The Need For Redemption (part 2) - [Genesis 3]

I don't read many magazines, but I enjoy reading Bicycling Magazine. And if you send in a 150 -word essay that's similar to one of the editors in style, and if you're the one that's picked, you get a $4 ,900 bike for free.

But, you know, that's worth it. That's worth putting a few sentences together.

It reminded me of the London Times, and they asked some very famous people to write an essay.

And the essay was, What's Wrong with the World? I wonder what you would say.

What's wrong with the world? Someone says, you're religious, what's wrong with the world? Maybe communism, maybe the aggression in the

Ukraine, maybe the media, maybe Hollywood is destroying the world with bad biblical movies.

Maybe it's health care. I don't know. What's wrong with the world? A very famous man replied with maybe the shortest answer, only two words.

What's wrong with the world? I am. Sin. Sin is an invader.

Sin is an interloper. And sin has invaded the moral fabric of every single person who's ever been born except our

Savior. My question this morning is, is there any hope? Is there any hope for mankind? Sin is so pervasive.

Sin is so invasive. Is there any hope for mankind? Is there redemption? If you'll turn your

Bibles to Genesis chapter 3 this morning, I'd like to answer that question, to ask it and answer it.

As you know, we've been going through the book of Ruth, verse by verse, and Ruth has been such a blessing. But Ruth 3 ends with a cliffhanger, remember?

There's land to be redeemed and there's a woman that needs marriage.

I wonder if it'll happen. We've started off in the book of Ruth with three funerals. Will Ruth end with a wedding and maybe a baby?

Will the land be redeemed? Because after all, there's a Redeemer who's closer than Boaz. Will He redeem

Ruth? Or will these two people, Ruth and Boaz, who are obviously in love, will they get married?

And so there's a little cliffhanger there. And so last week and this week, I wanted to use this interlude for a purpose.

If we lost our land when we moved down to Moab and then got the land back, we would be happy, we would be thankful, we would be rejoicing.

If a husband died and then someone stepped in, a kinsman, a close Redeemer, stepped in to continue on that legacy, that line, that seed, we would be happy because you understand how bad things were and then the redemption and the accomplishment and gaining those things back would be special.

So too, now we're going to focus in Genesis chapter 3, not with land promises, not with promises of a child, but redemption from sin.

They needed redemption in Ruth physically and we need redemption spiritually.

Why do people need redemption? That's what Genesis 3 will answer. Why must a ransom be paid?

What has caused all the trouble in the universe? How did sin enter the universe? And I believe that you'll see redemption as much sweeter when you realize how much you need the redemption, how bad things were, the bad news first, then the good news.

And there's both bad news in Genesis 3 and good news. How did men and women become sinners?

Genesis 3 answers the question, as Paul says in Romans 5, as one trespass led to the condemnation for all men.

Now before we get to chapter 3, go back with me, if you would, to chapter 2 of Genesis and we can see this condition that God had for man.

And that condition was obedience, complete obedience, unswerving obedience, unreserved obedience.

There was a condition and there was a promise for obedience and there was a curse for disobedience and it reads like this,

Genesis 2 .15, The Lord God took the man, and remember here we still see the

Lord God with Yahweh Elohim, the covenant -keeping creator God. Remember, Satan drops the

Yahweh part later. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

And the Lord God commanded the man. See the singular there? See the federal representative?

See Adam as the covenant head? And commanded the man saying,

You may surely eat of every tree of the garden. It's front -loaded, loaded up closely in the

Hebrew, just showing how generous God is, how magnificent His generosity is.

But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

Adam, I want you to be completely obedient to me. And if you do, there's a promise. And if you don't, there's a curse.

And this is what we call, some people call, the covenant of life, the covenant of nature it's been called, the

Edenic covenant, the covenant of creation, but probably the best because it's the best theologically, the best historically, you'll hear it used very often, even with Hosea 6, verse 7.

But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant. Here's what

I want you to do. Here's how I want you to work. Do this and live. Adam breaks that, and so here we have the covenant of works, and Adam fails.

He doesn't obey. Obedience would have meant life. And here's the thing,

Adam's not a private person, is he? He's a public person. He's a representative person.

Adam's not just our father. He's our legal agent. He's the one who stands in our place.

He's a public person. Shorter Catechism says, the covenant being made with Adam as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity.

Federal headship. As Jesus is the federal head, the last

Adam, the first Adam is the federal representative, decided by God to stand in our place, and what happened for Adam, we would all get credit for.

The Westminster Confession says, the first covenant made with Adam was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him and his posterity, upon the condition of perfect and personal obedience.

Now, I kind of like this, don't you? Adam was your federal representative. Would you like to have been the federal representative?

Would you have liked to have been the person that God chose? You're in the garden, and whatever you do, everybody else gets credit for.

I think like Charles Simeon, if you would all be there with me and Adam, at the very beginning of Genesis chapter 3, and we all said, you know what?

Let's vote together. Let's pick a person. Let's nominate a person. We would have all, as Simeon said, any thinking person would have said, let's choose

Adam. Perfect environment. Perfect wife. He's the one. And aren't you glad that you had a full -grown man with mental capabilities and thinking and rationale to now stand in your place?

Otherwise, how would you like to be born? And on day one, here's the covenant. Do this and live.

Just perfectly obey. Starting as a baby. I wonder what you would have done.

G .S. Bishop says, the race must either have stood in full -grown man, Adam, with a full -orbed intellect, or stood as babies, each entering his probation in the twilight of self -consciousness, each deciding his destiny before his eyes were half -open to what it all meant.

I want Adam to stand for me. And think about it.

Adam only had one thing that he couldn't do. Don't eat of that one tree. I'm happy for federal representation because I realize it's wisdom from God, and there's a later federal head named

Jesus. And when Adam sinned, that we'll see in Genesis 3, that sin, that first sin, and only that sin, not

Eve's sin, not Adam's later sins, only that first sin was credited to your account because Adam was your representative.

By the way, Adam was a real man. As Jesus was the federal head, the last

Adam, and a real person, so too was Adam. You would not believe how many people want to get rid of Adam.

For instance, the super dangerous author

N .T. Wright says, you know what, Paul believed that Adam was historical. But what you had there is kind of a metaphor.

You had lots of people, a big breeding population is what he calls them, and then you had kind of like a king and a queen out of them, and then

God had them be Adam. Tremper Longman basically says the same thing.

There were about 10 ,000 people, 5 ,000 people, and at some point in the evolutionary scale, man kind of figured out what was right and wrong, and then

God picked that particular monkey man who was more man than monkey, and then now you're the one who's going to be the federal head.

James Dunn basically says, if you think Paul thinks that Adam was real, what a patronizing view of Adam.

I'll go with Martin Luther's advice. Trust that the Holy Spirit is more learned than you, N .T.

And I don't mean New Testament. Adam was a real historical figure because he was the first Adam, and he was our representative.

If you're a human and you need a representative, you need someone who's just like you, Acts 17.

And he, God, made from one man, Adam, every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth. So now we move into Genesis chapter 3, a little bit of review, and then we'll finish the chapter from last week.

This is devastating. This is the downfall of humanity. This is the downfall of humanism.

This is the downfall of everything in one fell swoop. As far -reaching as creation, and maybe one of the most important chapters in all the

Bible, because you have the fall, and you have grace, and you have sin, and then you have atonement, and you have the grace of God, the justice of God.

Could there be a better chapter in all the Bible where you realize, I've got to have redemption.

I've got to have a mediator. John Milton said,

In paradise lost, earth trembled from her entrails, as again.

In pangs, and nature gave a second groan, sky lured, and muttering thunder, some sad drops wept at completing of the mortal sin.

Original. Chapter 3, verse 1, Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the beasts of the field that the

Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

And so now we have Satan, and he's tried to rape heaven. That didn't work, and so now he comes down to earth and is trying to take over that.

The assault of earth. Kind of catches me by surprise a little bit.

Probably caught Eve by surprise as well. Chapter 1, And God makes everything, and it's good, and it's good, and He's making things, and He's resting, and a river flows out of Eden, and everything's good, and He takes the man, and He takes something out of his side, and makes a woman, and everything's good, and now the interloper, now we have

Satan. If I'm caught off guard, I wonder if Eve's caught off guard as well.

And here we have Satan taking over the body of this serpent. Luther said,

Here Satan entered the serpent. There's no doubt that it was a real serpent in which Satan was, and in which he conversed with Eve.

And what's he do? Before he says God's a blasphemer, he says, Now let's just create some doubt. I call this the hermeneutics of humility.

Which is big by the way now in scholarship. Did God really say that? I'm not so sure

He did. Maybe. You might know better than I do Eve, but I'm not sure if He really said that. And by the way, look at chapter 3 verse 1.

Did God actually say, Ye shall not eat? No, He didn't actually say that. He said to Adam the federal head,

You singular shouldn't eat. And now He's saying to Eve, Well maybe you guys, y 'all.

And the way He arranges it, from any tree, putting that at the end like God's chintzy,

God's just not generous, versus chapter 2 where it was front loaded more, showing

God's liberal giving. You ask me the question,

How early on after Adam had been made did this happen? Well I don't know.

Most think pretty early, so Satan would come before Adam had kind of a settled obedience.

Did God really say that? You've got to be kidding me. And He doesn't say

Yahweh Elohim, He says just God. Instead of this covenant keeping, wonderful God who's generous, and He loves people.

This is the kind of secretive God, and the God that wants everything His own way. The restrictive

God. She buys it, verse 2. The woman said to the serpent, We may eat of any fruit of the trees in the garden, but we do have some restrictions.

There is someone greater. But God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

Humans, creatures, are given maximum freedom, but there were things that they weren't allowed to do.

There was this one thing. And Satan's like, You know, God is restricting you.

This is too harsh. She's buying it. Verse 4. Now the serpent responds. But the serpent said to the woman, with the

Hebrew word for no is lo. Lo is no in Hebrew. And the lo is up front.

Lo, you're surely not going to die. Not, you're going to die.

No way, you're not going to die. And here's the full force. Here's the assault.

He sees the crack open with the doubt, and now he's going to make headway. God just doesn't want you to be like him, and now he maligns

God's nature. For God knows when you eat of it. Verse 5. Your eyes are going to be open. You're going to be like God, knowing good and evil.

He wants to keep that for himself. And now Satan is continuing the attack on the woman.

Who knows? Maybe Eve didn't feel as much responsibility as Adam did, because Adam is the federal head.

And so maybe I just have less responsibility. Who knows? Verse 6. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be...

Same word here used in Exodus 20 about covetousness. And it was like coveting, desiring, wanting something so bad, hankering after something.

She took of its fruit, and now just feel like this roller coaster thing. She took the fruit and ate. She gave some to Adam and he ate.

Down we go. She saw that the tree was good for food.

In her own mind she says, I'll tell you what good is. God made these things and it's good.

God made these things and it was very good. God made these things and it's really good. I'll tell you what good is,

God. This is good for me. And what does it say? How long was

Adam there? We don't know, but he was there right now. I think he was there the whole time. He didn't stand up for her.

He didn't defend God's honor. He didn't protect. He didn't provide. He didn't say, you've got to listen to what

God says. What God says goes. And she gave also some to her husband who was with her, assent by silence.

And then the tragic words, as the covenant head, he ate.

And the roller coaster descent continues. Then, after the covenant head ate, the eyes of both were open.

They knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together. They made themselves loincloths.

Just this cascade down into perdition. But you know, here's the amazing thing.

God by nature is a Savior. God is merciful. God is gracious. And here comes the

Father seeking, searching. You think it would really be bad right here.

You think it's going to be off with their heads. And they heard the sound of the

Lord God. There we go to Lord God again. Walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the

Lord among the trees of the garden. Walking with God. How wonderful it is to walk with God.

Remember Enoch walked with God. And now we have God initiating. God active. God is the one searching out.

God is the one after, loving them. They abandon Him. He will not give up.

Luther said the beginnings of this affair, if we evaluate them properly, are more lenient than what

Adam deserved. There's not that terrible sight as on Mount Sinai where there's trumpet blasts mingled with flashes of lightning and peals of thunder.

But God comes in a very soft breeze to indicate that the reprimand will be fatherly. But the

Lord called to the man. Eve is never blamed in Scripture. He talks to the covenant head, the federal head, to Adam.

Said to him, Where are you? Who has to explain for the actions taken?

Adam. Doesn't this sound like courtroom language? Adam gets called up to the front, the bar of God's justice.

Where's Adam? Adam approached the bench. Not Adam and Eve, but Adam.

The case of God against Adam. On a side note,

I was reading James Boyce, and if you're not a Christian, I want to say this to you through James Boyce.

You may be running away from God, hiding from Him, but the day is coming when

God will call your name and His call will make you come before Him. And you, like Adam, are going to need a mediator.

You're going to need a good lawyer, an advocate. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living

God. And amazingly, in chapter 3, verses 9, 10, 11, what do you see is second -person singular,

Adam language. Not ye, not plural, but Adam's the one liable.

He's the federal head. And now God initiates further. Where are you, Adam? And verse 10 says,

And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.

I don't want to come before you naked. He said, Who told you,

Adam, that you, Adam, were naked? Have you, Adam, eaten of the tree of which I commanded you,

Adam, not to eat? And Adam said, you sinned,

God. You think I sinned? You sinned. Verse 12, The woman you gave to me.

You gave her to me. She gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate. That's what he's saying.

You made me sin. I said at the first service,

I think Martin Luther was kind of the first New Englander. Kind of just tough, direct, tell you things to your face, doesn't come behind you to sock you behind.

Just straight up. Here's Martin Luther, the New Englander, just telling it like it is.

Let us learn then of this perversion and stupidity that always accompanies sin, and that sinners accuse themselves by their excuses and betray themselves by their defense, especially before God.

We've got excuses for everything. Adam should have said, Luther, Lord, I have sinned.

But he says instead, Lord, you've sinned, and I would have remained holy in paradise after eating of the fruit if you'd just been keeping quiet.

I could have eaten it, it would be fine, but I ate it, and you opened up your big mouth. I wasn't going to run until you scared me.

Your voice frightened me. Wasn't it that long ago that Adam was making up a little love poem about Eve?

Wonderful poem. You ask yourself the question, why do cemeteries exist?

Why are you going to die? Why are they going to put you in a grave? The answer is because Adam, your federal head, ate and you got credit for that by God's wisdom.

Lloyd -Jones says, the world is a place of cemeteries. It is a place of death and gloom and end. Federal imputation.

Adam's sin credited to my account, not his later sins, not Eve's sins, but the first one. Even Pascal said, certainly nothing offends us more rudely than this doctrine.

And yet, Pascal said, without this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to ourselves.

Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, Paul says,

Romans 5 .12, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. No Mosaic law yet.

How did they sin? They got credit for Adam's sin. That's why these are verses that are attacked.

That's why if Genesis falls and you don't need the first Adam because he doesn't exist, who needs the last

Adam? Even the atheist journal of America said Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason

Jesus' earthly life was supposedly made necessary to destroy Adam and Eve in original sin and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the

Son of God. Friends, all this leads to we need a Redeemer.

Verse 13, the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate.

So now God talks to the serpent. By the way, no promises of hope, no mercy, no grace, execution, judgment.

The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock, above all the beasts of the field.

On your belly you shall go, implying that it was upright before, and dust you shall eat.

What does it mean to eat dust? You're going to eat my dust. You're going to be humiliated and you're going to know defeat. Eat my dust.

That's the lingo we know of all the days of your life. Can you imagine Adam and Eve standing there?

God just gets done talking to Eve and now He talks to Satan and now before Adam's very eyes, before Eve's very gaze, here's some kind of creature.

Did it look beautiful before and bright and shiny? Some of the Hebrew would allude to that. It's upright and now it's slithering, it's on the ground and now

God is judging. And if I was Adam, I'd be thinking this, no promise of redemption, just justice, just holy execution.

Sin transforming beauty into this slithering nightmare. Condemnation only, no words of grace.

You made Eve eat, you're going to eat dust. Now if I'm Adam, I'm thinking to myself, condemnation, justice, holiness, righteousness, the law, the covenant of works, broken, probation broken,

Satan now is judged, I'm going to get judged. And what does God give instead of judgment? It's mercy.

Kindness. The Gospel. If you think sin is so bad, it's going to have to take the blood of Jesus to cure it and here's what happens, verse 15, all this was an introduction this morning.

Don't you like introductions? Don't you like Genesis? I will put enmity, he's talking to the serpent still, but here's where we have the first Gospel, the flicker of hope.

It's all been grace since the early verses of Genesis 3, but here's grace incarnate, if you will,

I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring, and he shall bruise your head.

That sounds about right, if there's a snake on the ground, you smash the head and you shall bruise his heel.

Snakes bite heels, heels crush heads.

Life and death, the seed. Her offspring, do you see that tucked in the middle of verse 15?

Who's that seed? Who's that offspring? I did a lot of study this week. Some say it's humankind.

Some say, I won't mention who, they say it's the Virgin Mary. Some say it's the church.

Some say it's humanity. Then ultimately, under the headship of Jesus, Galatians 4 .4,

God the Son was born of a woman. How about Galatians chapter 3?

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say to his offsprings, referring to many, but to referring to one, and to your offspring who is

Christ. Jesus, the Savior is going to come and undo all that Satan has done, all that Adam has done.

And he crushes the head of the serpent at Calvary. John says he was manifested to destroy the works of the devil.

Redemptive history is beginning. Jesus is going to obey where Adam failed.

Romans 16, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. How about this?

John Gerstner calls Satan the greatest blockhead the world has ever known because he was supremely stupid to suppose that he could outthink the all -wise and overpower the

Almighty. The first federal head, Adam failed, we get credit for it.

There's going to be another Adam, Jesus, and he's not going to fail. And we're going to get credit for that.

I like federal representation. Adam dishonored the

Word. Jesus is the Word. Adam dishonors truth. Jesus is the truth.

Verse 16, to the woman he said, notice the two ways that she's affected,

I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. That's going to be difficult. That's going to hurt.

In pain you shall bring forth children. Secondly, your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.

But even here, can't you see the mercy of God and the grace of God and the love of God? One of those excruciatingly painful births is going to result in the

Messiah being manifest in the flesh. No language of curse here for the woman.

She wasn't willfully rebellious. 1 Timothy 2 talks about that. She was deceived. There's punishment, but it's gentle.

There's punishment, but there's hope because Eve, through you, there's going to be vindication of the race. The Messiah will come through you.

How about chapter 4, verse 1? When you're told the Messiah is going to come, the first Gospel, and by the way, you're going to bring forth children.

You're going to have an offspring and that offspring is going to bruise Satan, crush his head.

And all of a sudden, chapter 4, verse 1, And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain. The Messiah is born.

Cain! You'd be thinking that. I was promised offspring.

It's going to hurt. Yeah, it did hurt. Now here comes the baby. I was watching the stupidest thing yesterday.

They were attaching things to men's abdomens to give them some kind of muscle contraction so the ladies would stand by, the wives would stand by with ice chips and feed these men these ice chips so that the men could kind of feel the pain.

I know. That will cause guffawing. I know. Talk about reversing the curse.

Just visualize, honey. Just breathe. All these breathing classes.

I mean, the husband only goes to breathing classes the first kid, and then after that he goes, She'll breathe. She'll breathe.

All right. What are you going to do? Hold your breath? The primary role of the woman, a primary role, birth of a child is going to have pain and her relationship to her husband.

That's going to suffer as well. Children and her husband, both affected by sin.

Now some say, when I'm going to multiply your pain and childbearing and in pain you shall bring forth children, they talk about that as the curse for the woman and the desire there.

See where it says, in your desire shall be your husband for your husband? That's what I want to focus on now, that it would be, you're still going to want to sleep with him and be with him physically even though you know as a result you could be pregnant and have awful pain.

I don't think that's it at all. Some will say you're going to be emotionally reliant on your husband.

But I think the key to understand this is found, if you just keep reading, found in chapter 4 verse 7. Yes, it's going to hurt when you give birth to a child and what else is going to happen?

Chapter 4 verse 7 of Genesis, If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.

Here's the exact same language of chapter 3 of Genesis. It's desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

The fall of the woman is going to be pain in childbirth and I'm going to rule my husband. I'm going to fight for leadership.

I'm going to lead this show. But he'll rule over you. Susan Foe said,

As a result of the fall, man no longer rules easily. He must fight for his headship. Sin has corrupted both the willing submission of the wife and the loving leadership of the husband.

The woman's desire is to control her husband and he must master her if he can.

So the rule of love founded in paradise is replaced by struggle, tyranny, and domination.

Adam, you're up, verse 17. And Adam, he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which

I commanded you. And now God repeats it for the severity of the judgment. I commanded you.

You, singular Adam, should not eat of it. You're the federal head. Cursed is the ground because of you,

Adam. And in pain you, Adam, shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles that she'll bring forth for you.

And you shall eat the plants of the field. Punishment fits the crime.

Adam, cultivate the garden. Genesis chapter 2. Now that garden's going to cost you.

Sweat and toil. Greater blame for Adam. Verse 19,

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. By the way, Adam means ground.

Adam, you're going to become Adam one more time. For out of it you were taken, for you were dust, and to dust you shall return.

How many times do you hear a pastor say that as the coffin goes into the ground? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

For Adam, the ground's cursed. You're going to sweat, and you're going to be ending your life with death.

That's the lot of mankind, and that's the lot of mankind, because Adam, you're the federal head.

And here we have the twinkle. Here we have the glimmer of mercy and grace. How gracious is

God. Verse 20, The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

That's the first little bit of hope there. There's going to be a future, and Adam names his wife

Eve, which is close to the Greek word and Hebrew word for living. Life. The wages of sin is death.

We're supposed to be executed now, but there's going to be life, Adam. Now I have a question for you.

Did God ever name Eve, Eve? What did God name Eve? Never did

He name her Eve. Only Adam named Eve, Eve. What has God called

Eve up to this point? Not Eve. Female, helper suitable, woman, and a wife.

And now Adam names his wife. Here's my question for you, especially those who are latent feminists.

What was God's name for Adam and Eve? What was God's name for Eve? Before Eve's called

Eve, what did God call Adam and Eve? Long gone in our books are the words mankind.

What have we replaced it with? Go to chapter 5, verse 1.

Genesis chapter 5, verse 1 tells us what God calls Eve. You know what

God calls Eve? I'm not misspeaking. Listen up. What does God call Eve? He calls

Eve Adam. You're thinking I'm misspeaking, but I'm not.

For those of you that have hyphenated last names, and you're not Welsh, listen up.

I guess some hyphen, like Martin Lloyd Jones, that would be okay. Genesis chapter 5, verse 1 and 2.

This is the book of the generations of Adam when God created man. He made him in his likeness and image, male and female.

He created them and He blessed them and named them man when they were created.

I'm positive God loves women. I'm positive

God cares for ladies. But He calls a man and a woman after the man's first name.

Verse 21 of Genesis chapter 3, there's more hope. There's going to be life instead of death. And there's going to be your sins forgiven, atonement, reconciliation, redemption.

And the Lord God, notice again, Yahweh Elohim made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them.

He made. That's the language of Genesis chapter 2. He makes things and then

He rests. And now He makes something else. And it's not the moon and the stars and the suns, but He makes a covering for Adam and Eve.

The wages of sin is death. Somebody's got to die. And I'm going to kill an animal for Adam and I'm going to kill an animal for Eve.

What kind of animal was it? I can't prove it, but doesn't it make pretty good sense that it would be a lamb?

You can think of those who are reading this, as Moses writes these words, they're in the mosaic community of sacrifice and animal sacrifice.

God makes the world. God makes the woman, Genesis 2 .18, and now He makes skins.

I mean, everywhere you go in Genesis chapter 3. My Bible says at the top of Genesis 3 .1,

the fall. And that is so true, but there's something more. How about the fall and grace?

It's the fall and grace because Adam is sought out by God, chapter 3, verses 8 and 9.

Adam is promised a Savior, Genesis chapter 3, verse 15. Adam is clothed by God, Genesis 3 .21,

and soon He's going to remove Adam from the garden with mercy and grace and love thereto. People are like, well, the

Old Testament is a God of wrath and the New Testament is a God of grace. How about the fall comes and God gives

Satan punishment and He gives people forgiveness. We love because He first loved us.

This is all God's doing. They are passive in this. God is active. They try to cloak themselves with fig leaves of human religion and now we have the divine atonement.

How are people restored into fellowship with God? Someone has to die. And thankfully, substitution is part of the way

God works. And one, the innocent dies for the guilty. The innocent dies for the guilty.

May we never be as people who buy into this lie. Here's a lie that's just so pervasive these days.

Let's see, how do I get rid of sin? Well, I just... Time cancels sin.

I'll just wait a while and it'll just go away. Well, you might forget about it, society might forget about it, the legislature might forget about it, but God never forgets about it.

There's not one sin that you've ever committed that God, the omniscient God says, I don't know about. That's why we need a redemption.

We need a redeemer. We need some skins. We need some clothing. And that's why it's so rich when you read in the

Bible pictures of salvation through garments. Isaiah 61, I delight greatly in the

Lord, my soul rejoices in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of what?

Salvation. And arrayed me in the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and like a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

I deserve to be that animal. I wonder, by the way, what must have Adam been thinking? No death in the garden, no blood, no anything, and then now here's just the roadkill of these animals, and he's got the covering on.

I ride bicycles. Not much in the winter. Not much with sand all over.

But just the other day, I went out, and the first thing I did, I started going up the hill. I'm standing up to try to get the cadence up, and there's this big old blob of nothing but bloody red entrails, just blob right there.

I couldn't tell what it was. Is it a chipmunk? Well, it wasn't a skunk because it didn't smell like one. Some kind of squirrel.

I just knew, you know what, I better ride my bike in a Christian fashion. How do you ride your bike Christianly? That could be me any second.

I'm so close to this. It's just like this big bloody ball. I was in Germany once riding, and I didn't see some little bloody ball.

I saw this huge boar. It was killed by a car, got hit by a car or truck, and it was just laying on the side of the road, and it was just swelling up.

See, now you had a little break, and now you're paying attention. A couple of you were sleeping. Now I did the boar thing. Now you're all back on track.

Adam must have been thinking, that thing is just, it was killed. God killed those things.

I've never seen blood. I've never seen death. I've never seen anything like that. How bad must sin be?

This is awful. This is wicked. The sin that I committed caused this for them. It even affects creation.

Romans chapter 8 we know. And then Adam must have been thinking, I didn't get killed.

God slit their throats as it were, and I'm still standing here. I was naked, and I was ashamed, and I was afraid, and now

I'm covered in some innocent something, paid for my sins, probably a lamb. Those two lambs. And now we stand before God.

God. No wonder these garments in the Bible are such a great picture of salvation.

Zechariah 3. The angel said to those who were standing before him, Take off his filthy clothes. And he said to Joshua, See, I have taken away your sin.

I'll put rich garments on you. Joshua, you got the bad clothes on?

It's like sin. Get rid of them, and God will give you some new clothes. The perfect righteousness of the last

Adam, who when he represented people, didn't fail. The innocent dying for the guilty.

God would have every right to kill Adam and Eve. And he'd have every right to kill us as well.

And in the economy of God, think about it. Think how Genesis 3 begins to just open things up. One animal for one man,

Adam. One animal for one man, Eve. A lamb for Adam, a lamb for Eve.

It starts going out a little farther. Exodus chapter 12. One lamb in Passover for the family.

It goes a little farther. Day of Atonement. An animal for the nation. And then

John the Baptist sees Jesus, and he says to Jesus, Behold the Lamb of God, who doesn't take away the sin of one person, or two, or the family, or a nation, but all those in the world who will ever believe.

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. This is not about the fall. This is about the fall and grace.

Verse 22. We need to wrap it up. And then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, in knowing good and evil.

Now lest he reach out his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever in that fallen, sinful state.

Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden. Used here the language like,

Sarah said to Abraham, Get rid of Hagar. Like a scapegoat that has to go out.

Send him out of the garden of Eden. I mean, he was originally supposed to cultivate it, and take care of it.

Now he's banished from it. Drove out the man at the east of the garden of Eden.

He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword, that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

The fall, the redemption. It's good to know how far we've fallen, so we realize how great our

Redeemer is. Charles Spurgeon said, Man must have a righteousness, or God cannot accept him.

Man must have a perfect obedience, or else God cannot reward him. Should God give heaven to a soul that has not perfectly kept the law?

That were to give the reward where the service isn't done. And that before God would be an act, which might impeach

His justice. Where then is the righteousness, with which the pardoned man shall be completely covered, so that God can regard him as having kept the law?

Surely, Spurgeon said, brothers and sisters, none of you are so drunk, as to think that this righteousness can be worked out by yourselves.

We must believe then, there is no other alternative, that the righteousness in which we must be clothed, and through which we must be accepted, can be no other than the work of Jesus Christ.

That I might add, is the last Adam, the Redeemer.

Let's pray. No condemnation, now

I dread. Jesus and all in Him is mine. Alive in Him my living head, and clothed in righteousness divine.

Bold I approach the eternal throne, and claim the crown through Christ my own. Father, we praise you this morning, that we serve a

Redeemer. And with the songwriter, would you help us to glory in our Redeemer, who crushed the power of sin and death.

Thank you Father for the Lamb. Not just the Lamb in the garden, not just the Lamb in Exodus 12, not just the goat in Leviticus 16, but the

Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. No wonder heaven is worshiping the Lamb. The Lamb slain as if slaughtered, but standing the risen