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Introduction:
Let’s open our Bibles to Genesis 3. Last Sunday we learnt some principles from the mistakes of Adam and Eve there in the Garden of Eden. Today, I would like to continue from where I stopped.
After placing man and woman in the garden, God commanded them, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” One day Eve struck a conversation with the serpent. The serpent was used by the devil who deceived Eve.
Genesis 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Man and woman disobeyed God’s law and sinned.
Now Eve’s act of eating the fruit seemed so small to her. It was just a matter of how you look at things, a matter of little importance but disobedience to God is always a sin.
4. Disobedience is sin.
Romans 5:19…through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners.
You see God had said to Adam and Eve that the day you disobey me you will die. When Eve ate of that fruit and then gave it to her husband Adam and he ate of that fruit they died. They died spiritually immediately. In their physical bodies was set in motion the activities of death which would come to a full harvest years later.
The consequences of Adam’s sin were dreadful consequences. Physical death became a reality for man. Death meant that somewhere down the road man would fight to live out this world in every capacity they can. Physical death meant man would be separated from God. Even after death his spirit would be separated from God. Unless there was a remedy he would spend eternity, days after his physical death in hell. Death is a terrible thing without the Lord Jesus Christ.
So to Eve and Adam it seemed like such a simple inconsequential thing but it was an awful thing. Dear friend disobedience is a terrible thing. Children listen to me, you need to learn obedience. Unless you grow up learning to be obedient to your parents, you will not be obedient to God as you walk through this life.
Genesis 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
Let me stop for a moment. In their appearance as far as nakedness was concerned nothing much changed. Now look at the difference before and after the fall:
Genesis 2:25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Genesis 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked.
The Bible says both before and after the fall they were naked. So what had changed? What had changed was now there was evil associated with it, wrong thoughts, lust, wickedness, shame which came with their new sense of their nakedness. Now there was shame.
5. Sin brings shame.
Proverbs 14:34 Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.
Sin brings shame but praise God, he gave us a remedy. In the OT if a person sinned he had to bring bulls and rams as a guilt offering for the remission of sins. Year after year they had to come for cleansing from their sin with the blood of an animal.
Hebrews 9:22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross became our ultimate sacrifice.
Hebrews 10:12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God…..
Hebrews 10:14 …by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who have been made holy.
The blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse our sins and take away our shame. There is power in his blood.
6. Dress right.
The moment Adam and Eve sinned they knew they were naked. Genesis 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
Covering man’s nakedness is a necessity. Modesty is a necessity. By the time God came in the evening I think the leaves were dry and curled up. Adam and Eve were trying to pull the leaves and cover themselves because now they are ashamed of themselves. God decided to clothe man to cover their nakedness. Genesis 3:21 Then LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
It is important that God’s people dress right. We live in a culture and in a world where people flaunt their nakedness in every kind of way. The magazines, the news paper, TV and cinemas project man’s nakedness. Morality have degraded to such an extent that people take selfies of their nakedness and pass on to the social media for someone else sitting somewhere. God’s people ought to be modest. God’s people ought to dress right.
1 Timothy 2:9 I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety. Even though this passage talks about a women’s dressing, modesty is both way – both men and women need to be modest.
John 21:7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.
Moving on:
Genesis 3:8-11 8Then 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.9But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” 11And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
Did you notice that when God came walking, looking for them, he did not come verbally abusing them, he did not come condemning them. God came searching for them.
God did not come to the garden to condemn them. Jesus did not come into this world to condemn the world because the world is condemned already. Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:17 God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. He came to provide a solution, salvation, forgiveness of sins, a way out. So, God never condemned Adam and Eve, Jesus never condemned any one, nor does God condemn anyone today.
7. God is good.
There is someone listening to me here: Maybe you did wrong. People around you are judging you. You regret your mistakes. Now you are afraid. You feel you God is angry with you. No God is good, he is always good. He has come searching for you today. He wants to bless you and use you. God is calling your heart right now. God knows where you are in life and he has come with a solution for you today.
So God brought Adam to the place of answering him and acknowledging. Adam was so reluctant but ultimately Adam and Eve acknowledging their sin.
Adam blames it on Eve, one in this world besides God whom he loved the most. Now that he is a sinner, he turns on her, the one who he should be protecting. Eve of course blames the serpent. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 2:14 that it was Eve who was deceived. Adam made his choice so God pronounces the penalty. God starts with the serpent.
God cursed the serpent and makes this great promise: Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.
He is speaking to the serpent here, especially to satan who has used them. The woman’s offspring shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel. When the God said that to the satan, He was thinking of another time 4000 years later he would come as the seed of the woman as the only begotten Son of God. He would make his way to the cross of Calvary and there he would offer himself as the sinless sacrifice to pay the penalty for Adam’s sin and Eve’s sin and your sin and my sin.
God made that promise and the day came when Jesus came and he went to Calvary. He permitted himself to be crucified. He shed his blood. He voluntarily gave up his life so that you would not have to pay that penalty.
My dear friend the Bible teaches you and I cannot earn our salvation but that if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and call upon him, he will forgive our sins and save us. If you have not done so I invite you to do that in your heart right now.
Something to be noted here is that God never cursed man and woman. God only cursed the serpent. Never ever think that God cursed Adam and Eve and you and I are cursed. God is good, he cannot curse us. We are made in the image and likeness of God.
Illustration: Our children Sam and Grace sometimes do mistakes which we do not like. We never curse them but we punish them. I can never think of cursing my children how will God ever curse his creation? But God definitely punished the man and woman. He gave them a penalty.
8. Sin has a penalty.
Adam and Eve now could not stay in the garden, the paradise of God. So Adam and Eve had to leave. Genesis 3:23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
The Bible does not tell us what exactly took place here but apparently something like this: God said to Adam he could not stay here, he must leave the garden. Now Adam must have argued with God. Maybe he appealed of all the good things he had done for God there in the garden, he had named the animal and all these things, God said you got to go. Sin cannot dwell with God. But Adam would not go. So God drove him out of the garden. Then the Lord saw to it that he could not enter.
Genesis 3:24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Do you know what God put there as a sentinel at the garden. If you study the cherubim in the scripture you will note that they overshadow the place of the presence of God. The cherubim over the Ark of the Covenant, over that mercy seat with the outstretched wings overshadow that place where the Shekainah glory of God, where God dwelt among men. When we get to heaven you will discover in the Book of Revelation about the throne of God about the cherubim in the place where God dwells.
So there God put the cherubim and in the midst between those cherubim he put this flaming sword, the Word of God, Jesus himself became the barrier to Adam and Eve reentering the paradise of God.
Here is the lesson: Lord Jesus Christ is both for you as a sinner the barrier to heaven and the one who provides the way to heaven.
9. Jesus is the door to heaven.
Jesus himself declared that I am the way, the truth and the life. Then Jesus declared, no man cometh to the father but by me. You will not get into heaven any other way than through the door, the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus who has become the barrier to you has also made himself your door and if you will call upon him he will forgive you, save you and provide that entrance to heaven. Amen!
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