The Key to Human History

[0:00] Well, in Genesis chapter 3, beloved, we have an account of what's wrong with this world.

[0:20] You don't have to be alive very long before you recognize there's something very, very wrong with it. The title of my message for this morning, the key then to human history.

[0:32] Genesis 3 is the key to human history and specifically the part that we'll be looking at this morning kind of zeroes in. It focuses our attention on the heartbeat, as it were, of what's wrong with the human heart.

[0:47] What's wrong since this moment in human history with all of us and everyone who's ever lived, except the Lord Jesus Christ.

[0:57] Let's pick it up in Genesis chapter 3, verse 1, and I'll read down through verse 7. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which Yahweh God had made.

[1:09] And he said to the woman, Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden.

[1:29] God said, You shall not eat from it, and you shall not touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said to the woman, You surely will not die, for God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

[1:52] Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise.

[2:03] So she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

[2:26] Well, we covered some territory in my last message from last Lord's Day. Today we're going to zero in on just verse 6. We're going to take our time to try and unpack some of what verse 6 tells us about the predicament that we're all in as human beings.

[2:44] Now, there have been countless movies and books that have been written and made around the theme of answering the questions of our existence.

[2:55] Questions like, why are we here? Where do we come from? Why is there evil in the world?

[3:07] Why are things the way they are? So broken. How did things even get this way? And then another question that some are asking, are we alone in the universe?

[3:20] All kinds of questions like that. Helpful answers from these movies and books then seem to evade us and never quite satisfy us.

[3:35] If you've ever watched a sci-fi movie where they present this great mystery of the unknown, and they're going to go out into space and tap that unknown entity and discover what it is, it's always a huge letdown.

[3:51] They never get the aliens right, do they? They never get them right. You know why? Because there isn't any such thing. There isn't. And that's why they can't satisfy us with the answers that they come up with to all of these questions of life, like aliens.

[4:10] Aliens taught the Egyptians how to build pyramids. Things, beings from other planets gave us the sophisticated knowledge that some of these ancient civilizations show.

[4:23] And they don't take into consideration the fact that the Bible tells us in the book of Genesis that people were extremely intelligent from the beginning. Sin has only worn us down over the centuries.

[4:37] It's not making us better. We're getting worse. That includes our ability to be intelligent about the things of life. Ancient peoples were highly intelligent people.

[4:50] And from the very beginning in Genesis, as God willing we'll see, God was giving human beings the knowledge that they needed to do all kinds of great works among themselves.

[5:03] When we get to the Tower of Babel, you'll see a lot of that. These answers that they offer us are not satisfactory. Answers like, we will find the answers to these questions in ancient artifacts with magical powers.

[5:19] Hitler believed that. Hitler went all over the world sending groups of people digging up all kinds of artifacts that he thought would give his Nazi regime great power over the other forces that they were up against.

[5:33] How about mystical powers within us? We just need to tap into the power within ourselves. What about lost secret societies who once knew the key to our history and our downfall?

[5:48] And so we're searching in caves and in deep places in the earth to find these lost civilizations that can give us the secrets that we need to answer these questions. Or perhaps some ancient evil that you can only kill with a silver bullet.

[6:05] Ooh! You know what that is. Or by driving a stake through its heart. Right? I want to suck your blood. This is what the movies and the books tell us fighting evil is all about.

[6:22] Most of the time they get it wrong. But in a few instances, I've taken note over the last couple of years, they can rightly say that the problem is the evil within us. Now get that part right.

[6:34] The issue then is that they get the remedy wrong because they don't have any idea where the evil comes from. Or what, if anything, can be done about it. And that's where this symbol behind me comes in.

[6:49] That's why Genesis 3 is in the Bible, friends. This is why Genesis 3 exists for us. So the purpose of Genesis 3 is to give us God's account of human evil.

[7:04] God's account. And to lay the foundation of what the remainder of the Bible will tell us about God's remedy for man's ruin. The account of the fall of Adam and Eve into sinful rebellion against God and His truth is the key to human history.

[7:23] This is the most pivotal chapter in all the Bible. And I'm not the only one saying that. This is where we come to understand why the rest of the Bible was written.

[7:35] The rest of the Bible answers Genesis 3. And we see Genesis 3 repeated over and over and over again in the lives of all of the different people that we come into contact with in Scripture to include our spiritual heroes like the Apostle Paul and Peter.

[7:56] A man who sinned against Jesus with such depth that he went into a lonely place and wept bitterly over it. And he was never the same man again.

[8:09] This is the power of sin. But there is a greater power that we'll talk about eventually. We have to talk about this terrible, terrible news so that the good news of the cross will shine even greater in our hearts.

[8:25] There's a reason that God put Genesis 3 in the Bible where He did. After creating mankind, after creating the world, after making this wonderful paradise for human beings to live in, human beings spent no time at all ruining it.

[8:42] ruining it. And that's what we have to deal with. Now, we're tempted to think of Satan as God's and man's greatest enemy.

[8:53] And he is indeed our great foe. And we're told that in Scripture. But, hear this now, God's greatest enemy and our greatest enemy is sin.

[9:04] It's sin. It's sin. Such that when you sin, you can't blame it on the devil. You with me?

[9:17] Such that when you and I sin, we can't blame it on other people. We can't blame it on situations. We can't say that situation or circumstance made me sin.

[9:31] No. No. No, we can't do that. We can't point fingers at other people. People and situations and Satan don't make you sin. You sin out of your own heart by the will of your own heart.

[9:45] I'm going to show you that in Scripture in just a little while. It's the same with me, folks. I need the same Jesus that you need to conquer my sin just like you need Jesus to conquer yours.

[9:57] sin is our greatest enemy. Let me put it up here on the screen for you this way so that you can see it and maybe it'll help form it in your minds better.

[10:11] Satan lies to us and tries to deceive us, but sin makes us a lie in God's sight. Without Jesus Christ, sin is who we are, not just what we do.

[10:27] So that God is right to call us sinners. That's an apt description of us. Sin, as we learned last week, is lawlessness. It is disobedience.

[10:39] It's a crime against God. We either don't do what God tells us or we do what God forbids. That's Genesis 3. Now the question is, why are we all like this?

[10:55] What happened? And how did what happened in the garden transfer to us? Now, I can't answer that last question I just asked today.

[11:06] I'm going to handle that next week. How did what happened in the garden of Eden between Adam and Eve transfer to all humanity so that all of us are found culpable for what Adam and Eve did in the garden?

[11:20] That doesn't even seem fair. But hang on. Come next week and I'll deal with that from Scripture and we'll talk about what is going on that we inherited, as it were, this culpability from Adam and Eve.

[11:38] Now let me go a little bit further and set the table here for you as we think about this. I'd like to help you think about it theologically, obviously. Theologians categorize the Bible's teaching on sin under the heading of harmatiology.

[11:54] It's hard to say. Hamartiology. Let me show you what it looks like. Hamartiology. It's from the Greek word hamartia, which translates sin.

[12:06] Sin. The verb form is hamartano, and it means to miss the mark, to err, to be mistaken. So we take this from this verse.

[12:18] For all have sinned, hamartano, and fall short of the glory of God. That sin is the falling short of. It's the missing the mark.

[12:30] And what are we guilty of at the very base of what sin is? First and foremost, sin is about being guilty before God.

[12:41] We have sinned against God. Look, I'm a married man. When I sin against Suzanne in some aspect of perhaps unkindness or rudeness or impatience, there's some aspect of sin that I do toward my wife.

[12:56] That's bad. And that's not good. And I need to repent of that and make it right with my wife. But first and foremost, the greatest evil of that sin against Suzanne is that it's sin first against God.

[13:11] The reason that it's sin isn't because Suzanne says so or because I even feel guilty. The reason it's sin is because God has marked it off as sin.

[13:22] Why? Because it violates what God has commanded of me as a human being toward another human being. And so because it's violating God's standard, it's sin.

[13:36] Do you understand me? It's sin because God says so. That's why. So all of our sin as we learned this past Wednesday night, I talked about this last Wednesday night and we kind of unpacked this together.

[13:50] All sin at its worst is first and foremost sin against our creator. And that's why it's sin. Then it becomes sin against others.

[14:03] The Bible uses many, many different terms to define sin. This is just a couple of them here, the noun and verb form of this.

[14:14] But it uses a lot of different words both in the Old Testament and the New Testament to define sin. And what that tells us is this, the nature of sin is multi-dimensional. It's multi-faceted.

[14:27] This is a big topic in the Bible. The primary thing, however, for us to consider is that you and I must view sin the way God does.

[14:39] Because sin is deceitful, as we're going to see, it won't tell us the truth about what it is. We need God to tell us the truth about the sin in our heart.

[14:52] You need God to help you identify the sin in your heart. Or what will you do? You'll rationalize it. You'll justify it. You'll brush over it.

[15:03] Won't you? Have you ever been guilty of that? Only to come back later and have the Holy Spirit convict you and you say, Lord, please forgive me. Please forgive me. I should have dealt with this sooner.

[15:14] I knew it was wrong. Lord, please forgive me. And you do business with God. We all struggle with this reality. You and I then must have, must folks, we must have a God-centered understanding of sin from what God tells us it is in Scripture.

[15:36] That's what we need and that's why we're taking our time in this particular section of the Bible to talk about this. Again, I won't get tired of telling you this.

[15:47] We get this wrong and we're going to get so much other stuff wrong as we move through the Scripture together. Now, here's what I'm doing. I'm highlighting four characterizations of sin as the spiritual force of evil.

[16:05] The spiritual force of evil which completely corrupts human beings. Every word I chose to characterize this is important in that title.

[16:17] We are characterizing sin as the spiritual force of evil which completely corrupts human beings.

[16:29] Now, that is to say that when Adam and Eve sinned and took on them the nature of sin, there was no part of their humanity disaffected by that sin.

[16:41] Every part of their humanity was affected by sin. They were thoroughly corrupt from head to toe in every single part of them. Their will did not escape the corrupting power of sin.

[16:55] Their minds did not escape it. Their ability to reason whatever. Every part of us is affected by sin so that we are fully depraved.

[17:08] That's what depravity means. It doesn't mean that we always do our worst as we go out and sin. Sin to the utmost. Our total depravity has everything to do with the idea, the concept from scripture that we are totally or completely consumed by sin apart from the Lord Jesus Christ.

[17:30] So here's what that means. We don't need just a little bit of Jesus. We need Jesus. We don't need a little bit of a spiritual bath.

[17:42] we need a new nature. So getting in the spiritual bathtub isn't going to get it. You need the miracle working power of the almighty creator of the universe to invade your soul and give you a new nature in his son.

[18:02] That is a radical, radical difference between that and a spiritual bath. Or just rub you off a little bit. Oh yep, I'm good because I was basically good to start with.

[18:13] That's not what the Bible teaches. Now we need to be careful of this because Satan will deceive us. We want to rescue ourselves. Alright, have you ever been in a conversation with someone else where you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're wrong and you contributed to the problem?

[18:31] I'm using you Alonza. She knows. She sits on the front row and she knows I'm fair game up here. So you know you're wrong and you're in this conversation with this person and you need to make it right with them and you are wrestling so hard to not rescue yourself.

[18:49] Well, alright, so I might have been, I might have said this and you may have mistakenly thought I meant and we're trying so hard to rescue ourselves in that.

[19:05] But what we should say is will you please forgive me because what I said to you was not only wrong, it was evil. It came right out of my heart and I wanted to hurt you in that moment.

[19:21] Will you please forgive me? But what we want to do is rescue ourselves. No, no, no, no, no. You, see, you misunderstood what I really meant when I told you you were whatever, right?

[19:34] this is what sin does. Sin gets in and wants to help us rescue ourselves. This is exactly what's going on with Eve.

[19:48] And we want to expose it for what it is because it's how it works on us. Alright, so let's talk about what I did last time just a little bit because then I'm going to move right into it.

[19:58] So I want you to see this. The first thing that we dealt with from last Lord's Day and these four characterizations, number one, sin's constitution. All I mean by that is its nature. And we dealt with verses one through five.

[20:11] All I want to tell you about this is this. Satan, Satan sought to cloud the issue in these first five verses in dealing with Eve in his conversation with Eve, he is seeking to cloud the issue of what God said and meant as it related to God's blessings on the couple.

[20:31] He said, wait a minute, he didn't attack the blessings, he attacked the prohibition. Hath God said you can't eat of any of the trees in the garden?

[20:41] Really? He said that? He won't let you eat any of these trees? Wow. That sounds what he's really doing though is attacking the blessing. I want to show you this. I'm going to pull this out.

[20:52] God's blessings are his pronouncements of happiness on them. So when you go to the Sermon on the Mount and blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed, happy are.

[21:04] They are happy, joyful because they know the Lord and they know what they're doing in the Lord is of the Lord. So God is blessing them. He's pronouncing happiness on their life.

[21:17] Now you may say, well, what blessings? What blessings are we talking about that Satan is attacking? All right, well, here's one of them. Look, the first, Adam, I give you life from my life.

[21:31] How much more basic do we need to get? The reason, we just read a psalm that says, you are light, I have light. You are the fountain of life. I don't have any life unless I come to the fountain, the head of it all.

[21:45] The reason that you are here today, you are able to breathe God's air is because God's blessing you. He's gracing you right now to be able for your heart to beat and your lungs to work and your minds to be attentive.

[22:00] That's all God's doing. Doesn't He deserve the praise for that? On the most basic level, Adam, I gave you life. I breathed my own life into you. Or you'd have no life.

[22:12] That's a gift. Adam, I made this paradise for you. I made this paradise for you. Adam, I have given you charge over all these animals and over this entire place.

[22:31] It's yours. You, you rule here. You and Eve, co-rulers, co-regents of everything that I've made. Wow. But, as we saw, but, best of all, Adam, lest you forget, I give you this beautiful female creature to be your soul mate for life.

[22:54] In other words, I give you the gift of marriage. Soul companionship. Adam, you can have a lot of guy friends, and I hope you make a lot of guy friends, and you guys are really close, but I'm telling you something right now, that's not even going to touch what I'm going to give you with this woman.

[23:12] What you're going to have with her is going to be so special. It'll rock your world kind of thing. Remember that when we talked about that in chapter 2? And then, with Eve, I give you the ability to make life.

[23:29] That is, I give you the gift of children and the gift to make a family for yourselves. God invented all that. God created all that for us and gave it to us.

[23:42] And then, finally, this one. If you can see it right here at the bottom of the screen, I give you both an abundance, an abundance. The Bible made a big deal out of that when we were at that point, of beautiful, delicious things to eat.

[23:57] Everything you need for life is here for you from my hand. Eat freely, live freely, love freely. You are my beloved children.

[24:11] That's God's pronouncement of blessing, of happiness on these two people. So much freedom. So many blessings. Now, what was Satan's attack all about then, really?

[24:26] What was behind him coming to Eve and questioning the goodness of God and the truthfulness of God in what God prohibited? What was that really all about?

[24:38] Here it is. Satan's attack was aimed at downplaying their freedoms in the Lord. How?

[24:50] By confusing Eve about the single prohibition God gave them. Has God really restricted you from eating from any tree in the garden?

[25:01] Don't tell me that. Well, every tree was for them. One tree was not. So what did he want to do?

[25:11] He wanted to use highlighting the prohibition to obscure all the freedoms. You know, they've got, it's like, it's like this whole wall back here behind me.

[25:24] We could just start writing up in the corner up there all the blessings of God we enjoy. We could just fill this wall with all those blessings. And then we come over here and we write maybe above the door the one prohibition that God gave to Adam and Eve and we look at all this and Satan did this.

[25:44] He brought Eve over to this place and she's probably doing something like this and he went and he held her right there. You just look right there because what I don't want you to look at is that wall.

[25:59] I don't want you to see that. And that's exactly what he does to you and I when he tempts us in sin. He doesn't want us to think about, he doesn't want us to rehearse what we can know about God and what God has done for us and the faithfulness of God in our lives.

[26:16] What does he want to do with you? He wants to keep you focused on the kinds of things that you can't know, that you don't know and you can't do anything about. And so what do you do? You worry. You get full of anxiety.

[26:29] There are things that you can know about the Lord. There are things that you can know about how God works in your life. There are things that you can rehearse where God has shown you a track record of faithfulness and life.

[26:39] God gave you life. You could do just what I did. All those things I put up there that Adam, you could say the same thing. By God's hand, I have all these things. By God's hand, I have life. By God's hand, I have this blessing and that blessing.

[26:51] So what does Satan want to do? He fixes your heart on one thing. You stay on that one thing. You've got to have that one thing. It's like all this stuff doesn't matter. And then you start worrying about can I get that thing?

[27:01] Can I make this work? You manipulate. You control. You get worried. You get full of anxiety. Oh, this has to happen. Do you think this will happen? Oh, I don't know. And the pharmaceutical companies get rich because you go buy anti-anxiety medication and all that kind of stuff.

[27:18] This is how Satan tempts us not to trust God. When we say trust God, we're not just throwing out some flippant idea for you.

[27:31] trusting God really is the issue. It's the last thing Satan wants you to do. It's the last thing Satan wanted for Eve to do, isn't it? To trust God. Because God had spoken.

[27:44] It's not like God had left her in a vacuum. God had told her, don't eat of this tree. But what else did God say? Oh, from any of the trees in the garden, look at all these trees I've made for you.

[27:58] You eat from any of those as freely as you want to eat, as much as you want to eat. You enjoy each other. You have life. You go live together. And Satan said, yeah, but.

[28:11] Man, that yeah, but. It got in there and that's what's ruining everything. Friends, I want to tell you, when Satan put this question before Eve, he was not trying to attain information.

[28:29] He didn't say to her, hath God really said that you can't eat from any of the trees of the garden? He already knew the answer to his question. He wasn't looking for information.

[28:40] He was applying insinuation. Big difference. He was applying insinuation. What was he insinuating? How limiting? How absolutely unfair?

[28:52] How selfish of God to put these kind of restraints on you in a place like this? Oh, that's not even fair. To wave that donut out there in front of you guys and snatch it back and say, you can't have that.

[29:05] Get your mouth all watering and ready and then snatch it away. Oh, this. And so as soon as he got her doubting about yeah. Yeah.

[29:16] As soon as he got her doing that, then he brought in the second attack. And what's the second attack? God's a lion to you. He's just flat out lying to you.

[29:28] You will not die. You know, I could see him going because he does this kind of stuff. He tries to come off sounding spiritual. For heaven's sake.

[29:42] Death. I mean, really, Eve, what is that? Yeah. Yeah. And off we go. And I want to show you how this is happening inside of this woman.

[29:58] So we're going to pick it up in verse six. Having dealt with verses one through five, let's pick it up in verse six. Then the woman saw after Satan told her, God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God and you'll know good from evil.

[30:15] Then. Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise.

[30:26] So she took from its fruit and ate and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate. Now, folks, let me put that up there. Sin's consummation. There's the second one.

[30:38] This is when it all consummates. Verse six. Now, the first thing that we're going to take note of is that Eve observed that the tree was good for food. Now that that you should be right now thinking, what?

[30:53] Who said that? Who told her that? Did God tell Eve that the tree was good for food? No. Now, let me ask another question that I want to hasten to point out to you.

[31:06] Is this tree bad? Is it evil? How do you know that? Because God made the creation and he said to this point, it's all very good.

[31:21] Right? So we know that this tree serves God's purposes in creation at this point. What he has told Adam and Eve is that it's not good for you.

[31:35] In other words, this tree serves a purpose in God's economy. But what I want you to understand is not for you. Everything else is for you.

[31:48] This one I'm holding back and it's not for you. This is protection. This is God being a father and protecting. No, honey, don't touch that. That's hot.

[31:58] That'll burn you. This is God. One thing. One thing. Eve. So the tree is not bad in the sense that we would think about it, even though we see that it's called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

[32:13] Well, God can handle that because he's God. But he knows this is not a good thing for human beings. So he tells them to stay away from it. Now, what Eve does is she looks at the tree and sees that it's good for food.

[32:27] She's making a heart evaluation about this. She's reasoning from her heart about something and she's going against what God said, isn't she? The tree.

[32:38] Is it good for food? What do you think? Is it good for food? Now, according to God, what did God say? Is it good for food? For human beings?

[32:50] No. No, it's not. And that has been told to them. And Adam, I'm assuming, told his wife because she knew what was going on. In his commentary on this particular verse, John Curid points out that this is the same grammatical construction used seven times in chapter one as God himself assessed his own work in creation.

[33:18] It was all good. What did God say? It says, and God saw that it was good. And God saw that it was good. Six times that happens in chapter one.

[33:28] And then he gets to the seventh one. And God saw that it was very good. That's the same grammatical construction that's being used here to say that Eve looked at the tree and saw that it was good for food.

[33:43] Same construction. It's a wordplay. So what's happening here is that Eve is reasoning from her heart that the tree is good. She's saying within herself, yummy.

[33:55] I want that. Eve is already succumbing to sin because her heart is making an evaluation contrary to God's view of the tree.

[34:11] The truth is the tree is not good for food or for anything else related to being human. This is not good for human beings.

[34:21] Stay away from it. Why? Because God said so. And that should be enough. Do you think that she could reason all the different ways that God might be thinking this is not good?

[34:39] Could she possibly comprehend all of the necessary nuances of why that tree was bad and what it would do to her? Probably not. But was it enough that God said this is not good?

[34:54] Don't do it. That should have been enough. Amen? It should have been enough. Why isn't it enough for us, folks? It's not enough for you. You say it should have been enough for Eve.

[35:06] Well, it's not enough for you. I'm putting you on the spot. It's okay with me if you start squirming. We need to understand how this transfers over into the way that we live life and we need to understand that our sin put Jesus on the cross.

[35:27] That's how bad it is. It's so bad that God had to offer His Son in our place to remove it from our lives. So we don't play with this.

[35:42] We are sobered by this. We are humbled by this. And we realize that if we'd been there we'd have done the same exact thing. How do I know that? Because you sin every day just like me.

[35:55] We're no better. Eve had listened to the serpent and decided in her heart that the tree would be good for her. Contrary to what God said.

[36:07] So what can I say about that? Here's what I can say about that. Sinful human thought reverses God's thought. That's what it does. And that's what's happening. Take careful note of the progression here my friends.

[36:24] Eve now allows her eyes to dwell on. We need to teach our children this. Over and over. She allows her eyes to dwell on what's forbidden.

[36:40] She should have fleed man. She should have got out of Dodge. Just went to another part of the garden. She further determines in her heart that something so beautiful something so pleasing can't be bad.

[36:55] Finally she reasons in her heart that the tree is beneficial for her to be made wise in her own eyes. And that becomes literally true unfortunately.

[37:08] now I ask you based on what I've been telling you and emphasizing when did Eve sin? Did she sin before she ate the fruit or after she ate the fruit?

[37:33] Okay? There it is. Yes to both. Right? Both were sin. But she was sinning before she ate.

[37:49] The action of eating the fruit was born in her heart before she ever acted. That's the same way sin works in your life and in my life friends.

[38:00] Before you ever speak or do sin it's active in your heart. And so where does the scripture tell us to deal with sin in our life?

[38:15] In our heart. That's what we're dealing with on Wednesday nights. Wednesday nights is all about dealing with what I just told you. It's helping us understand how to deal with sin in our heart.

[38:28] That's what these theology questions are all about that we're putting out on Wednesday night. It's to help us better understand how scripture tells us to deal with sin in our heart.

[38:41] And that's what Eve is facing here. She sinned in her heart before she ever ate the apple and she sinned or apple I'm sorry I'm just like y'all I'm so used to seeing the picture stories where it's an apple we don't know what it was.

[38:56] And she sinned after she sinned after by actually partaking of the fruit. So it's yes to both. Now I want to give you just a quick scriptural reference here.

[39:07] I'm going to be so tempted Brian don't let me do it. If I start going off on these passages go like this to me. All right. Luke chapter 6 verse 43 chapter 43 hold your hold your finger there in Genesis.

[39:22] I don't want you to see that this is a New Testament teaching based on what happened in the garden. Luke chapter 6 and we're going to pick it up in verse 43 of Jesus' teaching here excuse me under mainly in 37 he starts talking about not judging one another and condemning one another.

[39:48] And now he's going to come down to verse 43 and look what he says. For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit. Okay that's a good principle to understand.

[39:59] Nor on the other hand a bad tree which produces good fruit. Now if you just replace fruit with heart you're going to get the point of what he's talking about here.

[40:10] for each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns nor do they pick grapes from a bramble bush. Now notice in verse 45 he brings the parable into reality for us and teaches the principle.

[40:26] The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good. And the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil for his mouth speaks from the overflow or abundance of his heart.

[40:45] What you speak out of your mouth comes from your heart. Every word you say reveals something about your heart. Alright here's another one.

[40:58] Go backwards in the gospel of Mark chapter 7. Now all I'm doing here friends is I'm trying to help you tie some of these principles from Genesis 3 6 to New Testament teachings about how you and I face sin in our lives.

[41:15] There's not a disconnect here. It's very connected. Mark 7 beginning in verse let's begin in verse 18 where Jesus is actually teaching on the heart of human beings.

[41:33] He's trying to help his disciples better understand where sin comes from. in verse 18 he begins and Jesus said to them to his disciples are you lacking understanding in this way as well?

[41:46] Now notice that lacking understanding friends don't hurry past this. Okay. Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him?

[41:58] Now what kind of understanding is he talking about in verse 18? Truth. God's truth. understanding how God helps us know how these things work in our own lives.

[42:10] And he's saying you guys don't understand that. So do you not understand whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, pollute him, corrupt him.

[42:21] Why? Verse 19 because it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach and goes to the sewer. Thus Jesus declared all foods clean.

[42:34] Now he was saying that which proceeds out of the man. That is what defiles, corrupts, pollutes the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, covening, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

[42:58] All these evil things proceed from within and defile, corrupt, pollute the man. So when we ask the question of the scriptures, where does my sin come from, the answer comes back from within you.

[43:15] My sin comes from within me. It comes from within my heart. The heart is not the boop, boop, boop, boop. The heart is the core of who I am. It's the identity of me, Jeff.

[43:28] I sin from within me. This is Jesus' explanation of where sin that we do comes from. It comes from within. Now, back to Genesis.

[43:38] Let me ask you a question based on what we just saw as the principle of how we face off with sin from within. What was flowing from Eve's mouth?

[43:51] Just ask yourself, what am I seeing in this passage that is flowing from her own mouth? what is in her heart here in verse 6.

[44:05] And that is a reflection of what will then come out of her mouth. She is declaring to herself, as it were, this tree is a good thing. This is going to be good for me.

[44:16] Yummy, I want it. What was overflowing from her heart? That's evidenced in her actions. what she's doing is because of what she's thinking.

[44:30] Her heart gave birth to her action of eating. But when she desired in her heart, that is when she sinned against the Lord.

[44:41] When she desired to act on taking from that tree, that is when she sinned. That was her first act of sin. Happened in her heart.

[44:52] Jesus said that if you lust for a woman in your heart, have you committed adultery? Yes. And there are many, many, many sins like that.

[45:04] The sin of pride issues within our heart. Long before I make a statement of pridefulness, I'm dealing with pride in my heart. This is what's going on with Eve.

[45:17] And folks, I can't stress this. This is the most important thing you can know about chapter 3. Beyond what I'm going to share with you in my final sermon on chapter 3, which is how God remedies the most important thing about us.

[45:32] But she desired this in her heart. So rebellion in heart was evidenced by what she did in eating. Rebellion. In other words, she ate the apple with her heart before she ate it with her mouth.

[45:48] she dwelt on a desire for what God prohibited. That's the nature of all sin.

[45:59] I dwell on something God prohibits. And then it's just a matter of time before I act on it. By God's design and declaration, this tree's fruit was poisonous to the human soul and would kill the human soul.

[46:15] sinful. Again, I put this up here just so you can see it. Sinful human thought reverses God's thought. That's from J.

[46:25] Adams. Now pastorally, I'm concerned for your ability to guard your hearts from spiritual deception.

[46:37] You remember now, Satan is an active predator. He is seeking whom he may devour. So we have an active enemy who wants our souls to sin.

[46:49] That's true. He's scheming to deceive your heart. What Eve is facing here is outright deception, but that deception leads into her own heart choosing to rebel.

[47:02] So again, Satan is not making Eve sin. He's not making Eve sin. Eve had a choice. She could believe God or she could believe Satan.

[47:13] She chose from her own will to believe Satan. And that deception consumed her and then it gave birth to what she did in her heart and in her actions.

[47:26] Satan did not make her do that any more than my wife makes me mad. I choose to be angry about something or whatever. This is how it works.

[47:38] This is how the Bible is telling us this all works. So my concern for you guys is to help you deal with this scheming deception that he wants to foist on your hearts.

[47:50] Now I'm going to bring this original temptation into how you and I are tempted to succumb to sin in our daily lives. Pastorally I want to do that but I have a reason for doing that folks.

[48:03] Here's the verse that gives me that pastoral concern for all of you and why I pray for you through the week. I will take places in scripture particularly Paul's prayers and I will pray those back to God.

[48:17] Sometimes I insert your names as I see your faces and pray it for you. Sometimes I pray it for us as an entire body of believers. Here is why those prayers are so important.

[48:28] Here is why I'm pastorally concerned for you. It comes from this verse and what I read in Genesis 3. Paul said I fear that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness your minds will be corrupted from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

[48:50] Bottom line every time you are tempted by sin it is always bottom line about drawing you away from being devoted to Jesus Christ.

[49:01] Always. The thing that Satan wants most for you is he wants to corrupt your walk with Jesus. your love for Christ your humility before Christ your contrite heart before Christ.

[49:15] He wants you proud. He wants you rehearsing what you don't have instead of rehearsing the wall full of blessing that you do have from the hand of Jesus because Jesus went to the cross as your substitute and paid the penalty for your sin so that God could free you to enjoy these blessings of his heart and his hand for you as his people.

[49:40] Satan doesn't want you to know that. It's only right that Greg and I share in this same intense concern that Paul had for believers under his care.

[49:52] Knowing that Satan will deceive you into pursuing lies instead of pursuing love for Christ. This is all about Jesus folks. the proverb that I chose for this is give me your heart my son and let your eyes delight in my way.

[50:13] If Eve would have taken this right? If Eve would have let her eyes delight in God's ways what God had told her instead of letting her eyes be fixed on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and draw her away from the Lord.

[50:30] If only Eve had done that. What a difference it would have made but she didn't. Eve did not delight in God's ways.

[50:41] I want to take you to just another place or two to just to show you again how this concern that we have Greg and I have for us pastorally about dealing with the deceitful nature of sin comes over in the New Testament teaching.

[50:56] James chapter 1. Some of you may have actually thought of this passage of scripture as I have been unpacking Genesis 3. James chapter 1 and I am going to begin in verse 14.

[51:17] Now he has been talking about contextually persevering under trial. So everything he is about to say now comes under the heading of you being able to persevere in the truth and goodness of God as you face the trials and temptations from sin.

[51:35] Verse 14 says, But each person, each one, is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Now do you see Eve there?

[51:48] Can you see Eve lusting after the tree? Yes. Alright. Verse 15. Then, when that lust is conceived, it gives birth to sin.

[52:01] And when sin is fully matured, it brings forth what? Death. Isn't that what God told them? And that's exactly what happened, isn't it? Here is a New Testament teaching about the pattern that you see happening in verse 6 of Genesis chapter 3.

[52:20] Tempted, carried away, enticed, having a heart desire, a heart lust for something that God prohibits. When that lust is conceived in the heart, it gives birth to sin in the heart, in the heart.

[52:36] And when the sin is fully matured, it brings forth death, it brings forth the actions of sin, which result in death and condemnation before the Lord. Now if you look over, since you're here, I'm just going to give you one more, James chapter 4.

[52:51] And look at verse 7, what James is going to eventually tell his readers in light of all of this. Look at verse 6. Look at verse 6, my friends, of James 4.

[53:05] But he gives a greater grace, therefore it says, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. If only Eve had been more humble and not so proud.

[53:17] verse 7, but be subject, therefore, to God. Your translation may say submission or submissive.

[53:30] Be subject, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will do what from you? Flee. There you go. Now we're bringing this over into our understanding of what we see happening in Genesis chapter 3 verse 6.

[53:50] What Adam and Eve did in the garden is typical of sin in general, friends. It's typical of your sin and my sin. And here's what it did.

[54:02] It struck at the basis. Her sin struck at the basis for knowledge, that is, godly knowledge, for the moral standards, that is, godliness being lived out in our lives, and it proved irrational or foolish.

[54:17] That's from Wayne Grudem, his systematic theology. He took these and characterized them. And it's a long, long treatise that he does. I'm just pulling this all down for us this morning. So I want to do something with that.

[54:30] In terms of the knowledge that God gives us and how sin attacks that knowledge, here is how he does it. He deals with the issue, well, what is true?

[54:41] Hath God said? What is true? Well, what is true is what God has said and defines as true. Amen? If God has said it, then it's true.

[54:52] And we have 66 books of true where God has spoken. We don't have to guess. It's right here for us, literally, in black and white, is it not?

[55:03] Look, but that's not what drives the wisdom of this world. What God says is true is not what drives the wisdom of the world. man's wisdom says that you can make your own truth.

[55:14] Man's wisdom says that what is true for me is what's true. Amen? Yeah, that's what it says. My personal experience trumps everything, including God's word.

[55:28] So that what I've experienced and what I want is what is true for me. And that's what Eve did. I'm going to pursue what's true for me.

[55:40] I'm going to do what's right in my own eyes. I'm going to do what I think is true. And look what happened. Adam's no better.

[55:51] He's going to get his turn. You wait. Ladies, you wait. Adam's going to get his turn and more. And more. I promise you. This is what we're dealing with in this question of what is true.

[56:03] true. There is something radically wrong with how unbelievers observe the world. And even in how they interpret true things in scientific quote unquote ways.

[56:17] And here's why. They factor God out due to sin. Even when they look at things that are true, they're not looking at it from the point of view of God says it's true or God reveals it's true or God makes it true.

[56:31] They factor God out. That's very important isn't it? The Bible tells us that unbelievers cannot and do not interpret life under the power of the Holy Spirit living in them.

[56:44] They can't. They don't have the Holy Spirit living in them to help them read this book and understand spiritually spiritual things. The Holy Spirit helping them to understand Holy Spirit stuff.

[56:56] They can't. The Bible says that. It tells us that very clearly. The issue then that we're dealing with is that the deceitfulness of sin when I say that the deceitfulness of sin that means deceitful desires the lust of deceit what's going on inside of Eve right now in chapter three verse six of Genesis.

[57:21] The issue is that the deceitfulness of sin does this it blinds unbelievers to what to God's goodness. In other words sin works unchecked in unbelievers unchecked in unbelievers there's nothing to check it.

[57:37] Their own sense of morality can help them perhaps not cheat on their taxes not cheat on their spouse but nothing that an unbeliever does is remotely connected to bringing God honor and glory or being concerned with pleasing the Lord not a thing they're as far from that as they can possibly be you've lived that as an unbeliever I've lived that as an unbeliever it's the truth but the deceitfulness sin also does this it tempts believers it tempts believers what away from God's truth and devotion to Christ didn't we just see that we're seeing that now what is sin doing to Eve it's drawing her further and further away from God and his ways and his truth so that now she's acting on her own she's acting in the wisdom of her own eyes not what God said very dangerous that's what she's doing now here's the difficult part here's the difficult part sin sin is deceitful it can look and feel good would you sin if it didn't feel good what happened what would happen if

[58:50] God had put a mechanism inside of us that every time we sin we get a huge electrical shock somewhere whoa I don't want to do that again but that's not what happens we don't get a and make our eyes cross we sin and it feels good we sin and we get instant gratification instant satisfaction oh man that felt so good telling them off they have deserved that for some time now I don't regret that and then we go away and if we're a Christian and we start praying about it God convicts us our prayers are interrupted our conscience bearing witness against us that was not right that was not right right but that sin feels good or we wouldn't do it I'm going to say it again to you dear dear beloved friends you love love you love you love your sin and I love my sin and we are praying

[59:51] God help us to hate what you hate and to love what you love God break our hearts help us to see sin the way you do help us to hate it the way you do sin is not your friend sin is not your friend it is your foe sin will get you a devil's hell sin will ruin your life sin will ruin the lives of the people around you it will poison everything it touches if I can remember I made a quick note the other night when I thought of it in this next message that I bring Lord willing I have breath for life to do it I want to talk to you about secret sin I hope I remember there's no such thing as private sin no such thing and I want to that's in Genesis Eve's heart lied to her what what she observed was real it was real the tree was beautiful the tree was beautiful and in

[61:07] God's economy it served God's purpose and it would it would give her knowledge the fruit tasted good or she just spit it out she went eat no no no Adam don't eat it don't eat it but what did she do you got to have taste it taste it and what did he do he probably saw her and the juice running down and he's looking well give me some and he ate and the Bible tells us that he was more guilty we got to deal with that too I don't have time this morning to do it she reasoned in her heart and what she reasoned was false and it took her in the direction of disobedience that's what sin always does her heart lied to her because her unguarded heart listened to lies you hear that her unguarded heart listened to lies her observations now Wednesday night people this is for you too her observations were based on general revelation so that she was allowing the desires of her heart to be informed not by God's truth but by the deceitful lies of the devil

[62:31] Eve's understanding of eating freely and of not eating was special revelation you say what yes special revelation concerns God's word what God has spoken and told us what God has specially revealed to us about life and godliness in his word this is special revelation general revelation is what we can know about God what everybody can know about God by just looking at creation Eve looked at creation reasoned in her heart reasoned falsely and walked away from special revelation which is what God had told her and it got her death death that's what's happening God's word to Adam and Eve was given in his love to protect them special revelation then God's word interpreted and defined how they were to live considering considering what they saw and encountered in general revelation

[63:33] God said this is the way you guys live with each other and for each other as you go out here and you encounter all of this oh and there's this one tree I want to tell you about and I'll tell you about how to relate to that one tree they didn't listen and the reason is because sin feels good if only it weren't so folks the main idea here is that we all suffer the negative effects of sin on our thinking our reasoning our interpretations our perspectives in our overall view of the issues of life that's our worldview ever since the fall of Adam and Eve into sin mankind cannot reason about the issues of life apart from sin's deceitful influence we can't do it not without Jesus we can't do it our senses don't always interpret and respond to reality or truth in the fullest or most accurate ways do they you ever made a wrong decision have you ever sinned well there's the evidence of it we don't always interpret what's happening in our lives in ways that are accurate truthful

[64:42] God honoring even Christians can carry fault filled views of life due to the deceitfulness of sin look Satan's first attack clouded clouded the issue of God's truth and created doubt his second attack God's a liar he's lied to you that was the second attack full force his second attack contravened God's truth it reversed it and then replaced it in Eve's heart so that's the pattern of temptation you and I all face then just a couple of more and I'm done look this is the next one what is right what is right well what God said defines what is right this is the moral standards this is the issue of right and wrong and how do we know right and wrong and who's to say what's right and what's wrong well God God's spoken and he's told us God said it's morally right to not eat fruit from the one tree that's right don't do that and that's right not doing it is right

[65:53] Satan offers his version to reverse and replace God's truth you surely will not die God's lying to you Satan maintains that they can and should should not only can you eat from the tree you should eat from it why should I eat from it because God knows that in the day you eat it it'll make you wise and you'll be like God and he's withholding from you go ahead try it touch it you said if you touch it you'll die touch it did you die no there you go isn't that how he tempts you little bit at a time little bit at a time and then slap the trap that's what he does to me too you'd think that after 62 years hey after the last two months I feel older than that after 62 years you'd think I you know well I am more astute

[66:54] I do recognize it a little more quickly but look from the day I was first saved till the day now I still exactly need the same thing I needed from the first day till now I need Christ cross in my life in my heart that will never change eating from this one tree will greatly benefit you you'll be like God you'll be able to decide for yourself right from wrong you won't need God to tell you and that sounds like freedom now it's here it's here that Eve began to show that she's willing to trust herself to decide what was right and wrong for her apart from the wisdom and truth of God the most critical aspect in that sentence is apart from apart from I want to learn good judgment I want to learn good discernment I want to be able to activate that judgment and discernment and wisdom in any situation of life but that judgment wisdom discernment comes from

[68:00] God and so anytime I'm separating myself from God in those areas of deciding discerning and making wise choices I'm in trouble aren't I because now I'm left up to myself I don't want that I don't trust me all right let's do this last one what or who am I what or who am I this is where the attack proves to be irrational and foolish Satan went after her knowledge of what is true Satan went after her knowledge of what is right and wrong and now he comes after who she is as a person and the answer to this is what God says you are defines you now we have to start in our witnessing by helping the unbelieving people in our lives that we love and care about and pray for whether they're co-workers or family or friends or whoever they are we start with trying to help them understand can

[69:03] I help you see God's perspective on who you are right now can I help you see what God says about you now and then you take them to scripture and you show them the bad news don't you you take them to scripture and you show them here's God's assessment of you you may think that there's a part of you that's good but God's word says there aren't any good no not one no one seeks for God that's what the word says but what did God do about you not being good and then you take them to the gospel don't you and you share with them the hope they can have in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord someone that God sent to deal with the worst thing about them their sin and that Jesus can take it away in an instant past present and future and make them righteous to give them hope that they can have an eternity with this

[70:04] Jesus this precious Savior forever and you ask yourself why wouldn't a person want to seal the deal and do that in that moment what's the answer the deceitfulness of sin it takes a miracle working power of the Lord God to unlock a person's heart from the deceitfulness of sin and help them to see who they really are in God's estimation these two people Adam and Eve are creatures made in God's image for a lifetime of unbroken companionship I can't even imagine they're co-rulers of God's world which he created for them he wants them to enjoy being human together forever look God designed each of them to be as much like himself as a human being can be so Satan lied you will be like

[71:06] God what a lie they are as much like God right now as God wants them to be but that's not enough that's not enough Satan enticed Eve to believe that God's work in them his design in them was lacking anytime you and I turn to sin we turn to it because we we have convinced ourselves that some aspect of knowing God and being with God is lacking oh that should break our how could we ever say there's anything in Jesus lacking but that is what we say when we sin Jesus you're just not enough you're just not enough according to God's design knowing God and being like

[72:06] God glorified God glorified God they glorified God in who they were they glorified him in how they lived there was no lack God made them to be his servants God they would serve him they would serve each other they would submit to God's authority they would do that as it was expressed in his truth to them eat freely live your life I love you enjoy your life enjoy each other love just don't go eat from the tree because it'll kill you if you do that's love not limit that's love but Eve was deceived to believe that was not enough there was more to life than glorifying God by living what he says to be true and good and Satan would show her the way eating from the one tree would help her put herself in the place of

[73:09] God she could be her own authority she could decide for herself what she wanted most for her life and not what God wanted for God is too limiting this is what Satan told her I'll have to change I'll have to give up those are the lies of the deceitfulness of sin that wants to rob you of knowing God so what does the text tell us look at the end here of verse 6 so she took from its fruit and ate and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate and with that action of their hearts both their hearts they plunged all of humanity into depravity to include us in this room that fall into sinful rebellion is the key to our human history and to our need for God's savior of our souls that's where it leaves off that's where we'll leave off and

[74:10] God willing we'll all be here next Lord's day to hear more of what this means in the way of what God is now going to say to these two people in light of what they've done and then God how he is going to remedy for them this condition that they find themselves in now to God be the glory let's pray together father we honor you from our hearts as you have given us this wonderful truth to sober our souls sin is our greatest enemy father sin we know will get us a devil's hell sin in our lives today will ruin our life and it will ruin the lives of those around us and if we continue to chase it ignore it and be apathetic about it if we choose not to deal with it in Jesus Christ then we will suffer with it every day of our lives and eventually the sin and poison that is in us will come out of us in the way that we speak and the things that we do and it will poison other people's lives and serve to hurt them and ruin them and so father we acknowledge that and we ask you to help us to know

[75:23] Christ and him crucified buried and raised again I pray for every soul in here this morning that they will give careful consideration to the sin in their lives especially if they have been apathetic about it I pray that you would help each soul in here today in Jesus Christ as their savior and their lord to know him in faith that he is the only way that you provided for us to escape the penalty of sin which is death separation from you forever God I pray that you would bring a great sobriety over this room and that you would help us today to carefully carefully measure where we are in our hearts and in our spirits in our relationship with you are we trusting Jesus Christ to forgive us for our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness in our hearts are we looking to you to define the way that we live and speak and what we prioritize and what we pursue do we love you from a heart of devotion and humility

[76:38] God please help our people even today to measure carefully and examine carefully against the scriptures where they are in relationship to you help us leave today rejoicing that you have made a way in Christ for us to know you and to conquer sin thank you for our conqueror thank you for he who has overcome sin for us and has made us righteous in himself being our treasure and our righteousness thank you for Jesus Christ crucified buried raised again and sitting at the right hand of the throne of God advocating for us interceding for us evermore our king of kings in his name we pray and for his honor and glory amen and would have heard of the next