I. Genesis 3 is like cooking an egg you can have it scrambled, poached, steamed, over easy, or the other 100 ways to cook an egg. What I am trying to say is Genesis 3 has been preached just about every way it can be. So to find a new revelation can be difficult.
A. The book of Genesis is a deep book; on the outside it may look like a mere history lesson but contained within the 50 chapters that make up this book are some of the Bible’s deepest types and symbolism that carry over all the way to Revelation. Many of these types can be found here in Genesis 3 with the story of the fall of man.
1. It is here we learn how the enemy uses the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. We get a glimpse of the prophetic announcement of the virgin birth, the battle between God’s Kingdom and Satan’s kingdom. It is here we learn how Christ will suffer a bruised heel but how He will triumphantly crush Satan’s head. It is here that we learn that man cannot cover his sins but that it would take the shedding of blood for our remission. Though man could not stay in the Garden a plan was in motion to get us back in fellowship and communing with God.
B. When we read this story we usually walk away with the knowledge of how we came to be in the state we are in now. It makes since to us when we read early in the Bible to why there is so much pain in the word, why work and child birth are difficult, we now know why the earth travails and groans. Sin not only destroyed a convenient relationship but it turned the world upside down.
1. It is so easy to move forward after reading this chapter everything seems cut and dry. But it was what Adam and Eve did after they sinned that caught my eye, the Bible says, “they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” I know that this is a type of how man tries to cover his sins and that it will only take the covering of the Lamb of God. But there is something else here; the question I had to ask myself is why fig leaves? Why not papaya or a palm leaf, why even give us such detail; the Lord could have had the writer only say it was an apron made of leaves.
2. In scripture when something is mentioned with added detail, it means that we need to be paying attention. Every jot and tittle, every dotted I and crossed T in scripture is important, not one Word of Scripture is wasted. In scripture we sometimes get the phrasing “a certain … (ex.)” there are no details given we know little about these certain people, places, or things.
a. Such as the boy that gave up his lunch of bread and fish to feed 5000, he is famous but who is he. He could easily be a type of the church, in how it relates to our given. We give our tithe and offering our names are not attached to the money, and though we may never know how it impacts the Kingdom it is still going forth and being used to touch thousands. Our sacrifice of giving may never be revealed here but when we get to heaven we will see that every Sunday when we gave we were feeding thousands. Many times the information is not there because it was not important to the scripture, many times there is some symbolism to it but other times that information just was not needed.
3. But if you look at that story of the feeding of the 5000 in Mark 6 there is a verse that says Mr 6:39 And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. Of all the Gospels only Mark gives us such detail by including that Jesus made them to sit on green grass, but why? The answered is found 5 verses earlier in Mr 6:34 And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things. Now it begins to make since because Jesus said in Joh 10:14 I am the good shepherd, and know my [sheep], and am known of mine. This takes us back to Psalms 23 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. (2) He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. Jesus had them sit in green grass, because only the Shepherd knows how to lead His sheep to a place of provision. There are many verses just like Mark that give us a little extra information to expose an even greater revelation.
C. When the Bible includes “fig leaves” I know that there is more to the reference for us to discover. The fig is a type of God’s Covenant with man, a sign and seal of God’s protection and blessings. In De. 8:8 the Promised Land was described as a land of fig trees. In Mic 4:4 But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make [them] afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken [it]. Zec 3:10 In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the fig tree.
II. It was as if Adam and Eve were still trying to appear in covenant relationship with God while still trying to hide their shame. Instead of exposing their shame they tried to hide it and still look like everything was ok. They were trying to fool themselves and God into believing that they were still in convenient. They thought they could cover up and hide their problem. That’s the modern church. The church today is filled with those that have their sins covered by the blood, but their pain and problems are not. We are covering ourselves in fig leaves to give the appearance that everything is fine. We know that Joh 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. We are free but still in captivity. We have the victory but walk around defeated. The enemy has you bound by condemnation.
A. On the outside everything looks normal but on the inside you are bound up. You are free but still carry yourself like a prisoner. You are still having trouble adjusting to being “freed”; you are trying to live the freed life by the “prison code of institutionalization”. The adaptation to imprisonment is almost always difficult and, at times, creates habits of thinking and acting that can be dysfunctional in periods of post-prison adjustment.
1. When a convict is released after years of imprisonment they can have a difficult time adjusting to their new found freedom. The “prison code” has become their way of life and it has infused itself into their thinking. Simple things such as meal time, bed time, or even walking around feels foreign; the “prison code” tells them that they still must conduct themselves in these everyday situations the same way they did when they were in prison.
2. When they eat (withdrawn to their own space protecting their food, etc…) when they sleep (overwhelmed by the space…) in everyday situation (the need to be orderly, some even may find themselves walking the “shackled shuffle”, always looking over your shoulder, become isolated and withdrawn trusting no one; developing an invisible mentality, in extreme cases they may find making simple decisions difficult because they are used to being told what to do, many believe they have no self worth and personal value, etc…)
a. Their bodies are freed but not their minds are still in prison. So, the outward appearance of normality and adjustment may mask a range of serious problems in adapting to the free world.
B. That’s many in the church today operating by the “prison code” their free in spirit but bound in mind. The blood has washed away your sins and your name is now written in the lamb’s book of life, but your mind has not adjusted to this freedom. On the outside you are wearing suits, teaching and preaching, praising and worshipping, but on the inside is a war. Satan tries to convince you that you are not really free, that God isn’t pleased, that your past will always be present.
1. You are broken and hurting on the inside. You struggle to adjust and withdraw yourself from others and from God. You operate in the old way of the “prison code” and your walk with the Lord is nothing more than a “shackled shuffle” of pain and problems.
2. You carry around bitterness, anger, strife, fear, etc… You carry the hurt from the past; that’s why you jump from church to church, that’s why you have a problem with authority, why you can’t rejoice with others. The inner struggle always keeps you at arm’s length from destiny and walking in complete freedom.
3. These things you are dealing with have become a security blanket it’s easier to hold on to them than let them go. The fear of surrender is overwhelming. You love the Lord but it’s hard to expose yourself to Him. To let Him into all the pain, discouragement, fears, etc…
C. We must understand that modern medicine can heal many afflictions of the body, and can even treat the tumors that sometimes attach themselves to the brain, but only God Himself can heal the mind. Do you know that many times your thoughts need to be healed? Your thoughts are often the product of damaged emotions, traumatic events, and vicious opinions forced upon you by the bodacious personalities of domineering people who continually feel it necessary to express their opinions about you.
1. One of the great challenges of our walk with God is to resist the temptation to allow what happened in the past determine who we are today. We each must begin to understand and declare: "I am not what happened yesterday. I endured what happened. I survived what happened, but I am not what happened yesterday!"
2. Many people are plagued all their lives by memories of failed marriages, broken promises, and personal calamities. They have allowed past events to eat at their thoughts like a cancer—a cancer that defies medical technology and continues to devour its victim in an area that the doctor cannot find. These negative impressions, armed with memories and flashback ”movies,” strengthen themselves by rehearsing past failures and wounds over and over again. It is somehow like bad television reruns—we don't even enjoy watching them, yet we find ourselves transfixed to the screen.
D. When Christ came into our lives the old man died, our former sinful self was no more but we were left with the old man’s broken home. All the effects of our sins are left behind for us. Just because we have been saved by Christ doesn’t mean Christians don’t struggle with sin and issues.
1. Our spirit has been set apart by God but our minds continue to have the pattern of the old way of thinking. We got years of hiccups, hang-ups, habits that we got to deal with. Just cause the war is over doesn’t mean there was not any devastation. The affects of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still evident today and so are the affects of our former selves.
2. Just because we are saved does not mean our flesh want itch, we still got to deal with this covering, my mind is renewed but I still got to die daily and take up my cross. Satan knows how to make you itch and will give you the means to scratch it. Every man’s buttons can be pushed, even Christians, because though my spirit is new I’m still living in the same old body; Paul said, Rom. 7:18, “in my flesh dwells no good thing.” 8:5, “they that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh, they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.” 8:8, “they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Job 14:1 Man [that is] born of a woman [is] of few days, and full of trouble. Jer 17:9 The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it? David said Ps 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
3. So, even though our spirit is secure in Christ we still experience a battle in our mind, will and emotions. We want to leave the old patterns of living and embrace the new life in Christ but the flesh constantly wants to have its own way. Paul would say “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
4. What Paul was saying is, “I don’t understand myself at all!, I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, I can’t help myself, I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned, No matter which way I turn – I can’t make myself do right, When I do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong, What a miserable person I am.”
E. We all have lived after “the flesh” and because of that we have developed patterns to help us cope with life, how deal with our problems, how to succeed, how to relate to others and escape intolerable situations. Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. That’s why there is a war of the flesh and spirit, the spirit says “seek first the kingdom”, to “set your affections on things above”, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” but the flesh says, “seek your own kingdom”, “set your affections on the things of the world”, that you “must trust only in you and your ways”.
1. We are all fighting an inner battle. Some more severe than others, the Bible says, “Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust & enticed.” Not some men, most men, all men. All white men, black men, red men, yellow men, rich men, poor men, educated men, uneducated men. There are no exceptions, exemptions, or exclusions; we’re all tempted, yours may not be mine & mine may not be yours but we all have one.
2. No one can say they are so holy until they can’t be tempted and no one is to the other extreme and can say they’re the only person going through this type of temptation. 1 Cor. 10:13, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.” Your situation is not unique because there is someone else wrestling with the same thing your dealing with. Don’t try to fool me by acting as though you don’t have issues because I know what’s in me and the Bible says, “the same thing that’s in me is in you.” And even though you may not do it doesn’t mean you haven’t thought about it.
F. We are sewing fig leaves together to give the appearance to others that we are enjoying God’s covenant blessings. We are hiding our shame and hurt from others and God. We don’t want to expose that we are broken.
1. We are living in a time when people’s secret struggles are no longer a secret. There was a time when society kept their problems to themselves. Whatever the inner battle was it was to remain behind closed doors. There was a true since of shame, but now we openly welcome and embrace those secret struggles and it seems the more baggage they got the more reward they are giving. Jer 6:15 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush:
2. Now a days people got their stories to tell, and look for any outlet to get it out there. People are running to Dr. Phil and exposing their struggles to him, “Dr. Phil I am a ….” Talk shows like Maury and Jerry Springer have made peoples shame into fame. Even the respectable news will scrap a good story to report on hollyweird’s antics. We now celebrate and promote people that admit they are having affairs, on drugs, alcohol, etc… We are sending the message to all that are struggling with anger, lust, bitterness, fear, etc. that it is ok to live that way, “don’t hid your shame put it out there for all to see, your baggage makes you normal”.
3. We have accepted people’s inner struggles and advertised them as “normal”, the world is now saying, “don’t change a thing this is who you are, embrace and share it”. Isa 5:20 … call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
G. The enemy has the world exposing itself, but in the church he has a different plan. He has made us afraid to expose our struggles to God. Satan will tell you that you are a Christians and you are not supposed to struggle with anything. He has us convinced that something is wrong with us, that we are failures when we do. He has made us afraid of our brothers and sisters, afraid of the altar. He has us behind fig leaves so we can keep up appearance.
1. You shuffle in and do your part; you worship and praise, you give your tithe and offering, you amen the message. But during all that was a war inside that no one saw. No one saw that you are still struggling with thoughts of… no one knows that you still are tempted with…and sometimes give in. Our mind is a private battleground that can easily become a secret place for contamination, lust, fear, low self-esteem, and God only knows what else! You don’t always want to go to the altar over fear that you will be exposed.
2. We have leaders/ministers all over that are struggling with things but they keep sewing fig leaves together to cover up their secret; they are too afraid to go to the altar over fear that their secrets will be revealed, fear of losing their lively hood and respect. The altar has become a place of shame, rather than a place of healing.
3. They know they need healing but Satan has them convinced that if they go to the altar people will know that something is wrong. The enemy has us convinced that if we step out people will think things. So they just keep on as if nothing is wrong.
4. We are making new aprons every day to cover up our problems. Each day you put on your fig leaves and head out and do your routine. By the end of the day the fig leaves have faded and you have to keep sewing new ones on just to keep the appearance that everything is fine.
III. We need to drop the aprons and bare it all to the Lord. We need to understand that God is able to repair the broken places, but it requires us to expose where those broken places are. If we don’t say to Him, “This is where I am hurting”, then how can He pour in the oil and the wine?
A. We need to lay ourselves before Him and seek His face in the beauty of holiness – the holiness that produces wholeness! Ho 6:1 Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
1. It takes great courage to exemplify total honesty with God. We have not even been totally released to admit our insufficiencies with others, and sometimes even with ourselves. When we discover our own limitations, we become eligible to discover the all sufficiency of God.
2. We are called to live in a state of openhearted communication with the Lord. Yes, we feel vulnerable when we realize that our hearts are completely exposed before God. Yet every one of us desperately needs to have someone who is able to help us, someone who is able to understand the issues that are etched on tablets of your heart.
3. Since we already feel exposed when we realize that there is not one thought we have entertained that God has not seen and heard, then there is no need for a sanctimonious misrepresentation of who we are! We no longer need to live under the strain of continual camouflage.
4. We are naked before Him in the same sense that a man sprawls naked on the operating table before a surgeon. The man is neither boastful nor embarrassed, for he understands that his exposed condition is a necessity of their relationship. Whether the doctor finds good or evil, what is there is there, and the man’s comfort lies in the conviction that the surgeon possesses the wherewithal to restore order to any area that may be in disarray.
B. Mt 5:8 Blessed [are] the pure in heart: for they shall see God. The purity that attracts the presence of God comes from allowing Him to perpetually flush away the corrosion that threatens to block the abundant arterial flow of His grace and mercy toward us. In short, we need to show Him what is clogging or hindering His flow of life to us so He can clean us and keep us acceptable before Him in Love.
1. The Greek word “katheros” is used here to express “purity”. It is from this word that we have the English derivative “catharize”, which describes medical processes used to cleanse, flush, or release fluids from the body. God is continually sending a deluge of His cleansing grace into the hearts of His children, but He can’t clean or purify what we hide in the secret corners of our hearts and minds.
2. Many people have the blessing and still don't enjoy it because they conquered every foe except the enemy within! The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand. Isaiah 14:24
3. We need to bare it all to the Lord who wants to heal us. He is waiting for us to say, “I got some issues”, “yes Lord I am dealing with…”, “I need you to take this from me, here I am Lord naked and exposed to you, I want to live in victory, no longer held captive to the former mind.” Ps 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: …renew my mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
4. It’s time to say I am tired of the fig leaf suit/dress, it’s time to enjoy our relationship with the Lord without feeling like we need to hide from Him. I don’t want to look like I am in covenant I want to be in covenant and enjoy the security and blessings of being under the shadow of the Almighty! Jesus said Come unto me, all [ye] that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, I am here to heal the brokenhearted, to set at liberty them that are bruised, For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
