Father, we know that the devil doesn't want us to think about this text.
And you know, Father, how we ourselves, our minds quickly flit away from texts like this.
How easy it is, Father, for us to not hear and not even to notice that we're not hearing.
So we ask, Father, that you would be very kind to us.
You are always kind and pour out your Holy Spirit with might and power and deep conviction.
And grip us with your word.
And as we are gripped by your word, grip us with the gospel.
And this we ask in Jesus's name. Amen.
Please be seated.
So two weeks ago, part of the Bible text meant that we had to talk about abortion.
And transgender issues.
And last week, the Bible text meant that we had to talk about marriage, sexual knowing, and same-sex marriage.
Nothing controversial.
And this week, there's nothing big and controversial like that.
Except this is really, really a big passage of scripture.
I mean, why is there evil?
Why is there suffering and pain?
Why is it that God seems so hard to know?
Why is it that God seems like an abstraction and so distant?
And not only these things, but why is it that I do wrong things?
Why is it that often after a conversation or a meeting, I'm kicking myself because I was meaner or sharper or more angry or more cowardly than I desire to be?
Why is it that I do these things?
These are really, really important human questions.
And the Bible text that we're going to look at today is the first step in coming to understand the answer to these things.
So it would be a great help to me if you got a Bible and you turned in them to Genesis chapter 3.
And if you're unfamiliar with the Bible, Genesis is the very first book in the Bible.
So it's probably like page 2 or 3 in your Bible.
But Genesis chapter 3.
And just before we start to read it again and look at it, I just want to share the older I get and the longer I think about these issues.
And I don't mean any disrespect to anybody else.
But the longer I think about these issues, there is nothing in the world in philosophy or spirituality or religion that is as wise as Genesis 1, 2, and 3.
When understood through the gospel.
I just, the more I think about these things, the more I think about how different groups try to understand the existence of good and evil and our longings.
I don't think Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism or secular thought comes even close to the wisdom of Genesis 1, 2, and 3.
This is just me sharing what I have discovered the more and more I think about it.
It is so wise and so true.
And if you get nothing else out of the sermon, if you spend the rest of the sermon thinking about your shopping list or what you're going to watch on Netflix tonight or whatever, I hope you don't.
But if all you get out of it is a desire to read the truth in Genesis 1, 2, and 3 and meditate upon it, then God has done a good work in your heart.
Now it's going to start in a very, very odd way.
In fact, it's going to start in a way that puts us off.
Look how it begins.
Genesis chapter 3, verse 1.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
And as soon as I say that, some of you say, time out, George.
Okay, I thought you said this is a true story.
Talking snakes.
George, come on.
Like I thought you were making this case.
Like I've listened to some of your sermons and, you know, you're talking about creation and evolution.
You talked about Adam and Eve.
You talked about how they're real and how they're true and how they matter.
And now we come to talking serpents.
Like what's going on, George?
Well, that's a good question.
It's an honest question, isn't it?
Like a lot of us feel very uncomfortable about it.
So I just want to say a couple of things about this talking serpent thing.
The first thing is, and this is going to, I was really surprised when I discovered this.
But in the Middle Ages, a lot of Jewish commentators upon this, they believed, well, they actually believed in an early form of Narnia.
I mean, how many people have read the Narnia Chronicles or are familiar with the Narnia Chronicles?
If you're not familiar with the Narnia Chronicles, there's talking animals and there's animals that don't talk.
And believe it or not, a lot of Jewish commentators believe that in the Garden of Eden,
which wasn't the whole world, just a part of the world,
that in the Garden of Eden, all the animals talked.
And that outside the Garden of Eden, they didn't talk.
I think that's sort of cool, eh?
I'm not saying that's the answer to the text.
I just was really surprised that that was what some, like our Jewish friends for many centuries, some of them taught.
Listen, here's the main thing.
Sort of two main things about it.
First of all, I'm going to keep on assuming that Moses is the guy ultimately responsible.
I mean, ultimately, I believe it's God who caused it to be written, but at a human level, it is Moses.
If you don't agree with me, that's, you know, ultimately, nobody doesn't say who wrote the book, okay?
But tradition with Moses.
Okay?
Just remember this, right?
This is like, if you get, here's one of George's hermeneutical principles, okay?
Assume for a second Moses wasn't stupid.
Just assume.
Moses knew that snakes didn't talk.
I mean, that wasn't just something they figured out in 2017.
Like, if this text was written 1500 BC or 1300 BC or whenever it was written, they knew back then that snakes didn't talk.
So let's just assume for a second that they knew that.
In fact, it's actually a bit of an argument for the text because all the rest of the book of Genesis, as you read it,
it's describing, it's talking about in very historical and real terms, as if it's describing things that really happened.
I can just imagine almost Moses having a conversation with God.
Okay, well, God, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You want me to put in a talking snake?
Like, are people going to lose the thread of this if I, you know?
And he had to trust to put in the talking snake.
But if you, here's the other thing, a more realistic thing.
If you go and you read in 2 Samuel, there's a very, very interesting pair of stories.
And in the first set of stories, it describes how David lusts after Bathsheba.
And then David, after he lusts after Bathsheba, he has an affair with her.
He makes her pregnant.
And then he conspires to make it look like her husband has made her pregnant, not him.
And when that plan doesn't work, he comes up with another conspiracy to have Bathsheba's husband murdered.
And that's successful.
And Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, dies.
And it's told, just in a straight narrative form, more detailed than I gave you, but it's told.
Then immediately after that, the whole story is retold in a second way.
Some of you who know the Bible know it, isn't it?
It's that Nathan comes and tells, who's a prophet, and tells David a story about a man who just had one little sheep.
And how this rich king came and killed the sheep.
And, you know, didn't use any of his own sheeps, but basically stole this one sheep of this poor person and killed it.
And David gets enraged and says, that man should die.
And then there's this famous line, Nathan says to the king, you are that man.
And it's very, very convicting.
This story here is a bit of both.
And one of the ways to understand the story is it's not saying that, by the way, that, I don't know, you know, Eve's walking around.
The snake says one thing.
She says something back.
He says something.
She says something.
He says something.
She says something.
And that takes you about, I don't know, like 15 seconds.
She eats the apple.
It's not an apple.
Eats the fruit.
Wham.
Who knows?
This interaction could have taken place over hours or weeks.
There's no sense of that.
It's on one hand like the story of Nathan confronting David with the story of the sheep.
To try to communicate the historical thing that David actually did to bring it home to him in a very, very powerful way.
And so in many ways, this story is more like that.
It's describing something that happened that's real.
But it's introducing symbolism and imagery and language that's compressed.
And let me tell you, I, every day this week, when I was reading this text and memorizing it, I would have to stop my preparation.
And I know this is saying more about me than it is about other people because my brain isn't very big.
But I would feel like my brain was going to explode because there's so much in this text.
And I would have to stop preparing because I would just have to say, God, there is so much.
I didn't say God in a swear word.
I mean, I'm actually talking to God.
And I said, Lord, there is so much.
I feel like my head is going to explode.
My heart is going to explode.
And God in his wisdom compresses whatever it is that really happens into this very short, in five verses, the interaction.
And in one verse, the fall and the beginning of death, sin and death and tragedy.
And then in a few verses, the beginning of a sense of how God graciously responds in simple language that you could read to a child and they would understand.
It's a brilliant piece of writing.
And it's more like, you are the man.
That's how it's written.
But it's describing something real.
The other thing by this, by the way, is this story is part of a big story in the Bible.
And the big story in the Bible is that God makes all things good.
Then evil arises in his created order.
And then God promises he's going to deal with it.
And then he deals with it in the person of his son.
Then we live in a time of the already not yet knowing that God is going to bring all things to a proper end.
And then comes the very end.
It's part of an overarching big story.
So the serpent, as illus, is brought into this.
And it's not really made clear who he is until you actually get to the book of Isaiah.
And you get to the book of Ezekiel.
And most of all, until you get to Jesus.
But you see the consequences of the act in a very powerful way very, very quickly.
So let's read verse 1 again now, okay?
Okay, hopefully, you know, you're with me.
The time out has come.
Okay, we have a talking serpent.
It's a very powerful image, isn't it?
Now, the serpent, verse 1, was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
Just, by the way, one of these things.
I didn't know this until I did my language research.
The word crafty in the original language sounds almost the same as naked in the original language.
So the previous story ends with the man and the woman being naked, but unashamed and embarrassed and unafraid.
And so this, the way this is written, the writer is saying, I'm telling you a brand new story, but in a very, very subtle way.
If you were listening to it in the original language and you hear the two words which are almost identical, but just slightly different, you see that the story is tying the two of them together.
And so now the serpent was more crafty or shrewd than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
This is really, really, really big.
If you could put the first point up, that would be great.
Evil is not equal to God's goodness.
And God did not create evil.
I mean, there's, you know, one of the problems with Hindu thought.
It's not that Hindu thought is immoral.
Hinduism teaches many, like, very common moral things that is just part of the common moral teaching and understanding of humanity.
But one of the problems with Hindu thought is how you ultimately accept that there is, in fact, a real difference between good and evil.
Because at the end of all things, there's just God.
There's just God.
And there's just oneness.
And it's actually sort of a challenge for Hinduism when you probe into it.
And if that's what the real reality is, that there's just one with no difference and no distinction, how do you make clear the distinction between good and evil?
And there's other schools of thought that make it look almost as if good and evil are equal.
And it's very easy for us to want to try to blame God for evil.
But when it says here that the beast of the field that the Lord God had made, what we're seeing here is that it's not that somehow or another, whoever the serpent is,
and it's not going to become clearer until you start to read Isaiah and you start to read Ezekiel and you start to read what Jesus has to say.
And then you start to read the apostles who've learned from Jesus.
And then you see in the book of Revelation and you see the carrying on of the images and you see the deepening of the teaching.
And it's not going to be very clear right now who it is and what exactly it is that the serpent is.
But what's going to be very, very clear is that the serpent isn't somehow equal to God.
And what's going to be seen here is that it isn't as if somehow there's this separate force of evil that's just the same as God that somehow invades God's good creation.
There is a type of invasion here.
But what the text is making clear is that all things that exist were made.
And what you're seeing here is that the beginning of evil and the beginning of sin comes from the very creatures that God had made.
That the serpent and the power behind the serpent were made by God and that they were originally made as good and that Adam and Eve are made and they're originally made as good.
And that it's in these good things that God has made that out of these good things evil and the breaking of creation is going to come out of the creatures.
And it's the beginning of a long type of reflection that you can have.
But the text by saying in these very, very simple words that the serpents made, and we already know that Adam and Eve are made,
then we're going to see that when this first act of evil and rebellion happens,
and the things which lead up to it, is it comes from the made things, not God.
And if it comes from made things, not God, then it's not equal to God's goodness.
God didn't create evil.
In fact, we're going to see that from the very entrance of evil into the created order,
that God is going to act with justice and opposition to evil, but also with great grace and mercy and compassion
without any compromise to his justice and his opposition to evil.
So read it again.
You know, at this rate, it's going to be 13 verses, 15 minutes.
You can do the math.
It's going to be a two-hour sermon.
No, we'll go a little bit quicker.
Read verse 1 again.
Now, what did God actually say?
So, if you're like me, most of us just can't instantly remember what God said,
but just look, it's probably on the same page, just look at chapter 2, verse 7.
If you look at chapter 2, verse 7 through 9, you get to see what God says.
And then in verses 15 and 16, look what it says.
So verse 7,
Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the bread of life,
and the man became a living creature.
It's a description of the creation of Adam, the second creation story, as it's called.
Verse 8,
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
also by implication in the midst of the garden.
And just go down to verse 15 and 16.
So by the way, just before you get further,
the Bible doesn't actually talk much about the tree of life until it gets to the New Testament.
It's sort of, it's mentioned very briefly at the end of Genesis 3.
We'll look at that in a couple of weeks.
But the, it doesn't touch much about it.
But in terms especially of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it's just a tree.
It's not a magical tree.
It's not a tree that has particular powers.
It's just a tree.
And that's going to be very, very important.
The thing about, the thing about the tree isn't that somehow the tree is magical or special,
that the fruit is somehow special in and of itself.
It's going to be an opportunity.
The tree is just an opportunity for God to give the human beings, Adam and Eve,
a simple command that they are to obey.
They don't have to learn the Westminster Catechism.
They don't have to learn the Heidelberg Catechism.
They don't have to memorize the whole book of Psalms.
They have one tree, one simple command.
And you can't have love without freedom.
And the way that they show that they love the Lord and that they're free
is to follow one simple command.
That's all it is.
Look at verse 15 and 16.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it.
And the Lord commanded the man, saying,
You may surely eat of every tree of the garden.
Notice that?
You may surely eat of every tree of the garden.
And the implication is, listen,
you know, there's thousands, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of trees,
different type of fruit.
Adam, I love you.
I've provided for you.
The fruit is delicious.
Eat as much as you want, whenever you want,
as varied as you want.
Come on in.
Eat to your heart's content.
That's what it means by saying surely.
You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
you shall not eat.
One tree.
Thousands or hundreds of thousands of trees,
you can eat.
Eat as much as you want.
One tree, only one tree.
Don't eat of it.
And what does it say?
For in the day that you eat of it,
you shall surely die.
So let's go back to what the serpent says to Eve.
He says to the woman,
the second part of verse one,
Did God actually say,
You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
Notice that?
By the way,
so much temptation in our life,
and so much problem comes by,
that's a very simple thing.
Did God actually say?
You know, like,
when we're having,
when I'm having discussions,
you know,
around maybe issues around,
you know,
it's easy when you're having conversations
with people around slavery being evil,
because Christians and our secular society,
we all agree that slavery is evil, right?
And there's,
you know,
it's very easy to have a conversation around,
I don't know,
like political oppression,
or torture,
or,
you know,
profound economic injustice.
Like,
it's very easy to have conversations with our friends,
because what our culture says,
and what the Bible says,
we're saying the same type of thing.
But when you get to things where our culture differs from the Bible,
and then you get talking to Christians,
or people just trying to figure out the Christian faith,
who are trying to get around it,
like it almost always comes up,
did God actually say?
Like,
did God actually say?
Isn't that just like a bit of a cultural thing
that you don't have to follow anymore?
Like,
isn't that just a narrative device?
Like,
isn't that just like a bit of a mythological thing?
Did God actually say?
Like,
this is as new
as the most recent class
in theology or spirituality.
And it's as new
and as current
as our most recent conversation.
Did God actually say?
And notice,
he gets it all wrong.
He basically wants to say to Eve,
did God actually say,
you can't eat any of these trees?
Like,
whoa,
what a weird God.
Like,
you're pretty in the midst of all these trees.
God's weird,
isn't he?
You know,
the other thing that he does here,
which is harder to know,
I didn't know this until I looked at
and did my language studies.
Notice in verse,
the first part of verse one,
it says,
Lord God.
And in the second part,
it just says God.
You know why that's significant?
That Lord and God put together.
God is in a sense,
the general word
that if they had been talking
abstractly about God
to Egyptians
or to Hittites
or Assyrians,
they could use this general word for God.
That's the word God.
But Lord
is a relationship word.
it's a little bit like,
you know,
every one of my children
at some point in time,
they,
when they were very young,
at a certain age,
all of them would start calling me George.
And I would have a conversation with them.
I would say,
there's seven billion people on the planet
who can call me George.
There's only,
let's say,
with my last kid,
there's only nine people
in the entire planet
of seven billion
who can call me dad.
dad.
And you're one of them.
So call me dad.
And Lord
is more like dad.
It's a relationship word.
It's an intimate word.
But notice what the serpent does.
He uses the abstract word,
the distant word,
the generic word,
rather than the personal word for God.
You know,
this is so true of me.
One of my problems
in my Christian life
is I start to think
more and more
that God's an abstraction.
abstraction.
It's one of the ways
that I make God more distant
when he becomes
an abstraction to me,
a generality to me,
an argument to me.
And we see that right here.
The serpent says,
abstraction,
not dad,
not the personal name,
but the abstraction.
And notice how Eve responds.
See,
and this is all the way
through the story.
So how does Eve
going to respond?
First of all,
if you read Genesis 2,
Eve should actually say,
you know,
you're not talking true of God
and part of my job
is to protect this garden
so that only true
and honorable things of God
are said,
so you need to leave.
That's what she actually
should have said.
But what does she say instead?
Verse 2,
and the woman said
to the serpent,
we may eat of the fruit
of the trees
in the garden.
And by the way,
she admits the word surely.
She's saying,
yeah,
yeah.
God sort of lets us
to have the odd bite
of a grape or an apple.
Like she's left out
his provision,
like his throwing open
his arms and say,
eat to your heart's content.
She doesn't say
to the serpent,
he said,
I can eat of every tree
in the garden
except one
to my heart's content.
Instead,
she says,
yeah,
I'm allowed to eat
the odd bit of fruit.
You know,
isn't that so true
of your life?
I'm just speaking here
to Christians.
You know,
isn't that so true
that it's so easy
for me to start,
for you and me
to start forgetting
how good God is?
Like,
I remember,
this is quite a few years ago,
I was really,
really down
about how much money
I had.
Okay?
And then it was
one of those times
as if God spoke to me
and said,
George,
have you ever missed a meal?
Have you ever had a night
where,
you know,
apart from times
you might voluntarily
have gone out
to sleep under the stairs,
have you ever had a night
that you haven't had clothes
or roof over your head
or no food?
And I said to God,
so to speak,
that's never happened
to me once, God.
And it was as if
he said back to me,
he said,
what are you complaining about?
Like,
rather than me
waking up every day
and thinking,
God,
there's another day
where I breathe,
and thank you
that my mind,
it's not the best mind
in the world,
but it still works.
And thank you
that I had a good night's sleep
and thank you
that I can live
in a safe city
and thank you
that there's food
for me waiting
to eat in a few moments
and thank you
for the,
rather than counting
my blessings,
so many times
in my life
I don't count
my blessings
but start to think
that somehow
God is cheap.
You know,
that's what she does
right here.
Say it again,
and the woman said
to the servant,
we may eat of the fruit
of the trees
in the garden,
but God,
and she uses
the abstract word,
not the personal word,
said,
you shall not eat
of the fruit
of the tree
that is in the midst
of the garden,
neither shall you
touch it,
lest you die.
She added something
to God's word.
By the way,
by the way,
right here you see
the heart
of all religion
and spirituality.
You know,
if you're here
and you're a Jewish person,
I don't want to offend you,
but the Bible
actually doesn't say
that you can't eat
meat and dairy
in the same meal.
Actually doesn't say that.
It just says
you can't take
the calf
and kill the calf
and cook it
in its mom's milk.
What does religion do?
It wants to add to it.
And that's what religion
and spirituality does.
You see,
on one hand,
it makes God
more harsh,
and the other hand,
it makes him seem
like he's distant,
and the other hand,
it wants to add
to God's word
to add rules on it
because God isn't smart enough
to add enough rules,
so our church
has to make up God.
You screwed up, God.
Like,
you should have said
more no's.
So because you forgot
because you screwed up,
we're going to add
the no's you missed
because we're like God.
One moment,
that's the fall.
That's Genesis 3.
That's sin.
Let's just hope
we don't remember that
because we can't read
Genesis 3
because there's
a talking serpent.
And we're really
sophisticated
and smart
and wise
and cultured
and all that
type of stuff.
And it forgets
lest you surely die.
Like,
she's messed everything up.
Verse 4,
but the serpent said
to the woman,
you will not surely die.
In other words,
God's wrong.
You're not going to die.
And then he says,
for God knows
that when you eat of it,
your eyes will be opened,
and you will be like God,
knowing good and evil.
You know,
basically,
it's just this blatant thing,
God's wrong.
Don't trust me.
I mean,
in other words,
don't trust God.
Trust me.
I'm smarter than God.
I know better.
You know,
you know,
this might sound like
it's something that
when it's put so blatantly,
nobody believes it.
But let me tell you,
when I was in university,
like 100 million years ago,
just after they invented
the fire and the wheel,
if you went to university,
there were constant,
constant things
about Marxism
and Christianity
because Christianity
wasn't good enough
in and of itself.
we had to learn from Marx
or you had to have
different things
about science
and Christianity
because guys like B.F. Skinner,
they have to correct the things
because God's word
isn't adequate enough.
And now you might have to be
a feminist and a Christian
or queer and a Christian
or postmodern and a Christian.
And we don't actually go
from this text
to realize
that what they're saying here
is that I need to listen
to a French guy
or I need to listen
to Germaine Greer
or I need to listen to Marx
and I need to listen to Jesus
because the fact of the matter
is that it's the,
you know, Jesus,
I ultimately trust the Bible.
There's several reasons for it,
but at the end of the day,
I trust it because I believe
that Jesus really rose
from the dead.
And he trusted the Bible
and he told me
to trust the Bible
and you know what?
If he can rise from the dead,
he tells everybody
he's going to die,
he's going to rise from the dead,
he rises from the dead
and vindicates who he is
and Marx didn't do that.
Nobody else did that.
I'm going to trust Jesus.
So here in verse 4,
the serpent just says,
this is what I say.
I say something different
than God, believe me.
Verse 5,
for God knows
that when you eat of it,
your eyes will be opened
and you will be like God.
You will be like God.
You will be like God,
knowing good and evil.
In verse 6,
so the woman,
when the woman saw
that the tree was good for food,
that it was a delight to the eyes
and that it looked like
the type of tree
that would make you wise.
And here the word for wise
means give you practical power.
That's what it means.
Practical power.
That's what I want.
I want effective power.
You know,
that's what I want.
Not just,
oh, you know,
these are some really good ideas
or some insights.
I want power.
Practical power.
Because I want to be like God.
She took the fruit
and ate.
And she also gave some
to her husband
who was with her.
And he ate.
Could you put up
the next point,
Adam?
I mean, Andrew?
In Adam's fall,
even though it mentions
Eve primarily,
it's interesting
that the Bible primarily
puts the obligation
for the fall on Adam.
That's a whole other sermon
as to why that is.
Part of it,
I think,
is actually is that
while Eve was
getting confused
by the serpent,
Adam just did it.
He just did it.
I'm going to do it.
There's other reasons,
but it's a whole other sermon.
But if I'm going to help you
read the Bible,
I have to put it this way.
If I put it another way,
I'm actually not helping you
read the Bible.
And at the end of the day,
I want you to be able
to read the Bible
for yourself.
In Adam's fall,
I did not become evil.
I was in a conversation
with somebody
a couple of weeks ago,
and he said to me,
you know,
George,
I think people are evil.
Like,
are you evil?
I'm evil too.
I think people are evil.
Isn't that what
the Bible teaches?
And I said,
that's not what
the Bible teaches.
That's not what this text
is going to teach us.
In Adam's fall,
I did not become evil.
I became bent and broken
from my highest heights
to my deepest depths
with nothing left untouched.
You see,
human beings still have heights.
Listen to Bach.
What a creative genius.
Read Pascal's Ponses.
Read some really
excellent literature.
Look at the paintings
of Michelangelo
or
Van Gogh
or
just
human beings
have heights.
And we also have depths.
Both depths
in a bad sense,
but depths
in a good sense.
Why is it
that I can be married
to the same woman
for
almost 36 years
and there's still
more to know?
Human beings
have depths.
And what the Bible says
is that we don't become evil,
we don't lose our heights,
we don't lose our depths,
but that there's nothing
in me that hasn't
in some way
be touched by the fall,
that in some way
is bent.
And it's not sort of
bent in such a way
that I can still use it perfectly,
it's bent in such a way
that it's broken.
If you put up the next way
to put the same type
of idea, please.
Each and every human being
is bent and broken
by an ongoing desire
to be God.
I thought about
putting a God,
but I thought,
no, no, no,
you know,
I'm going to leave it
like that because,
you know,
some of us
just want to be God.
Some of us
are sure to content
to share Godness
with our wife
or something
or our best buddy.
There can be two gods,
you know?
Some of us want
to have our party,
like the Nazis
were quite happy
to have the German people
be the gods
and everybody else not,
you know?
But
every human being
is bent and broken
by an ongoing desire
to be God.
So for each
and every person,
only the true
and living God
can rescue
and help them.
That's what's going
to become so obvious
in the text.
By the way,
the Jewish people
don't believe in the fall
as a general rule.
It's something that
developed later
in Judaism
and especially
with Christianity,
it became to full flowers.
It became clear
and clear.
I mean,
some Jews believe it,
but it's not necessarily
a characteristic
of Jewish thought.
But what this text
is saying is
if in fact
every human being,
it's not just talking
about something
that Adam did,
but that I also have
this ongoing desire
to be God
that I need to die to.
And if I have
this ongoing desire
to be God,
even after I have
been saved,
I have an ongoing
desire to be God.
And if not only
I have an ongoing
desire to be God,
but I'm also bent
and broken,
then I can never
leave my bentness
or my brokenness
or my desire
to be God
to fix myself,
it brings me
to the point
of realizing
that unless God
does something,
I am doomed.
Only God
can do something.
Only God,
and only if he has
mercy and power,
he needs to do something
because I cannot
do it myself.
And we see it
right here
in the story,
how God
begins almost
immediately,
it's very,
very interesting.
How is God
going to respond
to this?
And some of you
might be saying,
well,
it's really,
really mean of God
to sort of cause
all of this human
beings,
like,
why did he go
ahead and say,
okay,
Adam,
Eve,
you did this,
wham,
I'm going to
bang you with
my hammer,
and I'm going to
bang you with
my hammer,
so now you're
bent and broken,
and it's all
because God
is mean.
If he had just
been a little bit
more patient,
not banged me
with his hammer,
then I wouldn't
be bent and broken,
and I wouldn't need
mean,
and maybe he's
a little bit angry.
There was a few
years ago,
a guy who used
to come to the
church,
I get an email
on a Monday
morning,
he just called
me like 20
names,
all bad,
and a whole
pile of anger.
I said to my
wife,
this must be
one of those
emails where
he was really
mad,
he fired off
the email,
and he should
have waited,
because I looked
at it on Monday,
but he sent it
right after church.
So I talked to
him a little few
days later,
and I began
trying to be
gracious by saying,
you know,
I almost said
the guy's name,
we'll call him
Bob.
You know,
Bob,
that's probably
one of those
emails where
you think about
it,
and afterwards
you realize
you shouldn't
send it.
And he said
to me,
no,
I did think
about it for
a while,
I'm in every
word,
I'm not
taking a
word back.
I thought,
whoa,
this is going
to be an
interesting
conversation.
But that's
not what went
on here in the
text.
Look at what
happens with
God,
look at
verse 7.
God doesn't
do anything to
them.
They broke
and bent
themselves.
the words
of judgment
from God
are going
to come
in when
we look
at this
text in a
couple of
weeks after
Easter,
verse 14.
He does
nothing in
judgment.
Adam and
Eve broke
and bent
themselves
by their
act.
Like,
this is
very,
this is
very powerful.
And what
you're going
to see,
you're going
to see,
it's going
to get
unraveled.
You're going
to start
seeing the
human life
unraveling in
the rest of
the story.
And then in
Genesis 4,
which we're
going to look
like in
four weeks,
you see then
all of a
sudden murder
enters in.
You see that
sin grows and
spreads.
And then you're
going to see
that polygamy
enters in and
more murder and
proud claims
against God.
And it just
starts with this
one little thing
that at the
end of chapter
two,
Adam and
Eve are what
we ultimately
truly in a
heart of
hearts just
long for,
that we
could just
be open,
that we
could be
transparent,
that we
could just
be open
and transparent
with ourselves,
we could be
open and
transparent with
others,
we could be
open and
transparent with
God,
and that there
wouldn't be
anything within
us of shame
or of guilt
or of deception
or of masks
or of keeping
people at a
distance,
that we would
just be right
from the depths
of our being
to our heights,
that there would
just be an
openness and a
transparency before
each of us,
but all of a
sudden,
when they take
this,
I am naked.
I am naked
because the fact
of the matter is,
if I want to
actually become and
think that I'm
equal to God,
I don't know,
I'm pretty puny,
and I want to
be, all of a
sudden, I'm
naked.
And it's not
like they don't
respond by saying,
I need God's
mercy, oh,
Lord God,
I've just called
you God, but oh,
Lord, what have I
done?
I need your mercy,
help me, I've
broken myself,
but they want to
hang on to that
desire to be God,
and if you
desire to be
God and you
are made of
dust, then your
very existence
witnesses against
you and you
feel naked.
God still sees
them perfectly
and clearly.
His sight has
not been affected
by their act,
but they cannot
bear his sight.
And Adam wants
to be God and
so does Eve want
to be God and
they cannot bear
each other's sight
and nakedness is
now a problem and
God has done
nothing.
They've broken
themselves.
And look how God
reacts in verse
eight.
Does he want to
say, does he
say, whoa, the
thunderbolt goes
down, whoa, I'm
going to grab you
and shake you, I'm
going to do
something because
I'm so mad at
you.
But what is his
words are the
first words to
fallen human
beings?
It's in verse
eight.
And they heard
the sound of the
Lord God walking
in the cool of the
day.
By the way, the
cool of the day
really means the
breeze of the day.
It means he's
come with the
Holy Spirit.
And he's walking
with the Holy Spirit
moving in the trees,
moving in the faces,
moving where they're
hiding.
He comes to them
and the man and
his wife hid
themselves from the
presence of the
Lord.
And the word
presence can also
mean the word
face.
They don't want to
see his face.
They hide from his
face.
I hide from the
face of God.
I have a deep
addiction.
On one hand, I
long for the day
when I can look at
the face of God
and stand before
him naked and
unashamed, clothed
in the righteousness
of Christ.
At the same time, I
have a deep
addictive fear of
the face of God
and being naked
before him.
And my life as a
Christian is caught
in the dynamics of
these two desires
and longings.
And the work of
grace is to both
fan in a flame
within us a longing
and a yearning for
that day when we
can stand before
God face to face
unashamed.
And the same work
of grace and power
of the Holy Spirit
and power of the
word of God is to
call me day by day
to die to my
desires and my
addictions to hide
from the face of
God.
Read verse 8
again.
And they heard the
sound of the Lord
God walking in the
garden in the cool
of the day.
And the man and
his wife hid
themselves from the
presence of the
Lord God, the face
of the Lord God
among the trees of
the garden.
But the Lord God
called out to
the man and said,
where are you?
Where are you?
Could you put up
the next point,
please?
This is really,
really important.
It's a matter of
tone.
In grace and mercy,
the Lord God came
to draw Adam and
Eve out of hiding.
He did not come to
drive them deeper
into hiding.
Even the hardest
parts of God's
word.
God said, is God
the shepherd of
our souls calling
to his lost
sheep to come
home?
He never said,
even his hardest
teaching is a
call to know
who we are before
God in our heart
of hearts and to
come to him and
to stop hiding.
This is the
shepherd looking
for his lost
sheep.
This is the woman
in the parables of
Jesus looking for
her lost coin.
Where are you?
And the man said,
I heard the sound
of you in the
garden and I was
afraid because I
was naked and I
hid myself.
He doesn't come
out of the trees.
He doesn't come
to God.
He stays hidden.
But he calls
back.
He's now afraid
of God.
Not a holy fear,
but he's just
afraid of God.
His rival.
How can I be a
rival to the
one who holds
this unbelievably
vast galaxy in
existence?
How can I be the
rival to that?
To him?
And God then
says, doesn't say,
oh, you're so
stupid.
I hate you.
I want to break
you.
I want to beat
you up.
No, what has
God said?
Another question.
Who told you
that you were
naked?
Have you eaten
of the tree of
which I commanded
you not to eat?
The man said,
now note this.
The man doesn't
say, God, can I,
I really need
your help.
Can I come, can
I come out of
hiding?
Can you fix me?
Lord, it is
just, it is just
so sad.
I just did it.
I just did it
because I wanted
to be God
and I know it's
wrong.
But what does
the man say?
The woman whom
you gave me,
this is your
fault.
It's the woman's
fault and it's
your fault.
If it wasn't for
you and it wasn't
for her,
everything would
be fine.
you see the
breakdown of
relationships,
the fear,
the accusation
now against
God, the
blasphemy
against God,
the slander,
the accusation
against God,
the accusation
against the
woman,
the fall
grows.
Look at
verse 10
again.
Verse 11,
who told you
that you were
naked?
Have you eaten
of the tree
of which I
commanded you
not to eat?
The man said,
the woman whom
you gave to
be with me,
she gave me
the fruit and
I ate.
Then the
Lord God,
notice here that
when God
reappears back
to Lord God,
even his name,
all the way
through his
speaking to
them,
his name,
he hasn't
changed his
name.
He's the
God who
desires to
be in
relationship
with them.
Verse 13,
then the
Lord God
said to the
woman,
what is this
that you
have done?
And the
woman doesn't
say,
oh,
Lord,
please help
me.
Please,
please help
me.
What does
she say?
The serpent
deceived me.
It's the
serpent's
fault.
And I
ate.
Boy,
you know,
doesn't this
describe our
life and our
existence today,
the beginning
and how it
is?
You know how
hard it is to
make an
apology?
Most of us
don't make
apologies,
we make
excuses,
where we
try to
bowl our
way out of
things.
It's so
true.
So here,
just,
oh,
I've gone
way,
here,
just in
closing,
can you put
up the
last point?
Only Jesus
Christ,
only Jesus
Christ
turns take
and eat
from a
reminder of
sin,
shame,
and death
to a
reminder of
salvation,
grace,
and eternal
life.
Look at
verse 6
again.
How does it
describe what
the woman
did?
the verbs?
She took,
she takes
the fruit,
she eats,
and she
gives,
and he
eats,
and evil
enters the
world.
Turn to
Matthew
chapter 26.
And in
Matthew
chapter 26,
verses 26
to 29,
look how
Jesus speaks
when he
institutes the
Lord's
Supper,
Holy Communion.
And in
here,
what Jesus
is doing
is Jesus
knows that
he's about
to die on
the cross,
that his
death upon
the cross
is the
long-foretold
promise that
God has
made that
he was
going to
make things
right himself.
And so,
his son
is going
to die
upon the
cross,
and his
death upon
the cross
is going
to be the
means by
which we
can be
made right
with God
if we
receive it
by faith.
And he's
instituting
the Lord's
Supper so
that we
remember
what Jesus
did for us
on the
cross,
that every
time we
celebrate
communion,
on one
hand,
it is like
Americans
doing the
Pledge of
Allegiance.
When we
receive
communion,
it is us
making our
pledge of
allegiance to
the one
who has
redeemed us.
When we
receive the
Lord's
Supper,
we are
reminding
ourselves
that we
need a
Savior,
that only
God can
have mercy
on us
and rescue
us and
start to
restore us.
And it
is renewing
our covenant
with Almighty
God and
remembering what
Jesus has
done for us
on the
cross.
And just
as Eve,
in this
story,
she takes
and she
eats,
so Jesus,
when he's
about to
institute this
new covenant
meal,
that people
will understand
after his
death and
his resurrection
what it is
that he has
done for them
on the cross,
that they are
to receive
by faith,
that is for
the worst
sinner or
the person
who hardly
thinks they've
saved at all,
that every
single human
who puts
their faith
and trust
in Jesus,
he will
turn no
one away,
he will
accept you
as his
child,
he will
make you
his child
by adoption
and grace,
he will
clothe you
with the
righteousness
of Christ,
he will
begin to
restore you
and to
heal you
and to
fit you
for the
new heaven
and the
new earth
that we
receive by
faith and
this meal
reminds us
and how
does Jesus
describe it?
Now as
they were
eating,
Jesus took
bread and
after blessing
it,
broke it
and gave
it to the
disciples and
said,
take,
eat,
this is my
body.
And he
took a
cup and
when he
had given
thanks,
he gave
it to
them saying,
drink it
of it,
all of you,
for this
is my
blood of
the new
covenant,
which is
poured out
for many
for the
forgiveness
of sins.
Only
Jesus Christ
turns take
and eat
from a
reminder of
sin,
shame,
and death
and turns
it into a
reminder when
we receive it
by faith,
him by
faith,
of salvation,
grace,
and eternal
life.
Please stand.
I'm going
to invite you
to join
with me in
a prayer.
If you
could put
it up.
I think
it's going
to take
two slides.
If the
Lord has
pressed upon
your heart,
your need
for a
Savior,
for some
of you,
maybe this
is going
to be a
conversion
prayer because
it ends,
it begins
with confession
but it
ends with
acknowledging
who Jesus
is and
you're asking
him,
Jesus,
to be his
disciple.
But for
all of us,
we need,
this is just,
this scripture
text,
it's just a
way of
praying the
reality of
this text
and our
recommitment
to Jesus
as Savior
and Lord
because I
have this
ongoing desire
to be God
and I need
to regularly
come to
Jesus,
thankful that
he has done
everything I
need to do
to make me
right with
God and I
need to continue
to deal with
that part of
me that's
just not
right so
that I can
be more like
Jesus.
In a few
minutes we're
going to have
the Lord's
Supper and
we will take
and eat.
If you're a
Christian you
will take
and eat and
remember what
Jesus did for
you on the
cross.
But I invite
you to say
this prayer
with me.
Loving God,
I confess to
you that I
flatter myself
too much to
detect or
hate my own
sin.
I confess to
you that I
am good at
finding specks in
other people's
eyes and bad
at seeing the
log in my
own eye.
I confess
that I too
easily make
you less
generous and
more harsh as
I forget your
word.
Thank you for
Jesus Christ
and his death
for me on the
cross.
Thank you that
in him my
sins are
forgiven.
I am clothed
with his
perfect life.
I am born
again to new
life.
I become your
child forever
by adoption
and grace.
Please make
me a disciple
of Jesus
gripped by
the gospel,
guided by
your word,
and living
for your
glory.
In Jesus'
name,
Amen.
Father,
pour out
your Holy
Spirit upon
us and bind
this prayer
to our hearts
that it might
be true today
and every day
until we see
you face to
face.
And Father,
may the work
of your Holy
Spirit so work
within us and
prepare us that
the words of
the psalm will
be true in
our lives one
day.
that all
that is within
us blesses
your Holy
Name as
we see you
face to face.
In Jesus'
name we pray.
Amen.