Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.cccharlotte.org/sermons/28479/genesis-31-13/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] You can all turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 3. We've come as far as the creation story, Adam and Eve, living it up in paradise.

[0:12] And now we go from generation, Genesis beginning to the crash, to degeneration. But eventually there'll be regeneration, right?

[0:23] So we're going to read chapter 3, verses 1 through 13. We're going to look at this in two parts. We could spend about six weeks in Genesis 3. We're not going to because there's so much foundational stuff here for our faith.

[0:38] We're going to kind of take it in two parts. Genesis 3, just kind of looking at two voices. There's two primary voices in this chapter. And this week we're going to look at the failure in the fall.

[0:49] And then next week we'll look at the blessing and the curse. So this is kind of the downer. But it'll end on a good note because it always ends on a good note in Christ. But this is kind of, we go from paradise to paradise lost.

[1:03] But let's read, starting Genesis chapter 3, verse 1. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

[1:19] And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

[1:32] And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die? For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

[1:47] And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. And she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

[2:02] And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

[2:15] And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou?

[2:26] And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked?

[2:37] Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

[2:48] And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

[2:59] Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for this picture put in front of us, Lord. As we've been looking at the creation account, obviously there's a whole lot more that could have been told.

[3:11] But Lord, this is what you wanted to reveal regarding creation, Lord. These seven days and how they were laid out. You wanted to reveal that to man. You wanted to reveal your heart behind that.

[3:22] And Lord, now as we go into this account of the fall, and as we bring in Adam's perspective, as he's writing it down from memory and passing it on, Lord, as we're seeing what's been brought out by your Holy Spirit out of that account, Lord, it's hard to take, because these are our people.

[3:41] But Lord, we can see ourselves there, too. That we start so high and we can go so low, Lord, with just one choice. But thank you so much, Jesus, that you have come and that you've given us life.

[3:53] And I pray that as we look at your word today, the life that is there would jump off the pages to us. So speak to us through your word. Let it be your voice that we hear and yours alone. In Jesus' name, amen.

[4:06] All right, so we have Adam and Eve in the garden. It's not Eve yet. Actually, it's Adam and the woman. God did not name her Eve. That was something that Adam did.

[4:17] We'll see that later. And so as we look at verses 1 through 13, if you want, you can kind of break them down into an outline. Verses 1 through 5 is deceitful dialogue.

[4:29] And that's where Satan, the serpent, and the woman are interacting and talking back and forth. Verses 6 through 8, the choice is made. It's where they eat. And then verse 9 through 13, hiding in plain sight.

[4:42] They're trying to hide from the Lord. I was talking with Sue this week. I think I've read too many books with catchy titles to chapters.

[4:53] Because that's how my mind thinks now. And if you've ever watched any of the old Batman shows from the 60s, I think that did it too. Where they just use these ridiculous, catchy phrases and titles.

[5:06] But that's how my mind works. For me, it helps stick there. So this is what we think of very often when we think of Eve in the garden. I like this picture.

[5:17] She looks like some 1930s Hollywood movie star. And then that's what we think. The snake's in the tree. Well, according to the Bible, the snake doesn't become the snake that we know of that crawls on the ground until after the curse.

[5:30] And as I was studying this, that was the picture in my mind. They're right there at the tree. Satan's there. He's in the tree. He's tempting her. It never says they're at the tree. Eventually, she goes to it, of course, because she's going to eat from it.

[5:42] And it doesn't say he's in the tree. And actually, I don't think he is. And we'll look at that as we go. What's the point of that? Well, the point is, I think sometimes we think we can help the Lord by maybe making a picture of something or relaying something from Scripture that isn't actually what Scripture says, but it ends up being what sticks in our minds.

[6:06] And there's a danger in that, as we're going to see. But that's kind of our picture. And now that you've seen that picture, get it out of your heads. Because that's not what's going on. So, verse 1.

[6:20] So the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. Who is this serpent? It's a created being. It's not Satan. It's just saying that this creature, this serpent, was a subtle creature.

[6:33] And this is what Satan gravitated towards, though, because he's going to indwell this creature. Subtle, the word there, it means prudent. It means sly. And it means sensible. It's got a double meaning.

[6:44] It can be a good thing. Being prudent is a good thing. What does that mean? Prudent. Well, it's sensible. But you look at a situation, you understand it, and you take action on it. That would be wise.

[6:55] That would be sensible. Or you look at a situation, you take action on it. And it's not wise and sensible in a godly way, but in a sly way.

[7:06] In a way that you realize and you read the situation, and you're going to work it in a way that's either going to benefit you, or in a way that would be, as we're going to see with the serpent, just dastardly. So he's more subtle.

[7:19] Who's Satan? Well, we're going to turn to a few places, quickly, to look at who this guy is. I think we need to kind of get a background here, because this is our first introduction to him.

[7:30] He's all of a sudden in the garden. How'd he get there? Who is he? What's he doing there? If you turn to Ezekiel chapter 28, this is God's judgment upon the prince of Tyre.

[7:41] But behind that, he's also pronouncing a judgment on Satan. Chapter 28 of Ezekiel, verse 13. When the leaves stop rustling, I'll read.

[7:56] So God pronounces this to this prince of Tyre, but then all of a sudden he shifts, and he says this about him in verse 13. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God.

[8:11] Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardis, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold.

[8:22] The workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou was created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covers, and I have set thee so.

[8:34] Thou art the anointing of God. Thou art the anointing of the stones of fire. I like that. I have no idea what fire stones are. It's the first time I ever saw this in the Bible.

[8:45] But that's really cool. There are fire stones in heaven. And it was given for Satan, some specific Lucifer at the time, this cherub, a specific place where he walked in the midst, up and down, of the stones of fire, reflecting God's glory.

[9:00] Thou art perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created, till iniquity was found in thee. We're going to see the picture of Adam and Eve falling into sin.

[9:11] And it's going to make sense because we are after their kind. We are men. We are made of their flesh. It makes sense to us. I don't understand this whole angelic thing.

[9:23] How did they fall? They aren't redeemed. What is this choice they had? But there was iniquity that was found in Lucifer, in this cherub. Verse 16. And so here is this picture of this cherub, what he was given, created to do, and then iniquity was found in him.

[10:10] Because why? Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. He thought too much of himself. At some point in eternity past, Satan thought a little too highly of himself.

[10:22] If you turn over to Isaiah chapter 14, starting in verse 12. We're going to see, that was kind of the picture of who this dude was, what his purpose was, and what happened to him.

[10:37] We're going to see a little more about what was in his heart at the time. Isaiah 14, verse 12. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations?

[10:51] For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north.

[11:02] I will ascend above the heights of the cloud. I will be like the most high. Yet thou shall be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. And so in his heart, I, I, I, I will be like God.

[11:20] I will ascend above all of creation. But even Satan knew, even he knew that he could not be greater than the most high.

[11:31] I will be like the most high. And I think when man was created and God breathed into man and said, I have created him in my image. I made him like me.

[11:43] That Lucifer. I think that just tore him up at that point because he's already fallen. And then he sees God in his creation. Making man in his image.

[11:55] So there's this backdoor attempt he's going to make to be what he wants to be. To be like the most high. He's going to try and gain dominion over creation.

[12:08] What do we do as a people? Unfortunately, you know, we're on, we have two natures if we're in Christ. We have Adam's nature. We still bear the image and nature of Adam. As long as we are in this flesh and this creation, until God remakes us at the resurrection, we are still bearing the nature and image of Adam.

[12:25] But we have Christ. We're new in Christ. Completely new. A brand new nature we have. But so often we default to our old nature. How do we get ahead?

[12:37] How do we make ourselves feel better? Well, like Lucifer, I can't actually exalt myself. But I can put you down. If this is a level playing field and I can put you down, I all of a sudden feel a lot better about myself.

[12:49] I feel a lot higher. I cannot actually exalt myself. And then in Christ, what does he say? Right. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. Wow.

[13:00] That rubs against that old nature, doesn't it? And so that's who this serpent is, who Lucifer is. When it says the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made.

[13:10] And he said unto the woman. So this isn't the snake. This is what's being indwelt by the serpent. It's Lucifer. And he says unto the woman, yea, hath God said that you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

[13:28] Has God said that? Well, she doesn't react strangely. She doesn't be like, whoa, something's talking to me. This is crazy. What kind of interaction there was with angelic creatures before the fall? I don't know.

[13:39] But she's not surprised by this. She's not running from this. And also, if you think, how long has creation been going since Adam and Eve were created? How long have they been in the garden?

[13:49] That's a time of discovery, right? We've said it before. They were created with their faculties completely intact, full-formed and full-fledged adults with minds that were probably way beyond ours and what we could comprehend.

[14:02] But it doesn't mean God removed all of discovery. It doesn't mean that he's like, well, you know everything. That's not the case. So as she's learning more and discovering more, different animals, different plant life, you know, it's just a time where the Lord is probably delighting in his creation, in man, that they are delighting in what they find.

[14:20] And so, oh, here's this thing that's talking to her. Look, this is pretty cool. And so the woman then says unto him, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God says, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

[14:41] Is what she said true? Yes and no, right? If they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they will die. Why? First of all, why is she talking to this guy?

[14:53] Why is she listening to this guy? Is Adam with her? Where is he? Is he there? And she just enters into this interaction with him. And so as she interacts with him, the first thing he does is he turns God's word on its head, doesn't he?

[15:09] God came and said, eat of every tree of the garden. I've given you everything for the delight of the eye and for food. Just don't eat from that one. If you do, you'll die. Satan comes and says, well, has God really said you can't eat of every tree of the garden?

[15:24] It would be like if you went to a restaurant. And I said to you, you can eat of everything on the menu. Everything you want is here. Everything you could ever imagine. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, honey nut Cheerios.

[15:36] Everything you want is here, right? Eat them with milk. Eat them plain. I said, but just don't eat that thing right there. Because it's not good for you. And it'll kill you.

[15:48] You know, you'd go in the restaurant. This is great. And it's free. Just eat. Yeah. Who's going to be over there going? Yeah, it killed him.

[15:59] Right? No. But now what Satan does is he comes and says, has he really said that you can't eat of everything in here? Man, he's put restrictions on you. You can't have all this?

[16:11] What's up with that? He takes what God meant to be a blessing. He turns the blessing on its head and he shows you the restriction. What was the restriction there? You're going to die.

[16:21] Don't eat that. Stick with the Cheerios. Don't eat the poison. You're going to die. What was Eve even doing there? Proverbs tells us in chapter 5, verse 3 and 8, where Solomon is writing to his son.

[16:37] And as many times he talks about this. And he's like, don't go near this. This woman, the strange woman, the adulterer, the one who will lead you astray, that her only desire is to lead astray.

[16:48] And he says, remove your way far from her. Come not near the door of her house. Where was Eve? I don't know. Was she near the tree? If she was, she should not have been there.

[16:59] Get out. Why even near the thing? And then when she begins to talk with the serpent, her clue right away should have been, wait a minute. Wait a minute. What you're saying isn't true.

[17:10] I don't need to converse with you. Ephesians 4, 27 says not to give place to the devil. It means don't give him a seat at the table. Don't pick up the phone. Don't give place to him.

[17:21] And so Eve ends up being in conversation here with the devil. Romans 13, 14 tells us, put you on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the desire thereof.

[17:38] Make no provision. How do you make provision for the flesh? Well, there's a proximity that has to happen. Do not be in the proximity of sin. Solomon to his son.

[17:49] Don't go near her street, dude. Eve, here at the garden, don't go near that tree. I mean, if the thing that's going to kill you and disobey God's command is to eat it, just stay away from it.

[18:02] That's pretty easy. But Satan has a way of taking God's commands, taking what was simple and complicating it as we listen to him. As we continue on in the text here, the woman said, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden.

[18:20] True. That's a true word. And she's quoting scripture. We're going to see later in the way we respond to the enemy. One of the things we do is we recite. We recite scripture.

[18:30] That is true. What she said. But this isn't good. But of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden. God has said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

[18:44] Is that true? God didn't say that. God did not say that. Sometimes we think we can help the Lord. We think we can add to his word and that'll help.

[18:58] Right? We've all had parents, right, at one time. And your mom and dad, when you're a kid, they say to you, oh, don't do that. Well, why not?

[19:09] You know, especially, well, in context, growing up in a Christian home. My dad was principal of Christian school. I was in church a lot. I had a lot of people telling me what to do and not to do. I was like, well, don't do that.

[19:20] Why? It's bad. God doesn't like that. It makes God upset. Oh, okay. Is that true? Is God upset with me? Does God not like me?

[19:31] No, it's not true. Absolutely not true. It's a better way of saying it. Hey, this is what the scripture says. If you do that, that's going to result in pain for yourself.

[19:41] It's going to separate you from God. That's sin. God desires a relationship with you. He loves you. He doesn't want you to do that because it's not good for you. Instead, it's easier. I think I'm going to help God out by overemphasizing something that God didn't emphasize.

[19:56] And that creates a vulnerability. When we add to the word, it creates a vulnerability. And it allows truth, as the enemy does, to mix truth with a lie.

[20:07] And any truth that contains a lie is a lie by definition. And so Eve is adding to the word. You can't add paint to a masterpiece, can you?

[20:22] Adding to God's word will never increase its effectiveness. It will only water it down. Never increase its effectiveness. Because it then gives opportunity for the enemy to come in.

[20:33] There's a masterpiece, right? If I added paint to this masterpiece, can I make it any better? No. You can't make it any better by adding paint to it.

[20:45] Why? Because it changes what it is. It's no longer what it once was. You can try and add to it, and all you're going to do is deface it. And that's the same with the word of God.

[20:56] Deuteronomy 4.2 says, You shall not add unto the word which I command you. This is Moses speaking to the people. He's saying, the word I command you is God's word. Neither shall you diminish aught from it, that you may keep the commands of the Lord your God which I command you.

[21:11] In other words, if you add to this or take from it, it's no longer God's command you're keeping. And then you end up where the Pharisees end up. And Jesus says to them, You guys, you lay aside the commands of God that you may keep the tradition of men.

[21:24] What are you doing? You've added to the word. You've taken from the word because you thought you knew better than God. And at some point here, Eve, either Adam, you know, let's pick on Eve.

[21:35] I'm a guy. No. Either Adam did a really bad job of explaining to Eve the truth of this. You know, she's created. They're walking through the garden.

[21:47] He's like, I'm going to take you somewhere this morning. Oh, yeah, where are we going? We're going to go to the midst of the garden. Oh, okay. And they walk all the way into the midst. He said, you see that tree? Don't touch it. If you touch it, if you eat of it, you're going to die.

[22:01] Oh, okay. All right. Let's go and play with some animals. Right? Or she just didn't take it serious enough. Right? Everything's at her disposal. It's so small.

[22:12] It's just a stupid little tree. Whatever. You know, oh, right. That tree. What was it about that? Yeah. Don't touch it or eat it or I'll die.

[22:22] Or because she is a woman and God has built into women. They have greater feeling. You know, you could see her looking at that and going, oh, man. That's terrible.

[22:35] That's I don't want to die. Oh, we shouldn't even touch that. We might die. You know. Maybe your mom's done that to you before. Mom, I want to go here.

[22:47] Oh, careful. But overemphasizing. And what happens when we do that? When we take God's word, when we either add to it or we detract from it, it's no longer God's word.

[23:00] It's watered down. A truth that contains a lie is still a lie. Second Corinthians 11 3. But I fear less by any means, says Paul to the Corinthians, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the, what word is that?

[23:18] The simplicity that is in Christ. How hard was this command? God comes to Adam and says, Adam, you see that tree? That is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Okay, Lord.

[23:29] What was that tree, Adam? Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Right. Don't eat the fruit. If you do, you'll die. What's death, Lord? Death is separation. Separation from me. And you were created to be, have life in me and be fulfilled by me.

[23:42] And if you eat of that fruit, you'll die and you'll be separated from me. Oh, okay. I won't do that. Simple. The enemy comes and he makes it much more convoluted, doesn't he?

[23:56] He comes then to the woman. He presents this to her. If she had responded with the word of God, that would have shut him down, wouldn't it? But she gave him a vulnerability.

[24:08] She gave him an opening. And I was thinking through this because I was thinking, what is it? So, you know, my mind goes to that picture of the 1930s Hollywood movie star at the base of the tree with the snake.

[24:21] That's what I think of because I grew up in Sunday school and all that. And I'm so thankful for those foundations, those stories that were built into me because now my mind can go there and I understand the sequence.

[24:32] But when I was thinking about that, I was thinking, why did she eat? How did he deceive her? I don't understand. He came and said, did God say you can't eat of every tree?

[24:43] She said, no, we just can't eat of this one. How did he deceive her? And then it kind of is like the Lord just kind of showed me because when she said you can't eat of it, what is the way she phrases that?

[24:58] Eat it, neither shall you touch it. As soon as she said the word touch, Satan thought, I got her. I got her. Because whether they're at the tree or not, they then end up at the tree. And what does she do to eat it?

[25:10] She reaches out, she touches it, and she grabs it. And she doesn't die. Nothing changes. She's not separated from God. Everything's the same. God lied to me because I thought if I ate of this and touched it and ate of it, I would die.

[25:26] I didn't. God must be withholding something from me. So he deceived her. But he deceived her because of that vulnerability that she gave him, that openings that she gave through misunderstanding the word of God.

[25:38] And so then he says to her in verse 5, well, verse 4, he then directly contradicts God. After bringing in doubt, he then contradicts God.

[25:50] He says, For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw the tree was good for food, it was pleasant for the eyes, a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took.

[26:08] And there it is, the hook. He had her. She took the fruit thereof, and she didn't die because she believed the lie, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

[26:21] We'll get to Adam in a moment. The enemy's tactics. What did he use here? Disguise. Never the full picture. Never what it seems, right?

[26:31] He doesn't give the full picture. He didn't give what it seems. We're looking for a house right now. And in today's world, the technology and the things you can do, you know, with photography, you look at these pictures online, it's like, wow, that's huge.

[26:46] It's gorgeous. It's amazing. And you get there, and it's just nasty. And it's like so tiny, and there's nothing there. And they didn't show you that one angle that showed that neighbor.

[26:56] You only saw like the three sides. And it's never what it seems. It's a disguise. And the times where you do show up at a place like that, and it's what it seems, is very refreshing, isn't it? So Satan, he disguises.

[27:08] He turns the truth upside down. He took what God meant for a blessing, and he turned that truth upside down, didn't he? God says, you can have it all. Just don't do that one thing that's going to hurt you. Satan comes and says, God's restricting you.

[27:20] Man, God's a downer. He attacks vulnerabilities with doubt. He started with doubt in an area he knew she was vulnerable. He knew she did not fully grasp what God had said.

[27:31] So he begins to attack there. He makes the simple difficult. The very simple command of God. He turns it into us. By the time she's down to eating, I mean, she's like, what is going on?

[27:43] And this one I thought was interesting. He never leads. He always pushes. The difference between our good shepherd and the enemy. The enemy will always push you. Whenever you feel pushed or pressured, it's not the Lord.

[27:53] The Lord leads, and he does it gently. If you're being pushed, it's the enemy. Who didn't eat of the fruit in this story? Satan. The serpent didn't eat.

[28:04] He didn't go, hey, look, I ate and I'm good. And that's why I don't think he was in the tree. I think he was next to her. Like, hey, you go. You go do it. Go do it. Go, go, go. He's pushing.

[28:14] Go and eat of it. But he didn't go first. The Lord leads. Satan never leads into anything. He'll push you into everything. And then once you do it, he'll stand there and go, look what you did. Nowhere to be found.

[28:28] When God comes, and we'll look at that next week, and he curses the serpent, where was he? Where'd he go? He says, eat, and then he's gone. That's what the enemy does.

[28:39] And lastly, dialogue to deception. He will dialogue you to no end. Stop trying to think. You're never going to think it out in your own mind. You'll never think these problems through.

[28:50] You'll never dialogue them out. What are we supposed to do? Jesus says, come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden. So the enemy's voice, because we've got two voices here.

[29:01] The first voice, the primary voice we see first, is the voice of the serpent. The enemy begins with speaking questions, but he ends in blasphemy. He begins with doubt, but before we know it, we're deceived.

[29:16] Starts with desire. Oh, it's good. It's good. It says the enemy. But we end up in death. And he comes with, sounds like truth. You know, has God said?

[29:28] Well, God said something like that. But it ends in a lie. And so here is where Eve has now found herself, where she's been brought to. Why?

[29:40] Because she moved away from the simplicity. It's so simple. And God's commands in our life are so simple. But we overcomplicate them. We've been talking a little about that, right? On Wednesday night with Cornelius and Peter with prayer.

[29:52] It's not hard. You just go. You know, Jesus said that when you pray, enter into your closet and close the door and pray in secret. Your father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

[30:05] You know how hard it is to just go alone and close the door and pray? Well, I got things to do. Well. And then when you're there, it's like, you know, I don't know.

[30:16] Is this being effective? All you got to do is do it. Just do it. Just be there. We take something so simple and we overcomplicate it. I got to be in the right mood. It's got to be the right time of day. The right setting.

[30:27] The right music. The right light. The right people. Jesus always encourages us to come to him when we're at our worst moments, not our best. So all of his promises apply all across the board.

[30:41] Right now, Eve, or the woman, should have turned and hightailed it out of there and got at him. It says here, and this is the part where we'll come back to Adam.

[30:52] At the end of verse 6, it says, she gave also to her husband who was with her. That could mean two things. That could mean, like, the idea is almost like near. So I could say, hey, you know, Eddie and Cynthia live near me.

[31:07] Doesn't mean they're right next to me. Or I could say that my wife is standing near me, which means she's right next to me. It's possible. And it doesn't say for sure in the text.

[31:17] And I think God's giving us a picture both ways. Adam could have been standing there this whole time. He could have been standing there. She's dialoguing with the enemy. And you see the picture of that. How many men in their marriages are not taking up the place they should in relation to their wives and the enemy.

[31:34] Their wife is there. She's talking with the enemy. And he's just standing watching. He's not stepping in. He's not saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're not going to go this direction. When God pronounces a curse upon Adam, one of the things that he says to Adam that gives us a clue about his fault.

[31:50] Because all we see with Adam here is that he ate also. Well, what happened with him? Well, it tells us in verse 17 as part of the curse.

[32:01] And we're not going to look at the whole curse. But it just says, and unto Adam, God said, because you've hearkened unto the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree. So Adam's fall came by listening to a voice.

[32:14] Well, we said there's two voices. There are two primary voices. And there are. There's the serpent's voice, the enemy's and God's. But there's another voice in here, too. Adam listened to his wife.

[32:25] His wife listened to the enemy. Does not mean you don't listen to your wife, right? We know that. Abraham, at one point, is going to go to the Lord. And the Lord says, listen to your wife. What she says is of the Lord.

[32:35] But at this point, Adam is being tempted by his wife because she sees that it's pleasant to the eyes, a tree to be desired to make one wise.

[32:48] But the first hook that Satan gets with her is you shall know. You'll have knowledge. There's something God's withheld from you. You can have this.

[32:58] And today, unfortunately, it's the same way. The same lies being propagated. You need to know. You need education. Education will change the world. A couple quotes. You probably all know who this guy is.

[33:11] Nelson Mandela said, Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. Oprah Winfrey. God don't strike me with lightning. Phew.

[33:22] Education is the key to unlocking the world a passport to freedom. It's a lie. It's the same lie. And it's in the church. Oh, do you know everything that's going on today? Are you watching the news?

[33:33] You got your pulse on everything? Because if you don't, how are you going to be able to pray? How are you going to be able to see the signs? What did Jesus say? When you see these things begin to come to pass, get out your phones and sign up to every news feed.

[33:46] He said, Look up! Your redemption draws nigh. Not focusing. Now, it doesn't mean we put our head in the sand. We don't know what the Lord's doing in the world. But the lie that somehow knowledge is going to add by itself is a lie.

[34:02] Paul says that knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And we are supposed to speak the truth in love. So it's not always knowledge. Psalm 119.97.

[34:13] I'm not going to read the whole thing. But he's talking about how knowing the law, knowing the word, and the commandments of God have given him greater insight and knowledge than the ancients and those who are the wise men of the world.

[34:27] 1 Corinthians 14.20. We're told, Brethren, be not children in understanding. Howbeit in malice be children, but understanding be men.

[34:39] Understanding the word. Understanding the things of the Lord. But when it comes to sin, be children. You don't need to know everything that's going on out there. You don't need to know every dastardly deed that's happened.

[34:50] You know, there's so many. I don't follow the news. There's so many things that I'll find out later after the fact. And not one of those things I found out have added to my life. It's usually something tragic. It's like, oh, wow.

[35:01] But you don't need to know everything to pray. You can go and pray to your Heavenly Father and intercede. And He will give you the things to pray for. You don't have to go knowing ahead of time.

[35:12] And so we have the lie of knowledge. And then we see, what does He say? Or what does the woman see? She saw.

[35:23] So He brings her to the tree, whether she's there or not. And now she sees that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eye, desired to make one wise. 1 John 2, verse 15 and 16 tells us, To love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

[35:39] If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that's in the world, desire of the flesh, desire of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but of the world.

[35:50] Has she sinned yet? She saw that it was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and desired to make one wise. Is that true? I don't know.

[36:01] He just said, don't eat of it. Is it actually good for food? No, it's going to kill her. But this is what she's desiring. The desire has welled up within her. Is desire sin? I don't think so. Because it's not until she breaks the command of God.

[36:14] James tells us, in chapter 1, verse 13, that God tempts no man, and every man is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desire. And then in verse 15, he says this, Then when desire has conceived, it brings forth sin.

[36:29] And sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. And this is a picture that we're being given right here. That when desire is conceived, it brings forth sin.

[36:40] So the idea is conception, the woman's pregnant, and then gives birth, and then there's the child, right? Brings forth sin. And so Eve is bringing these two together as she reaches out, and with a touch, with a touch, the enemy had her.

[36:56] Something so simple, just to touch it. And he's like, I got her, because she didn't die. And she's like, hey, wow, it looks good. Oh, feels good.

[37:07] Oh, tastes good. So then she ate it. So, she reaches out, she eats it, and then she gives to her husband, who is with her.

[37:20] And Adam, listening to her, takes it. Well, why? What? Didn't he see she died? I don't think so. We're told that, in Hebrews here, that sin is pleasurable for a season.

[37:32] Hebrews 11, 24, speaking of Moses, how he chose to suffer affliction with the people of God, and not to enjoy this pleasure of sin for a season. I think Eve ate of it, and I think it was good.

[37:43] It was like, wow, this is wonderful. That euphoria of what she thought was what she needed, to step out on her own, and to be her own God, to be her own master.

[37:54] That's what paganism is. Paganism is that I determine what's right based on what I feel and think. And that is the world we are living in today. And so Adam then sees Eve take of this.

[38:07] Adam knows this is absolutely breaking God's command. He knows it, and he goes ahead with it. Why? God says, because he listened to his wife. Well, okay, so this is our forefathers, Adam and Eve.

[38:21] I think there's some tendencies we can see here between men and women, right? Eve listened to who? The enemy. Women have a tendency to be more, like we said, empathetic, listening, caring.

[38:32] They want, well, tell me, tell me what's going on. And just as an example, not to throw my wife under the bus. When we go into the big box stores like BJ's, right? She's so polite. There's people that are like, would you like a cell phone plan?

[38:43] Would you like this, this, this, this, this? And I'm just like, nope, nope. It's like, rude dude. I don't need to talk to him. She stops and she talks with them. It's like, why are you talking with him? You know you're not gonna, you're not gonna, you know, all this about whatever in his life and I was able to share the Lord with him.

[39:01] I'm like, oh, well, that's cool. But no, I got things to do. I'm not gonna talk with him. Who will I listen to? Primary number one in my life other than the Lord.

[39:13] My wife, right? If she has an opinion on something, I've got that opinion on something too. Yes. You know, it's like when you get home after a long day of work and how was your day?

[39:24] You're in a good mood and your wife's like, and not now, my children are older. When they were little, I'm sure this happened. You know, and it's like, oh, this one did this, this one did this. You just want to be like, go and get them up, line them up, and we'll knock them down.

[39:34] It's gonna, yes, I am so mad at them. Yes. That's just the tendencies we have as men and women. We have that tendency. Women have a tendency towards deception because of that heart, because they're more emotion-based.

[39:54] That's where Paul will say in the New Testament, I do not permit a woman to teach. Not because she's inferior, but because there's a tendency to hear truth and error and, oh, but it seems so good and to go with it, right?

[40:07] And that's not bashing. It's just how it is. Guys, well, that's right, we can teach. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. How many pastors out there do you know that are really, you think, that was a great man of God who's single?

[40:19] Not many. There are a few and God will use them. There's Paul, right? But when you think of Paul, do you think of someone who's like, ah, I just, you know, I'm having a down day and I just need someone to encourage me.

[40:35] Paul? Paul's going to be like, what's your problem? Get up, get going, get back to, you know, Paul is like, boom, boom, boom. Yes, there's some comforting things there, but God makes this perfect picture.

[40:46] And what we're seeing here is almost, we're seeing our tendencies today displayed in front of us in our parents, our original parents. And then we're seeing where it can lead us if we're not careful.

[40:57] Yes, women, you need to be careful what voice you're listening to because there's a tendency that your emotions could lead you into a place that, oh, it looked good, it felt good, and I thought it was a good idea.

[41:11] Guys, you need to stop and think sometimes. Get some advice. From Jess, well, you know, my wife said this was a good idea and I'm just totally checking out.

[41:21] I don't really want to worry about it, right? We're going to see that in the curse next week. That man's curse to till the ground, he will go all in on that and he will work, work, work, work, work, work, work, and that's all he'll do and he'll leave everything else.

[41:34] Anyway, enough harping on that. But, thankfully, we have Jesus. Romans 4, verse 7, saying, Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered, blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

[41:49] And so that's the blessing we get in Christ. And then what happened? When he willfully ate, the fall happens. And the eyes of them both were opened. That's not until Adam eats.

[42:00] Sin comes through Adam. The curse comes through Adam. Eve sinned, but it comes by way of Adam because Adam is the one who was created to have dominion over creation. Eve was created out of Adam.

[42:12] Together they're having dominion. But as goes the king, so goes his dominion. And when Adam falls, creation, who he's very closely tied to because they're all from dust, goes with him.

[42:24] And the eyes of them were both opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. Sin exposed their lack.

[42:34] All of a sudden they realized, oops, and sin focuses on self. Sin exposed self for what it was. Psalm 104, verse 1 and 2.

[42:47] Bless the Lord, O my soul, O Lord my God, thou art very great. Thou art clothed with honor and majesty, who covers thyself with light as with a garment, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain.

[43:00] And after six days, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John, his brother, and brings them up into a high mountain apart and was transfigured before them and his face did shine as the sun and his raiment was white as the light.

[43:12] It seems to be this idea that they were clothed, that they were clothed in light and that God did not, they were not just running around without any clothes on, right? God designed them to have a covering.

[43:25] There's a covering we gain, like we just looked in Romans, when we are covered in the blood and we're covered in the covering of the lamb. But at this point, all of a sudden, complete exposure, uh-oh, sin has exposed me.

[43:38] And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord and from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

[43:51] Sin is irrational, guys, completely irrational. They're going to go and hide from God, the creator. They're the only people on the planet. And where did they hide?

[44:03] In the trees. In the garden. Like, God's like, hey, I see you. And the Lord God came and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and said, what do you think you're doing, boy?

[44:20] No. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, where art thou? Grace. It's God's grace. And God came and whooped him and judged him and sent him into hell and killed him.

[44:34] God came with grace. He says, hey, where are you? The voice of the Lord, it points out where we are, who we are, and what we've done. Hebrews, and if you've ever heard a teaching of mine before, you know this verse comes out constantly.

[44:49] It's the one that just comes out all the time. I love this verse. Hebrews 4, verse 12. For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

[45:03] The word of God pierces and reveals. He says, where are you? And Adam said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and hid myself.

[45:15] So the voice of God came walking. Well, I guess it goes without saying among this group. It is Jesus, right? It's a pre-incarnate Christ. The word of God. We know that no man has seen God at any time.

[45:27] The Father, He dwells in unapproachable light. But Jesus is the manifestation of God. And God created us in His image. So most likely it was some form of humanity, some form of a man that He took.

[45:41] And then He takes that again to come for our redemption and then He bears that currently for all the rest of eternity. But here He comes and Adam, He says, I was afraid. He's reacting.

[45:53] This is the first mention of the word fear in the Bible. I was afraid. And again, we see a double edge with that. We'll see later on where it says, oh, the fear of the Lord is a good thing. The fear of the Lord is a blessing.

[46:04] The fear of the Lord is clean. But here He's afraid. He's reacting and I was thinking, what is fear? What? I'm trying to boil it down to its essence. I think it's reacting to the perilous condition that you are in.

[46:16] So, in fear of the Lord, right? We're to fear the Lord. We are. We're to honor and respect Him because of the perilous condition we were in and then God has rescued us from. But He's reacting to the perilous condition of self.

[46:30] And He's attempting to protect self. He says, I heard your voice. I was afraid and I was naked and I hid myself. The word of God drills down to, where are we? Where are you at?

[46:41] I'm hiding. He could have just said, I'm hiding. I'm afraid. And then, who are we? He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree where I commanded you?

[46:52] You should not eat. And then Adam says, well, the woman who thou gave us to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat. And the word of God boils it down again.

[47:04] Adam tries to shift the blame. The inner voice, there's another voice here that's just been awakened. It's the inner voice of his conscience. Because God said, who told you you were naked? Who told you that?

[47:15] How did you know sin? How did you know self? Well, the inner voice of the conscience has now been awakened. And then the Lord said unto the woman, what is it that you have done?

[47:27] And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat. And so both of them passing it on to the next person, but the word of God brings it down. And this is good, they do confess.

[47:38] And if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so Adam and Eve, they reacted, as the flesh always does, to hide, to hide our sin.

[47:49] But then they do confess. So the voice of the Lord, it draws, it calls in love. The Lord never calls in anger. He doesn't call in condemnation.

[48:00] It calls in love. It reveals, it reveals what we've attempted to cover. Hebrews 4.12. It convicts, it shines inescapable light and responsibility. Adam woke up to his responsibility and took it for his sin.

[48:13] And Eve, they both said it. I did eat and I did eat. These are the circumstances that led to it. I want to pass it off, but it doesn't matter. I ate. And then as we already quoted 1 John 1.9, it comforts through cleansing.

[48:28] So God is coming to them in the garden. And the Lord said unto the woman, what is it you've done? And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I ate. Yes.

[48:40] So truth was meant for edification, not vilification. And both Adam and Eve speak truth. Adam spoke truth about his wife. Eve spoke truth about the serpent.

[48:51] But truth is meant to edify. That's what Paul tells us in Ephesians where they were using it to try and vilify. They were taking up an offense against the other one. This is a downer.

[49:03] We've just, humanity's just crashed. We just fell off the cliff over something so seemingly stupid and insignificant. And that's what the enemy tries to do. He tries to make sin seem stupid.

[49:13] Because it is. The act in itself, Romans tells us, I think it's Romans 14, that nothing is unclean of itself. Nothing by its nature is unclean. And so Satan tries to convince us because the thing that whatever it was seems so small and stupid, well, sin's stupid.

[49:28] But behind that is the command of God. You know, we can look at this book and be like, and people do, so silly. It's just a book and you read it over and over and over and over and over.

[49:40] I mean, read it and get done with it. Come on. But behind it is the word of God. Behind it is eternity. Behind it is new life. And so, the enemy tries to make something seem very small when all of humanity hinged upon this.

[49:57] Jesus comes to redeem us. He comes to pay that price and he enters into a garden and he enters into it and he goes and he prays alone. Matthew 26, 38, then came Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane and prayed saying, oh my father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.

[50:18] Seemingly so small. Just drink this cup, Jesus. Just drink this cup. You know, when we have communion, take that little piece of bread, drink that cup, and go out and do your Sunday.

[50:31] So huge behind that. So large. And so, in Adam, by man came sin and death upon the world.

[50:43] Through Christ, we have life. As we have borne the image of the earthly, Adam, well, in Christ, we'll bear the image of the heavenly. What voice should we listen to?

[50:56] We've had the voice of the serpent and the voice that walked in the garden, the voice of God. There's two other voices in there. We didn't really look at a ton. There's the voice of the conscience, Adam awakened. There's the voice of the world. When Eve fell and then tempted Adam, 50% of the world's population was attempting to tempt Adam, trying to convince him into sin.

[51:14] The world was calling to him at that point. The world was tempting him. But what voice should we listen to? The enemy's voice begins with questions, ends in blasphemy.

[51:26] Questions aren't wrong. We see God asking questions to Adam. But the enemies will always end in blasphemy. Begins with doubt, but ends in deceit. Begins with desire, but ends in death.

[51:38] Begins with truth, and ends in lies. The enemy always seems like this starts out good. And that's how you can know which direction that voice is taking you. Whether it's your conscience, the world, your wife, your husband, the enemy.

[51:55] How should we respond to the voice of the enemy? Three things Scripture gives us to do. We are to resist. James 4, 7 says, Submit yourselves, therefore, to God.

[52:06] Resist the devil, and he'll flee from you. We resist him. We don't combat him. We just resist his attempts. Eve could have resisted.

[52:17] Like I said, I don't think she was at the tree. I think he was like talking to her, convincing her, and then they went to the tree. She could have resisted. Rebuke.

[52:28] Jude 1, 9. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses. He durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke you.

[52:41] So here's Michael, the archangel, the cherub, battling it out, Lucifer, the cherub, and, you know, Lucifer's like, Let's go. And Michael's like, The Lord rebuke you.

[52:53] Poof! He's gone. He's done. It's over. Recite. When the enemy came to Jesus in the wilderness, Matthew 4, 4, Jesus answered back and said, It's written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

[53:11] The word of God. Recite the word. And this is how we combat the enemy. Because he's going to come and he's going to come with his doubts and his lies and his disguises and he's going to take a blessing and try and show you the curse in it and whatever.

[53:25] Resist, rebuke, recite. It's not for us to do. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and rulers of darkness in high places. It's not our battle.

[53:36] It's the Lord's. Our voice is the voice that walks in the cool of the day. That word there, it means the cool of the day. It means the wind of the day. It would be like the evening when the wind is blowing through the garden.

[53:48] I like that. That's when God comes and says, I'm going to speak to you. He says, I don't want sin to last through the night. You know, be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.

[54:00] Take care of it. Get it washed. Get it at the cross. This is when the Lord wants to come and bring cleansing. The voice that walks in the cool of the day, Jeremiah 7, 23. But this thing commanded I them saying, obey my voice.

[54:14] I will be your God. You shall be my people and walk you in all the ways that I've commanded you that it may be well with you. Obey it. Adam's sin, he is not deceived.

[54:27] What did Adam need to do to obey? The command. What did he need to do? He needed to believe. That's all he needed to do to obey God's command.

[54:37] He just needed to believe it. He didn't have to, he didn't need more knowledge. Oh, if I only knew a little more. He didn't need any more knowledge. All he had to do was to believe. If he believed it was true, he would have acted on it.

[54:47] But he didn't believe. And then, John 10, 27. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life.

[54:59] And they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My sheep hear my voice. Do you know his voice?

[55:12] Have you heard his voice? Listen to his voice. My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. How do you know who you're following? Who are you listening to? Who are you listening to?

[55:24] Because who we listen to? Oh, well, I'm not going to follow. I'm just listening. I just want to know what's going on. I'm just trying to... That's who we end up following.

[55:35] The voices we listen to. Because they begin to inform us. And like the enemy did with Eve, he beguiled her. He took something and he started to twist it as she continued to converse with him.

[55:45] If she just shut her ears to him and left, never would have happened. Who cares about all of that? But he twisted her so up that he got her so convinced that all of a sudden she was lacking something. God was withholding something.

[55:56] And she could gain it on her own. And then when she took of that fruit, that through not knowing the word of God, through adding to the word of God or detracting either one, she took of that and she thought, God lied to me.

[56:12] God lied to me. And that's the rest. So as we close, it's a time to ask ourselves, and I think to listen, to open our ears and be like, Lord, am I listening to your voice?

[56:27] Am I listening to your voice, but I've allowed something else to add to it? Do I think, oh, God's faithful, but I believe that.

[56:41] Do I listen to his voice in the purity of the word? Like we said, Jesus always tells us to come to him when we're at our worst. You know, come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden.

[56:53] We try and come to him when we're at our best. And that's what's really been speaking to me over these last kind of couple weeks as we've been going along through the word. I attempt to come to the Lord at my best.

[57:04] And we're going to see what that's going to do when we get to Cain and Abel. The Lord wants us to come at our worst. All of those promises are to come to him. So follow him and hear his voice. Amen.