God’s Amazing Plan-From the Foundations of the World
Sermon 1 in the Easter Series-The Road to The Cross
EOLS: God’s provision for our salvation is eternal and shows His amazing, loving individual plan for His Creation.
Often when I begin to do research and as I long to satisfy my inner thirst for knowledge-I take great solace in the fact that-God has not told us everything He knows-but He has told us all we need to know! Often times as we search, reason and try to understand-we will come up empty as our finite minds reach for the infinite. At that point, join me in apprehending the Truth, even when our minds cannot comprehend it!
It’s the question of the ages-who am I, where did I come from? Who created me and what is the very purpose of my life? Every rational human being looks at themselves and asks that question from time to time.
Many voices around us, so-called “authorities” scream in response “you are an evolutionary accident!” We are told that in defiance of incomprehensible odds, using numbers that make time travel and inter-galaxy travel seem easy-that we sprang from a primordial soup when microbes accidentally received a charge of radiation billions of years ago.
Yet the very fact is, I sit here and ponder my existence. I display a void, a vacuum in my existence. We need purpose, we need self-worth, we need to love and to be loved. The theme of the human soul’s need for redemption runs so deep it permeates every form of human art, in every age.
Let’s take this process forward-a man or woman has resolved this matter and found peace, forgiveness, reconciliation and redemption at the foot of the Cross. Jesus Christ has become their Lord and master. Most of us don’t understand all the details-but we know He is our Lord, and we know that we trust Him for our eternal salvation.
We still ask the questions: why does sin exist? Why did God create us, knowing we would turn away? Why did Jesus have to die?
Why do we suffer? Why is there evil in the world if God is in control?
And I will solve all these questions for you in the next twenty minutes-so here we go! If you believe that, then I’ve got some snake oil in the trunk of my car and we need to talk after church…
What I’m believing God to show us here this morning-is something that will show us that not only are we no evolutionary accident-His amazing plan for our lives was not haphazard or random. He did not simply react to things that went terribly wrong in His creation. God did not wring his hands and wonder what to do next when men Adam and Eve ate the fruit, or when men put nails in the hands and feet of Jesus Christ.
Let’s go back to the Garden of Eden. It’s the familiar story that we know so well. But there’s more to it than meets the eye. It’s not just a good Sunday School story for Children. It was the beginning of human history, and the Lord himself opens it with the knockout punch.
Adam and Eve had been given the precious gift of a free will. They were allowed to choose to love God, to follow Him and His commandments-just as He had first loved them. God refused to coerce their love or to demand it. I love how the Bible tells us that they knew the voice of God-intimately. He would come to visit them routinely, in the cool of the day.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
(Gen 3:8)
The Creator, the Lord God who had made them-was intimately interested in the details of their daily lives. Can you imagine with me what it must’ve been like to walk and talk with God himself *every* single day? Your every question could be answered. Perfect information on any topic! Every concern or item that could cause fear and heartache in you life would be dispelled immediately. Any challenge they faced was a good challenge-there would be no frustration or disarray because the perfect answer and comfort was always available.
But now, something had happened-and they instinctively knew something was wrong. They had willingly, of their own volition-done exactly what God had commanded them not to do.
I try to put myself in their shoes for a moment. Do you relate to what I’m saying when I describe the little adrenalin rush I get from stepping out of line? I want to try something new-something different!
“ Yeah, yeah- I know what the Bible says, I know what my parents say, I know what my friends and church people, my pastor think-but the way I figure it-it’s really not so bad. We’ve probably read way too much into this. After all, we’re human. God understands that we’re all sinners and that we’re going to mess up.”
That little step into sin piques your senses. Not only was it fun but nothing happened! God’s probably ok with it. The church people and that preacher just want to make me feel guilty. After all, I’m a good person.
For some reason, suddenly they looked at each other. They were intimately familiar with each others bodies, but all of a sudden they felt really weird walking around naked. I imagine that instantly they realized not just that strange new emotion we know as shame, they were starting to get really uncomfortable and needed something to protect their bodies as well. They did the best they could with fig leaves, but it was a pathetic excuse for clothing.
God came down for his daily walk with them. All of a sudden they knew a new feeling and emotion-fear. Hormones in their body began to cause their hearts to race. Suddenly the best part of the day became a dreaded encounter. No one had to tell them or show them or convince them that they had messed up-something inside did that job just fine. They knew they had deliberately disobeyed God and they dreaded to see Him.
Have you ever been very uncomfortable in the presence of the Lord? I have. Certain things-like going to a church where Truth is preached, or going around certain people, or listening to certain music or doing certain things-will only make you feel guilty- when you are in sin and you know you are in sin.
“I believe I’ll just hide, I won’t go around those things so I won’t feel so guilty. After all, I’m a good person. I shouldn’t feel guilty. “
Dear friends, our society is obsessed with guilt as being a terrible thing to be avoided at all costs. We all know what false guilt can do in a person’s life. Some people learn to use guilt like a weapon to their own advantage and can inflict it upon others in a minute, and paralyze the person emotionally. We have the ability to shift it from one to the other-it’s a powerful tool.
Yet there is a guilt that comes with no help at all from another person. It’s when a person feels guilty-because they are. I like to differentiate that word by using the word conviction, and it is a gift from God. Adam and Eve had ate of this tree and suddenly their eyes were opened to a realm they were previously oblivious to. Thus came for the first time, the gift of conviction.
They probably didn’t understand at the moment, but at the moment of the first sin, a time bomb was set off in their physical bodies and in their emotional makeup. In an instant, they had lost their inheritance to live eternally, to have perfect fellowship with God. They had lost the resilient, self-healing, eternally regenerating body and mind that God had blessed them with.
Look at the shadow of it that we see today. Modern epidemiology and microbiology show us the awesome wonder that God made our bodies to be! Can you imagine with what it would be like if your immune system worked perfectly, every single time? What if your skin cells and organ cells continuously replenished themselves; as you grow older, and even though you change you never slow down-you never wear out? What if your emotions were never scarred by the battles of life?
Two thoughts here, and they’re both good:
Conviction is God’s gift- it’s hard to describe it-but every one of us in this room know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s that little inner alarm that we need no one to set off for us-it’s automatic. We know when we’ve done wrong-even if it’s an area that we are totally unfamiliar with. Paul tells us-
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
(Rom 1:20)
There simply is no excuse for sin- You know it, I know it, and our knowing it- is a good thing, a gift from God! Physical symptoms in our bodies are a gift from God that can alert us to something deadly going on. Conviction is a gift from God that lets us know something just as deadly- SIN has been unleashed in our soul. It’s literally as dangerous as a poison coursing through our veins.
And every sin-every time we transgress the law of God-it has potential to kill us.
Again, the Apostle Paul tells us:
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--
(Romans 5:12)
When we have questions about God’s actions or His nature-I like to look at the story using my Father eyes.
Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?"
(Gen 3:9)
My experience as a father –tells me that when a good daddy knows his child is in trouble- he doesn’t go hunting them just so that he can enjoy punishing them. It troubles his soul as nothing else can. I have cried and prayed with many a parent in anguish who was being forced to watch their own child in process of destruction by sin. I’ve never once had one come to me for counsel who took any delight in their children’s wayward actions, or in being able to catch them and punish them.
God knew where they were-it was no mystery. I hear a broken heart calling to Adam-“where are you?”
When they came out of their hiding place, they must’ve looked pathetic in their little fig leaf attire! Their Father in his love immediately made provision for their clothing, and showed them how to make real clothes that would protect and keep them warm from the elements which were about to go wild as sin had permeated the creation.
Something had to die. Sin is death and blood is life. Blood had to be shed so that Adam and Eve could live. Previous to this time in God’s perfect garden, no blood had been spilled-no suffering had been unleashed. But today, God himself took a beautiful, spotless animal, and killed it-to make provision for two people who only hours before had decided they would do their own thing.
All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
(Isaiah 53:6-7, 10)
Can you imagine how Adam and Eve felt when for the first time they heard an animal squeal in distress while its blood was leaving its body through a slit artery? The animal thrashed and kicked in distress as life left its body. They stared into the animal’s hollow eyes as it lay still as a rock and growing cold to the touch-they watched the Lord Himself dress the animal-and they must’ve asked themselves, “what have we done?”
But as they donned the beautiful and functional wooly coverings to protect and warm their bodies-they would realize that in all this suffering, within all these new sensations of pain and fear-God himself would provide for their needs, for their “second chance”, we call it- redemption.
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"*),
(Galatians 3:13)
While the blood was still fresh, and the circle of life and death now beginning to turn- God spoke into being the culmination of what they had just now witnessed.
Again, picture with me your own response to your child’s trouble-as a Father.
I remember when my own Dad made me a promise, I knew it would happen to the very best of his ability. I took great security and comfort in knowing that even when my dad had “caught” me and often punished me-that He would also provide a way for me to change and a plan to stay out of trouble and in his favor; as long as He was able that I could always come to him and he would help me.
How much more-does our Father God-the infinite Creator of the Universe-the one who formed us in love in His own image-provide for our victory? When the Lord God spoke, it literally caused the worlds to come into existence. That SAME voice that could create life and universes now prophesied-
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel."
(Genesis 3:15)
Satan himself, in order to ensnare Eve in the web of temptation had inhabited the body of a snake in the Garden. The Lord God now pronounces a curse upon that animal, along with the very Father of all Lies and deception.
There will now be a curse upon the snake-because it was used as a tool of evil by Satan himself. God placed a natural aversion (enmity); a hatred between the woman and the serpent that exists to this day (between your seed and her seed). But more importantly-God prophesied and thereby absolutely guaranteed the victory that we would realize over this newly-discovered enemy called death-
The seed of a woman- a man yet to come- will be bruised in his heel, and at the same time-he will bruise the head of the Evil One who had come in the form of this serpent.
He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
(1John 3:8)
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
(1Corinthians 15:22-26)
The message is clear-Satan himself attempted to kill Jesus Christ and thereby thwart the plan of God to redeem mankind-but the Cross was the most brilliant strategy ever devised-and it came straight from the heart of God himself!
Through the power of the Cross-Jesus Christ crushed the head of Satan and forever settled the sin question! The Cross stands at the very fulcrum of all human history-and it guarantees that you can be forgiven, and live eternally as God intended! It calls to us, it demands our response and our attention.
In that crushing blow upon the cross, as the pathetic serpent nipped at His heels-He provided for our salvation, for our healing, for our deliverance. The price was paid in full! The head of Satan himself was crushed and his power stripped from him, by a God-man who made himself a sacrifice, and then overcame death itself!
It’s called the “Proto-Evangel”, or the first mention of the Gospel. It is glorious and it comes to us from thousands of years ago- God provided for our daily life and victory over sin and death.
But how does it work? What does Genesis have to do with my life today?
This gets to the part that I don’t fully comprehend, but I sure can apprehend it!
It’s all in the plan. Here’s what I see- The “good news” of Genesis 3:15 is that-
It dispels any notion that God is not in full control of every moment of history-history is simply his tool to bring about His will-
Thousands of years before the Cross, at the dawn of human history-God
announced His plan for redemption. Sin and death did not take him by surprise and his plan was a pre-purposed and tactical response to events that He himself had set in motion.
It repels the man-made legend of some titanic struggle between good and evil, God and the Devil
His victory was sure from the outset, and there’s never been any struggle
that He did not expressly allow! Satan is a created being and as such he is not now, nor ever has he been any sort of match for God’s power. Rest your fears today-the devil has absolutely no power over your life whatsoever-unless you delegate it to him.
It compels me to love Him because He loved me from the beginning of time.
His master plan demonstrates his love for us as individuals; His love is
not conditioned or dicey. It doesn’t ebb and flow, come and go.
You are not a number or a commodity to God. I know that I have the same privilege that Adam once had-and mine comes through Christ’s victory-to walk in full fellowship with my Heavenly Father. He has provided everything I need for total victory and eternal life with Him, in Him.
How will this cause me to live? Where do I need to change?
And that’s the Gospel truth, it’s the Good News- as we set our feet on the Road to The Cross.
