39.680 --> 00:20:46.340 this dream. Some people have heard this dream. It's fairly common. Something like it. A dream where 00:20:46.340 --> 00:20:52.039 you are invited to a black tie party. I've used this illustration before here. A black tie party, 00:20:52.039 --> 00:20:57.319 very posh event, you know, something, a great ball, a great gala. And you show up in your dream, 00:20:57.379 --> 00:21:03.240 you're wearing your swimsuit. And, you know, if you've dreamt like that, or maybe you've done it, 00:21:03.279 --> 00:21:09.379 I hope not, but maybe you've done it. You want to run straight to the bathroom, straight to the 00:21:09.379 --> 00:21:14.339 toilet, and you want to cry, you know. And you want to cover yourself. Now, you're clothed, but you're 00:21:14.339 --> 00:21:18.720 just not clothed enough. But what do you feel like? You feel like you're naked, exposed. 00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:25.039 Let me bring this a little more close to reality. Maybe if you work with somebody a long time, 00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:31.200 like a boss, you come to the quarterly meeting, and your boss starts to go on and on about the 00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:35.460 profits of the past quarter. But you're the one who prepared it all in the accounts, in the 00:21:35.460 --> 00:21:40.299 PowerPoint, you know. And you know the truth, that everything the boss is saying is basically a 00:21:40.299 --> 00:21:46.819 200% extension of the reality of how much money was actually made. But, you know, the boss's boss is 00:21:46.819 --> 00:21:52.319 there, and the boss's boss's boss is there, and your boss needs to look good. But in that moment, 00:21:52.399 --> 00:21:59.879 he looks over at you, and he sees you, and he knows that you know. And you just exchanged what 00:21:59.879 --> 00:22:06.299 the French existentialist philosophers called the gaze. The gaze. And you say, you're exposed. 00:22:06.599 --> 00:22:12.119 What's happening in that moment? You're naked. The pride that stands underneath that experience, 00:22:12.119 --> 00:22:17.299 you know that somebody else in this room knows me, and knows that I'm faking this. I'm faking it 00:22:17.299 --> 00:22:22.299 until I make it. This is the same thing that goes on with what we call preacher numbers, you know. 00:22:23.419 --> 00:22:26.839 Preacher numbers, what are they? They are when somebody asked the preacher, how many people came 00:22:26.839 --> 00:22:31.279 to the event last week? How many people were there on Sunday? And you say, two to three hundred. 00:22:31.279 --> 00:22:39.359 And, you know, your staff worker that knows you well says, there's a big difference in two and three 00:22:39.359 --> 00:22:45.539 hundred. That's a 50% increase. Which, you know, and it was actually 175. Everybody knows that. 00:22:46.899 --> 00:22:53.379 But what's the gaze has taken place. Somebody has seen you and known you, that the preacher is 00:22:53.379 --> 00:23:00.240 struggling with pride, right? And that's to be naked. It's a spiritual condition. It's exposure. 00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:05.660 And Karl Marx was right when he said alienation is the great problem of the human experience. 00:23:06.579 --> 00:23:11.859 Excuse me, but not in the way he said it. He said our alienation, the big problem we face as people, 00:23:11.940 --> 00:23:18.259 he said, is between the human worker and his capital, his labor. Alienation is right. We have an 00:23:18.259 --> 00:23:23.920 alienation from this very moment because of our nakedness, because of our spiritual exposure, 00:23:24.359 --> 00:23:29.700 that we feel guilt and shame. We are not who we're being. So we hide. We cover. We'll see even more 00:23:29.700 --> 00:23:35.819 next week how much we hide from God. But first, we hide from ourselves. We refuse to know the truth 00:23:35.819 --> 00:23:41.840 about ourselves. One of the hardest things that can happen in our lives is when you find out that a 00:23:41.840 --> 00:23:47.779 collective group of people who do indeed love you finally come and say to you in a moment of truth, 00:23:48.120 --> 00:23:55.140 hey, we all know that you're struggling with this, and you're not even aware of it. You're not aware 00:23:55.140 --> 00:23:58.600 that they know, but you won't even admit it to yourself, that everybody around you can see the vice 00:23:58.600 --> 00:24:03.640 that you struggle with most. And you know what? You think, well, I can see the vice that my spouse, 00:24:03.740 --> 00:24:08.840 my friend, my neighbor struggles with, but that's you too. That's all of us. And when that moment where 00:24:08.840 --> 00:24:13.200 somebody comes and says, you say, I'm unwilling to know myself. I've been covering with fig leaves 00:24:13.200 --> 00:24:20.640 the truth about my heart. Or we struggle with alienation from other people, from the people who love us 00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:29.600 most in our lives. In verse 12, God comes to Adam, and he says, what happened? Where are you? And Adam, 00:24:29.720 --> 00:24:35.600 the first thing he does, he says, she did it. The woman you made. Do you feel one of the hardest 00:24:35.600 --> 00:24:40.700 things in this world is relationships between men and women? Alienation between the two genders? 00:24:41.860 --> 00:24:50.080 That we struggle with each other? It begins right here. The alienation began, right? And it goes through 00:24:50.079 --> 00:24:54.519 all of our relationships, all of our relationships throughout world history. And even if you're a 00:24:54.519 --> 00:25:00.099 Christian today, you can hide in alienation. You can cover with fig leaves from other Christians, 00:25:00.379 --> 00:25:05.399 from the church itself. You might have been in this church for a long, long time, but you've not 00:25:05.399 --> 00:25:12.159 really let anybody know you. And you know, you think, somebody says, how are you? And you say, 00:25:12.159 --> 00:25:18.099 you know, you haven't prayed in two years. You're deconstructing, as people say. But you just say, 00:25:18.099 --> 00:25:24.459 I'm fine. And you won't let anybody know the truth. We hide. We cover. We focus. Why? Because 00:25:24.459 --> 00:25:30.679 at the bottom of our hearts, we were made to be known by God and other people in total harmony in 00:25:30.679 --> 00:25:34.919 the Garden of Eden and utter shalom and peace. We want to be known. We want to be loved. And we're 00:25:34.919 --> 00:25:39.559 so afraid that if we are truly known, if the fig leaves come off and people really know what's going 00:25:39.559 --> 00:25:46.539 on on the inside, we will not be loved. Now, that's called the condition of shame. Shame can help 00:25:46.539 --> 00:25:54.359 protect us. But sometimes shame becomes a disease. Shame becomes a condition. And C.S. Lewis says, 00:25:54.539 --> 00:26:00.480 I sometimes think that shame, the mere awkward, senseless shame, does as much towards preventing 00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:06.059 happiness in this world as any of our vices can do. Now, let's move on and close with this. 00:26:06.599 --> 00:26:10.359 Satan's strategy. Satan's strategy. You've got to know it. What do you do? You've got to first know 00:26:10.359 --> 00:26:15.899 Satan's strategy. Satan does the same thing in world history that he does right here. First, 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:22.219 he comes and he tempts you. And he says, this is not a big deal. Do what you want. Be your 00:26:22.219 --> 00:26:27.259 own God. Live for yourself. And then as soon as you commit the act, as soon as you bow before 00:26:27.259 --> 00:26:35.419 the vegetable, he comes immediately and accuses you and says, no one is ever going to love you 00:26:35.420 --> 00:26:44.060 if they know about that. You are unlovable. You are unforgivable. And boy, don't ever come to God 00:26:44.060 --> 00:26:50.220 for help because God hates you for what you've done. And in that moment, shame starts to become 00:26:50.220 --> 00:26:55.920 a bitter morsel. The fruit of the tree becomes the bitter morsel of shame that you swallow. And it gets 00:26:55.920 --> 00:27:00.180 deep down in your soul. And some of us, some of us here struggle with this. And you begin to believe 00:27:00.180 --> 00:27:07.820 no one will love me. Nobody can love me. If I was honest about who I am, my struggles, my sins, 00:27:07.900 --> 00:27:13.920 my past, what I'm walking through right now, nobody will love me. And eventually you can become to a 00:27:13.920 --> 00:27:22.340 place of such hopelessness where you think I am unlovable. What can you do? In Zechariah chapter 3, 00:27:23.140 --> 00:27:30.160 there is this moment where the high priest Joshua is standing in the temple and he experiences a 00:27:30.160 --> 00:27:39.500 vision of God. But there, as he stands before God's throne, Satan is next to him. And Satan 00:27:39.500 --> 00:27:48.000 is standing to him talking to God. And we learn in that story, Zechariah 3, 1-3, that Zechariah is 00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:54.440 the high priest, the only person who has access to the Holy of Holies, into God's holy temple. In that 00:27:54.440 --> 00:28:00.980 moment, the Hebrew says, he is clothed in filth. His robes are covered in filth. It's translated filth. 00:28:01.519 --> 00:28:09.080 The Hebrew word is excrement. He's clothed in the most disgusting of filthy garments. And then Satan 00:28:09.080 --> 00:28:18.759 begins to accuse and say, this is your man. This is the priest, God. He's dirty. He's filthy. He's rotten. 00:28:18.759 --> 00:28:27.440 He's not lovable. He is covered. In other words, he's experiencing that. The truth, the nakedness of his soul 00:28:27.440 --> 00:28:35.200 is now being worn on the outside in his clothing. Filthy. Dirty. And Satan says, does Satan ever say to you, 00:28:35.480 --> 00:28:41.319 what did you think would happen if you did that? You brought this on yourself. You can never be forgiven. 00:28:41.319 --> 00:28:47.139 And then right next to him, all of a sudden, in Zechariah 3, the angel of the Lord appears. 00:28:48.639 --> 00:28:55.939 And the angel of the Lord says, take off his filthy clothes. And the angel of the Lord says, 00:28:56.659 --> 00:29:03.139 he turns to Joshua and he says, see, I've taken away your sin and I will put fine garments upon you. 00:29:04.019 --> 00:29:10.519 Now, who is that? The angel of the Lord? In the Old Testament, it's not an angel of the Lord. It is 00:29:10.519 --> 00:29:14.960 the angel of the Lord. And the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament is the very Son of God. 00:29:16.799 --> 00:29:23.379 It is the one who would become Jesus Christ. And when you come to the gospel story, you come to John 00:29:23.379 --> 00:29:30.839 chapter 19, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is hanging upon, just before he's hung upon the cross, 00:29:31.500 --> 00:29:37.940 we're told the soldiers, the Roman soldiers, ripped his clothes off of him and took his clothes. And 00:29:37.940 --> 00:29:43.100 fulfilling the prophecy of Psalm 22, they gambled his clothes away. And in the style of Roman 00:29:43.100 --> 00:29:50.799 crucifixion, Jesus Christ was murdered at the cross naked, unclothed. And in that moment, 00:29:51.340 --> 00:29:56.420 you see, this wasn't just Jesus Christ taking on physical nakedness. This physical sign, 00:29:56.420 --> 00:30:05.940 this horror, this shame was a sign of the spiritual reality that Jesus Christ took your spiritual shame, 00:30:06.019 --> 00:30:11.300 your nakedness, the truth about he took the filthy garments of Joshua. He took the nakedness 00:30:11.300 --> 00:30:17.259 of our hearts, the truth, the exposure, the spiritual plight, the reality, the shame that we bear, 00:30:17.340 --> 00:30:25.840 that we've created. He took it on and he was murdered at the cross naked in our place. He bore your shame and 00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:33.459 became naked in that moment so that we could be clothed in glory, so that we could be cleansed in 00:30:33.459 --> 00:30:40.399 his righteousness. Isaiah 53 says, he bore your shame, Jesus Christ did. So let me apply this and 00:30:40.399 --> 00:30:48.720 I'll finish. What you need today to fight the corruption from Genesis 3 of shame and Satan's 00:30:48.720 --> 00:30:55.779 devices is not just to believe in the abstract concept of God's, of Jesus' mercy to you. 00:30:56.779 --> 00:31:01.339 You know, most of the time we, we, you might be a Christian, but it's just abstract. What you need 00:31:01.339 --> 00:31:07.799 today is really to taste the truth, the sweetness, you know, put away the bitter morsel of shame and 00:31:07.799 --> 00:31:15.860 really taste the sweet bread and wine that Jesus Christ really is merciful to you, really does want 00:31:15.859 --> 00:31:22.339 to forgive you and clothe you in better clothes than your shame. And let me ask you today, look, if, 00:31:22.439 --> 00:31:31.219 if God himself knows everything about you, and he does, and he knows the shame in the bottom of your 00:31:31.219 --> 00:31:37.879 heart, and he loved you to the point of becoming your nakedness and your shame at the cross, can you 00:31:37.880 --> 00:31:47.040 not look up today and say, I am known and loved to, to the very bottom? You can say with Paul in Romans 8, 00:31:48.140 --> 00:31:53.580 if God is for me, who can be against me? No matter how many times Satan comes and tells you, you cannot 00:31:53.580 --> 00:32:00.700 be loved, you're not lovable. You can say, if God is for me, who can be against me? Nobody, nobody can. 00:32:00.700 --> 00:32:08.120 And so Martin Luther, in one of his famous hymns at the Reformation, mighty fortress is our God, he said, 00:32:08.500 --> 00:32:16.160 the prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him. His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure. 00:32:16.860 --> 00:32:22.299 One little word shall fell him. What is that one little word? Luther wrote, the one little word 00:32:22.299 --> 00:32:30.819 that shall fell the devil is liar. You are a liar. If God is for me, nothing can be against me. 00:32:31.819 --> 00:32:36.819 We're going to sing before the throne of God above, and I want to ask you, can you sing this line 00:32:36.819 --> 00:32:44.919 today from your heart, from your soul? Though Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, 00:32:46.019 --> 00:32:52.279 upward I look and I see Jesus there who came to put an end to all my sin. Let's sing it together. 00:32:52.299 --> 00:32:57.579 Let's pray. Father, come now and give us a heart that would long to sing the words that 00:32:57.579 --> 00:33:04.859 you really have put away our filthy garments and our exposure, Lord. Thank you, Jesus, for taking on 00:33:04.859 --> 00:33:10.539 our nakedness and shame at the cross and clothing us with better clothing, the clothing of your glory. 00:33:10.759 --> 00:33:15.240 And so I pray today that as we sing, somebody would experience that truth, that reality in their 00:33:15.240 --> 00:33:18.200 lives, and we pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.