THE FIRST TWO QUESTIONS OF THE BIBLE ARE STILL THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS FOR TODAY
This past week, as we have watched events unfold following the horrific, unimaginable horror of Hurricane Katrina, we hear a lot of questions.
Ø Most of those questions need to be asked, and certainly some of those questions need to be answered – that is to say not only do the victims need answers but the public at large needs to know what did and did not happen.
Ø I do want to caution you – don’t believe everything that you hear. Much of it has a political agenda.
Life is often defined by the questions we ask. By that I mean that the questions we are asking often reveal what we are thinking – or the direction we are going.
Perhaps today you come here with some burning questions – questions that should you find the answer might change your whole direction in life. I wish I could say today that I hold all of the answers to your questions. I do not.
Ø But I will say, I love it (most of the time) when people are asking questions, because it shows that they have been thinking and are inquisitive.
Ø It isn’t so great sometimes, when the questions have more of an accusatory tone. Often criticisms are hidden in “trick questions …”
§ Illus: “Why are those limbs still piled up out there?”
§ Illus: “What happened to our Baptist Hymnals”
Well, today I want us to look at the first two questions of the Bible. For in those two questions we find BOTH all the problems of this age – and the problems of your life today? That is to say, when we find the answers to these two questions, we will find the answers to most of the questions of life.
Text: We will find those two questions in our text today – Genesis 3:1-9
1. “Has God indeed said…” or perhaps we can understand it more clearly “Did God really say…”
2. “WHERE ARE YOU?”
So I want us to take those two questions today and see for ourselves that these same two questions today are at the forefront of all of history?
(Prayer)
I. DID GOD REALLY SAY…
1. Lest we miss what really happened here in the garden – God’s creation of beauty and perfection – we need to understand the one who was behind man’s fall.
2. God is not the author of sin, nor does He tempt people to sin; this is the work of the devil James 1:12 - 15 (NKJV) 12Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 13Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
We already know from scripture that Satan fell into sin prior to the work of God beginning in Gen. 1:3ff. (the creation of light on the first day of creation).
Ø He was a beautiful angel originally, rejoicing at God’s Creation (Job 38:4-7),
Ø but he sinned and was judged by God (Isa. 14:12-17; Ezek. 28:11-19).
Ø Note that Satan came to Eve in the guise of a serpent, for he is a masquerader and seldom appears to people in his true character.
o Here In Gen. 3, Satan is the serpent who deceives ;
o in Gen. 4, he is the liar that murders (John 8:44).
John 8:44 (NKJV) 44You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.
Ø We must take care to avoid his deceptive ways.
3. The very first way Satan attacked the mind of man, is still his favorite tactic today: “Did God really say…”
1) When Eve began to doubt what God had said, or more specifically, when she began to question if He really meant it – Satan had his foot in the door.
2) At the heart of the great moral questions of today – is the challenge to what God has said. (for it is most often NOT that we do not know what God has said, but rather that we do not want to accept that He meant it!)
a. Did God really mean “don’t kill innocent life (murder).
b. Did God really mean “a man and woman should be joined for life … and cling to each other…”
c. Did God really mean –
Deut 6:6“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. 10“So it shall be, when the LORD your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities which you did not build, 11houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant—when you have eaten and are full—12then beware, lest you forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.”
– yet, that is what our nation is attempting to do – that is the agenda of the far left wing of our society – to Get God’s Word away from People’s eyes and ears because it might have an influence on their way of thinking –
4. You see – if Satan can get us to question God’s Word – to begin to doubt what God has already said – or to ask ourselves did God really mean what He said – then He has the door wide open in our minds.
A. And he is cunning – crafty – and our minds are no match for his schemes.
B. That is why we need God’s Word – to peach it, to teach it, to devour it – to do what the Psalmist says: “Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I may not sin against thee.”
C. I want to ask you today, “what part of God’s word are you questioning.
1. Did God really say that He is the only God … there are none besides Him?
2. Did God really say that Israel is His Chosen People, and that He would always preserve a remnant of her for His purposes.
3. Did God really say that any nation that chooses to stand against her is taking up sides against Him?
4. Did God really say that a man is to bring of “his first fruits” and give those back to God in Worship and honor?
5. Did God really say that Jesus was born of a virgin?
6. Did Jesus really come back to life in His resurrected body
7. Did God really say that the wages of sin is “death” – physical and spiritual?
8. Did God really say that Jesus is the only way to find God – and therefore the only path to eternal life?
9. Did God really say that if a man dies in his sin – that he will be eternally separated from God and others that did receive Christ in Faith?
D. You see, when you answer that question – and realize what God really said – you have begun to journey down the road of truth!
(which brings us to the second question, today)
II. WHERE ARE YOU?
1. That question God posed to Adam, was not because God needed information – God is omniscient … He knows all things.
a. Any time you see a question by God in scripture it is always a rhetorical question, meaning He already knows the answer – but he wants you to see the answer as well.
b. IT IS a REFLECTIVE question – that is a question that is intended to cause one to think and reflect for a minute …
2. God asked Adam “where are you” … because Adam needed to see himself where he was:
a. Hiding in the bushes – instead of walking free in God’s world.
b. Hiding his sin – instead of running to the Father seeking forgiveness.
c. Thinking up excuses –
d. Doing anything he could to keep from admitting he had done wrong… (expound on what Adam had done to cover his sin).
3. That is what sin does – it separates us from our walk with God.
a. Sin was birthed into Adam’s heart that day, and yet we find that Adam’s sin was not just his own – that day SIN SEPARATED ALL OF MANKIND FROM GOD
§ That is why God’s word says that you and I were also born into Adam’s sin…
§ We didn’t have to invent sin all over, it was already part of our nature to sin…
b. Therefore the question is not “have I sinned” [“All have sinned and come short of the glory of God …”
c. And the question is not “are there consequences for my sin” – for God has already given us that answer “The wages of sin is death …”
d. The question becomes “WHERE AM I” – what can I do about MY SIN?
4. You see, all of eternity for you hinges on the answer to that question:
a. You are either IN Christ – you have accepted God’s provision for your own sin.
[if time permits, explain how God made provision for Adam and Eve’s sin … link that to Christ’s provision on the Cross]
b. Or you are still in your sin … and hiding from God.
§ … still questioning what God has said.
§ … still looking for some other way out
illus: very sick lawyer … dieing … preacher came to visit him, and found him reading his bible…
“I’m doing two things, I’m cramming for my finals – and I’m looking for some loopholes.”
§ There are no loopholes in God’s plan…
I want to ask YOU to answer those two questions today, for your own sake: for they are the most important questions perhaps in all of the Bible.
DID GOD REALLY SAY …? (What He had to say, did He mean it?).
WHERE ARE YOU? Where are you personally in your relationship and in your walk?
