3 Lessons All Children Need To Know - Genesis 4 Series

Well let’s pick up the story where we left off last week because as we were looking at our story last week we talked about Adam and Eve and how they sinned. So we left off with the consequences of their sin. We talked about the curse that God proclaims on each of them and we learned some things from that and the consequences. But there’s another verse that we didn’t look at that I wanted to look at. It’s the one in Genesis 3:24. Beth reminded me about this verse and I realized how important it is. We don’t want to leave this verse. So one of the consequences is mentioned here. Let me read it to you.

It says in Genesis 3:24 – He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. This tree of life is an interesting tree. It seems that this tree you could go to it and eat and if you kept eating from this tree you would live forever. So God knows in His mercy that sin does not match with eternal life. You can’t have sin and eternal life. That just is not a good match. So those two don’t go together. So God sets this angel up to guard the tree so that they could not participate in it because now they had sinned and they had this sin nature.

Sin and eternal life don’t go together and we know that God had a different plan in mind. A plan of redemption that we celebrated today. It’s a plan of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross. That we look back on that experience, that crucifixion of Jesus Christ and we see that God conquered the penalty of sin in that experience and gave us eternal life. John 3:16 says – For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but will have eternal life. In fact the whole gospel of John is about this statement about life that we can experience in Jesus Christ.

When Jesus is speaking to the Samaritan woman in John 4, He says – I will give you living water. This is water that you will never thirst again. And He’s not just talking about physical thirst. He’s talking about this something deep inside of you, this eternal life that you’ll experience. After Jesus fed the five thousand, He says as He’s teaching the people – I am the bread of life. Jesus is life. That’s the whole point there. In the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead in John 11, He says – I am the resurrection and the life. The whole book of John was written… In John 20:30-31 he says – I have written this book. Now he says I didn’t put in here all of the things that Jesus did, but I’ve included the things that will help you to see that Jesus is the Messiah and that when you believe in Him, you will have eternal life.

So we need to recognize that God has dealt with the sin problem and He’s provided us with eternal life. The key is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. As we celebrated today in communion we look back on that event.

But what about Adam and Eve and those people back there? What are they doing in reference to this whole challenge? They don’t have the Garden of Eden. They don’t have this tree of life anymore. But we go back to verse 15 in Genesis 3 because God made a promise. And the promise that He made is – I will put enmity between you and the woman (speaking to the serpent), and between your offspring and her offspring; and he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. It’s a reference to the crucifixion that is yet to come. But they don’t know the details. They don’t know what’s going to happen. They have a promise looking forward. We look back on the event. But we’re looking at the same event. And as the Old Testament unfolds, we see more and more clues given about who this is. What Jesus Christ is going to be, His death, and we’re taught more about the suffering servant and He’s going to be born of a virgin. All of those clues come to bear in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s just important to note that.

It’s important for this reason. Important because if you look at this particular verse, He says the solution is going to come through the offspring. You have to imagine Eve saying, “Oh good. Offspring. We better have a baby.” So that brings us into chapter 4 because I’m sure Eve thought that it was going to be the baby that she gave birth to that was going to be this one who was going to crush the serpent’s heel. In fact I think every young Jewish girl as she’s growing up would ask the question – Am I going to be the one to give birth the Messiah? The promise will be fulfilled through me?