The Bible in 16 Verses: 3. The Fall of Man

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All right, so we're talking about the fall.

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We're going through the book by Chris Bruno. We're using that actually just as an outline, the whole story of the

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Bible in 16 verses. And right now, we're still in the Old Testament or Old Covenant, looking forward to the

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New Covenant. And so far, we've covered creation, human beings, today's the fall. Next week will be redemption promised,

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Abraham, Judah, Passover lamb, King David, the suffering servant, resurrection promised, and the new creation.

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As of today, like I said, we're going over the fall. I want you to notice that the first four presentations are still only in the first three chapters of Genesis.

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This provides the foundation for everything going forward. And what happens today, this is going to be like dropping a pebble into a pond and seeing the ripples.

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The ripple effects of what happened at the fall are still reverberating today. It's the aftershock, if you will, of the fall.

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Then we'll finally come to the time has come, which will be the New Testament, the New Covenant. This will be the fulfillment of what

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Ezekiel and Jeremiah prophesied. We'll see the fulfillment, the cross, resurrection, justification, and glory.

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So since this is a biblical theology, I want you to remember what we're up to so far.

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We're image bearers of God. We're His royal representatives, and we have the creation mandate or the responsibility to advance the kingdom on earth while we're alive.

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The goal is to encompass the whole earth with the kingdom of God. So a real quick synopsis.

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God created a very good kingdom. He's the king, and He created human beings, His children, to represent

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Him in that kingdom and who are responsible to expand it, to advance the kingdom.

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So let's get to where we are today. Our verse this morning is Genesis 3, verses 6 -7, and it reads,

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So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

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Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

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So our quote for this morning is, Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong, it's knowing the difference between right and almost right.

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Right and wrong is easy to tell the difference between. Right and almost right takes a little bit more work.

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What is wrong with the world? Everyone is trying to answer this question whether he or she realizes it or not.

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At some level, we all sense that something big is broken. You know, when we're evangelizing with people, this is a great topic to bring up.

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You ask them, what do you think about the world? Oh, it's bad. Bad according to what? If there's no purpose for the world, how is anything bad?

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Everybody recognizes that there's something wrong with the world. What they don't recognize is that there's something wrong with themselves.

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Cosmic scales are waiting to be balanced. We understand what it feels like as we constantly try to change something about ourselves but find that we fail every time.

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What is wrong with the world? Now, what is wrong with us? G .K. Chesterton was asked to write an essay on what's wrong with the world and he wrote a two -word essay and sent it into the newspaper.

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What's wrong with the world? I am. True. It's very easy to look outside those doors and say, look at all the evil that's going on in the world.

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Yet, do we rarely look through the doors of our own heart to see what evil we've brought into the world.

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And every one of us has, unfortunately. We negate that and think that evil's on the outside.

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Evil is on the inside. Everyone knows that the world is broken.

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Most just don't know why. Everyone realizes something's wrong.

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But that would mean that they would know what right is also. So everybody has an internal compass. God wrote his law on their heart.

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And I go back and forth with atheists on Facebook. In fact, I just disjoined the group because they're so belligerent.

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Keep asking them, by what standard? What standard are you using to say something's right and wrong from an atheistic point of view?

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The world came into existence with no rationality and intentionality behind it, therefore there's no purpose in it.

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How can anything be right or wrong? And if this is the way my brain evolved to believe in God, and your brain evolved to not believe in God, why am

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I wrong and you're right? It's just brain fizz. No right, no wrong.

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But they don't want to hear that. The third chapter in Genesis, one of the most important in all the Scriptures, what has often been said of Genesis as a whole is particularly true of this chapter.

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It is the seed plot of the Bible. The first three chapters of Genesis are going to provide the recurring story going on and on and on.

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A .W. Pink says, here we learn the foundations upon which the rest of many of the cardinal doctrines of our faith rely on.

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Okay, so most of the, not most, the doctrines of our faith, the core doctrines, are found in the first three books of Genesis.

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That's why it's called the beginnings. Here we trace back to the source of many rivers, many rivers of divine truth.

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Here commences the great drama which is being enacted on the stage of human history and which is not yet completed.

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Here we find the divine explanation of the present fallen and ruined condition of our race. And here we learn of the subtle devices of our enemy, the devil.

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Like I said, this, the fall, is like the earthquake and we're still feeling the aftershock until today.

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It's in these chapters that we learn. Here we behold the utter powerlessness of man to walk in the path of righteousness when divine grace is withheld from him.

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Here we discover the spiritual effects of sin and man fleeing from God rather than running to him.

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Here we discern the attitude of God towards the guilty sinner. Here we mark the universal tendency of human nature to cover its own moral shame by a device of man's own handiwork.

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Adam and Eve covering themselves is their attempt to cover themselves up with their own works, with their own hands.

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Here we are taught of the gracious provision which God has made to meet our great need. Here begins that marvelous stream of prophecy which runs through all of the

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Holy Scriptures. And here we learn that man cannot approach God except through a mediator.

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Those are all taken by E .W. Pink. He wrote a book on divine covenants and Genesis specifically. So I thought those were very good points for us to remember because these are the points that are going to carry through the story.

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So does anyone remember the first presentation we did and the four acts that we have in our worldview?

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Creation, fall, redemption, restoration. We are still in the fall period, okay?

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When God created and commissioned Adam and Eve, He gave them virtually free reign in the garden. Under Him, they were its rulers and they had the right and privilege to eat from nearly every tree in the garden.

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They had everything they could want with just one external command.

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God's law was written on the heart, but one external command. You could have any fruit of any of the tree. This is your world.

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Expand it. Just don't eat from the fruit of that one tree. One prohibition.

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But there was just one tree, just one, from which God said they could not eat. God told them of 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.

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So it brings up the question, why one tree? Why that tree? That's not a rhetorical question.

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I'm asking you now. Why one tree? Why that tree? What was the purpose of this?

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Tell me. They weren't created as robots. They have intellectual capacity.

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They're agents. Yes? Sure, a way for them to depend on God.

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Anything else? Okay. Why the prohibition not to eat of it?

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They were given the fruit of every other tree. Why not... say again? Obedience.

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Okay. Those are all correct answers. Why the decree to allow

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Satan to tempt them? Again, as human beings, we look at this, and people who are hostile to the

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Christian world, you say, God decreed. In your view, especially as Calvinists, you believe that God decreed everything.

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God actually decreed the fall. Oh my goodness. How did we get around that? Do we get around that?

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Did God decree the fall? Yes. He set us up. He set us up.

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This is what the unregenerate mind and heart is going to say. Why would a God who's all good throw

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Satan into the garden, tempt Eve, knowing that she was going to tempt Adam, and watch the whole human race fall?

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And then the punishment is hell. That's why I don't believe in your God. What are you going to say?

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Oh, I should let that sit for a while. A faith that cannot be tested is a faith that cannot be trusted.

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We're called to depend on God. Depending on God is trusting in God. And sometimes our faith is tested.

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But these are my words. This is something that I thought about for a while and started writing my thoughts down.

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It's sometimes in the test that you really learn who someone is. You may never know that someone really loves you until that love is tested.

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For instance, if a man proclaimed his love for his wife, but then another woman comes along and captures his attention, and he plays the harlot, you might say he really didn't love his wife.

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Or at the very least, he wasn't loyal to her and the covenant he made with her. So in that case, the love for the man is tested, and he fails.

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The man's love for his wife would be proven true by being faithful. But you would only know that because his love was tested and proven real.

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Anyone can say, I will always love you when things are going well. It's only when things don't go well that the statement can be tested or proven.

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Real love can be proven when a real test is presented or rears its head. That's where the rubber meets the road.

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So we look at this and we say, when things are going well, we don't need wedding vows.

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We need wedding vows for when things don't go well. That's what C .S. Lewis said. He says, we don't need the vows when things are going good.

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The vows are there for when things aren't going good. That's when we have to remember, hey, wait a second. I took a vow before God to this person.

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Real love is proven by a real test to be really true or not.

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Unless, of course, it fails. So our love is going to be tested in many, many instances.

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Not just with our wives, but with our children, and most importantly, with God. Is it possible that God sets up a test with the tree and allows this temptation,

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He allows Satan into the garden, to test Adam and Eve's faithfulness to love

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God? Is that possible? Yeah. What else is possible?

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But also, prove and demonstrate God's love for Adam and Eve.

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See, we always put ourselves in the center of the story and say, how does the tree revolve around me? We are not man -centered theologians.

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We are God -centered theologians. So let's look at this from a different angle. Is it possible that God allows this to show

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Adam and Eve the depth of His love for them while exposing their lack of love for Him?

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It will truly be the tree that reveals the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge of the goodness of God and the knowledge of the evil, weakness, and frailty of humanity.

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The tree exposes man's heart, but it also proves and demonstrates

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God's heart at the same time. Is it possible that this test is a proving ground, not just for humanity, but for two parties,

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God and man, designed to show humanity God's commitment to them?

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Does God put the tree into the garden to prove that, if tested, all humanity would disobey

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Him, while also displaying God's mercy, goodness, and grace in rescuing them after they disobey?

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This was the tree that reveals, exposes, and imparts the knowledge of that good and of that evil.

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This is going to be one of the things that an atheist or a skeptic to the faith is going to say.

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Well, if this test never happened, how would you know if God really loved you?

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Here's how we know. The moment after we sinned, the moment after Adam and Eve sinned, they covered it up, ran, and hid.

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What did God do? He set out after them. He pursued them.

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That's demonstrating the God that we worship who gave them everything.

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One prohibition. Just don't eat the fruit of that tree. They did it. They were tricked.

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Adam knew. He should have went back to God and said, what do I do? But he bit the fruit. And God pursued them anyway.

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This tree proves or reveals man's disobedience and rebellion, but it also proves

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God's love, mercy, grace, and commitment to forgiving them.

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You cannot exercise forgiveness until there's an offense. At the very first message

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I ever preached, I asked people, I said, how many people think forgiveness is a good thing? Everybody put their hand up.

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I said, do you realize in order to exercise forgiveness, somebody has to offend you first? Do you like that?

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All the hands went down. Forgiveness is a transaction when somebody offends you.

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The tree was not plan B. Neither was the tree at Calvary.

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Both were plan A from the beginning. Yes, God decreed the fall to prove and demonstrate

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His love for humanity and to reveal your lack of love and commitment to Him.

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This will prove that God is a God of love, mercy, and grace because He will go out and pursue those who rebelled against Him.

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Is that making sense? So when we take ourselves out of the middle of the story and put

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God where He belongs in the middle of the story, hey, this tree makes good sense. This is going to prove and show

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God's love for His creatures. As depraved humanity, we always put ourselves in the center of the story and try to see how the story of the tree revolves around us.

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Humanity questions, why would God do this? Why would He allow Satan to the garden? Why forbid a piece of fruit?

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It's all going to prove God's love and faithfulness and mercy towards us. However, we need to see how this account revolves around God.

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How does this serve to reveal His character and glorify Him? That He would pursue sinners who rebelled against Him when they had everything they could ever want.

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What humanity usually sees is man's failure to obey the test and what they assume is that God set them up to fail.

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However, what we miss but need to see is God's faithfulness and victory over sin through love and sacrifice.

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His revelation and demonstrating unmerited grace to us in the midst of our sin.

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He's the one who seeks us out, not the other way around. A skeptic or even

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Christians might say, would God love us if we sinned? Would God love us if we rebelled against Him?

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The answer is yes. The devil wants you to believe you're so good you don't need to be redeemed or you're so bad you can't be redeemed.

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No matter how bad you are, if you repent and trust in Jesus, you'll be redeemed.

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I don't know about you guys, David was a much worse sinner than any of you that's in here. If God could save David, He could save us.

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I don't know anybody who set their friend up to die in battle, sleep with his wife. None of us have done that.

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There's been plenty of sinners who've killed lots of people who were forgiven by God. Paul! He actually stood in place and had

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Christians killed. God forgave him. He becomes one of the leaders of the new church.

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There's hope for us. So as part of the covenant relationship between God and humanity, God asked them to trust and obey

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Him. He asked them to believe that what He told them was the best thing for them. Just like you or I tell our kids to wear a helmet, watch out for cars, slow down when you're riding your bikes.

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Will we trust God or will we trust our own standard? As human beings, as a young kid,

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I rebelled against my father. He'd tell me to do things, I wouldn't do them. How do our kids often respond?

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They doubt our advice and act as if they know better than those in authority. Just like Adam and Eve did here.

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In fact, our kids and us act as they do because Adam and Eve acted as they did.

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We inherit their sinful nature. We rebel against authority. Not just our parents, but authority in general.

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As of this point in biblical history, we have peace in the garden. Right? Paradise.

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The waterfalls. All the nice things happening. Until... into the dragon.

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The fall begins with a simple question. Calculated to distort God's command to Adam, that of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.

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The serpent enters the garden, seeks out Eve and asks, did God say you shall not eat of any tree of the garden?

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See how he's immediately casting doubt? Right? Pay close attention to the narrative details as the serpent subtly twists

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God's word. This is where we need discernment. Not knowing the difference between right and wrong, but right and almost right.

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The serpent knows that there's only one tree of the garden from which Adam and Eve cannot eat. Why then does he suggest that God has forbidden them to eat from the tree of a fruit of any tree?

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Behind the serpent's question is more than just where Adam and Eve are to find their lunch. With such a wording, the serpent suggests that God's law is arbitrary.

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Only one tree is off limits, but God could have just as easily prohibited them from eating the fruit of all the trees.

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In other words, he's just picking this one tree that he doesn't want to. Are you really going to die if you eat that one?

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Casting, again, doubt on what God said and questioning his knowledge.

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With such a wording, the serpent also suggests something about the character of God. If his law is arbitrary, then the lawgiver may be nothing more than an omnipotent tyrant.

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Oh, you can touch that, but don't touch this one. You know, like we would when we were kids. Oh, you can play with all my cards, but not this one.

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Notice that the serpent does not refer to the Lord God with whom Adam and Eve are in covenant, but simply to the term

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God, Elohim, subtly changing God's relationship and character. Satan did not use the covenant name for God.

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Adam and Eve are in covenant with God, Yahweh. Satan used the word

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Elohim. Elohim. Adam and Eve would have heard Elohim, not

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Yahweh. Eve answers the serpent's question by saying that they can eat from the fruit of all the trees in the garden, except one.

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Then she adds the detail. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Some people think

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Adam told her that. We don't know. Scripture doesn't say. But she added it. Neither shall you touch it.

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Eve's response reveals the effect of the serpent's cunning, for God never said that they would die if they merely touched the tree, as a careful reader of Genesis 2 would understand.

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So where'd that come from? Haven't you ever been told something to do by somebody in authority, maybe your parents, and you exaggerate?

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You exaggerate it. Oh, I'm not even allowed to do this. I can't. And you exaggerate what they told you not to do.

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Because you're in rebellion to authority. Your heart is set against that by nature. Eve is falling right into the serpent's trap.

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She starts exaggerating the command, making it seem arbitrary and pointless. We can't even touch it.

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Maybe God is a tyrant. The serpent, seeing his opening, promises life where God warned of death.

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You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened. You'll be like God.

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You'll know good and evil. So first it's subtle, and it's like, as soon as you start working that up in a sinner's heart, you're not going to die.

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All of a sudden now you're susceptible to actually believing the outright lie. It's not subtle there. The serpent, the father of lies, is accusing

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God of being the liar. God says you will surely die. He says you're not going to die.

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The serpent wants Eve to think that the reason God said that they couldn't eat of the tree was because he knows that when they eat it, they're going to be like him.

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You'll know good and evil. God knows good and evil. He doesn't want you to know that. So in other words,

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God's withholding something that he could give you, but doesn't want you to know that. This is typical of how we've come to believe lies and how we're suspect of people around us when they tell us something.

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We see this today. We don't know good and evil except by...

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Well, we know good and evil because God wrote it on our heart, but we don't necessarily know experientially the consequences of evil unless our parents do a good job and give us consequences for what we've done.

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That's to help. That's a common grace to children to know right from wrong, that there is a consequence.

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We live in a society where everyone gets a trophy. You can do whatever you want, and now we're seeing the fruit of that, because now you're allowed to shoplift up to a thousand dollars in the store and not get punished.

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Adam should have said, we're like him already. God knows that when you eat the fruit of that tree, you're going to be like him.

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Adam should have stepped in and said, whoa, he created us in his image and likeness. We're like him already.

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That's a lie. When you start evaluating how people tell you lies, they're always going to tell you what you don't have.

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This is the way people market online and on TV. They always tell you what the problem is and how their product solves the problem.

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This is your problem. You need this to solve it. That's exactly what the serpent is telling

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Adam and Eve. You don't have this knowledge, but eating the fruit of that tree, that's going to solve your problem. It wasn't a problem.

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They're in his likeness already. The serpent suggests that if Eve eats the forbidden fruit, then she will be like God.

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Here again, this little detail, a single repeated word, should loudly echo in our ears. In the first creation story, we were told that both man and woman were created in God's image and likeness.

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The phrase, like God, is carefully repeated, showing that what was given in the first account of creation is something that will now be grasped at in the second story.

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The irony is that Adam and Eve are already like that. After the fall, now we're going to grasp after the likeness of God, because we've lost it.

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Lost in the sense that it's a shattered image. Without catching the repetition of this key word, likeness, we'll miss the irony that gives such a sense of pathos to Eve's tragic fall.

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Eve did not have to eat the fruit of the tree to be like God. It wasn't something that needed to be grasped at.

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The serpent suggests that they are missing out, that God is holding something back.

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Eve looks at the tree and thinks, that's good fruit. Very desirable. Why won't God let us have it?

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With that question, the serpent throws doubt into their hearts. Any questions up until this point? We're all good?

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Okay. So what happens? So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

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She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. What did Satan do? He appealed to her flesh, to her senses.

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Hunger. Tree was good for food. I'm hungry. Should have it. Probably tastes good, too.

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Sight. She saw that it was good for food. And then she touched it. She shouldn't touch it.

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She's, again, thinking along those lines. And all of a sudden, pride, because this is going to give me knowledge that I didn't have before.

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Satan works from the outside in. He tempts you in your flesh. Remember what

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James says? But each person, when is tempted, is lured, enticed by his own desire. Then the desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

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So, Satan is appealing to her flesh. It comes from the outside in. However, this is why we need to be changed from the inside out.

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God works from the inside out. The New Covenant is an inside job.

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Okay. Bad joke. I get it. Part of the fall. I got a good excuse today. There will be false teachers among you.

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This is what Peter says about the New Covenant church. There will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, and many will follow their sensuality.

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Again, fleshly. They entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.

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They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. Jesus would say whoever sins is a slave to sin.

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This happens because our fleshly nature is craving the things of the world, and the world is happy to provide them.

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They don't want you to see spiritual things. We're being catechized every day. No spiritual rem. This isn't a battle.

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Enjoy yourself. You only go around once. YOLO, right? However, this too is an appeal to our flesh and our senses.

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Sensuality. Flesh. Illusion. We have the illusion of this goodness that we're going to have and this contentment we're going to have when we go after the things of the world, which leave you empty.

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Actually craving for more. And leads us into error. Again, Satan works from the outside in, appealing to our flesh.

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If he, God, rescued Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, as the righteous man lived among them after that day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds, and he saw that he saw and heard.

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Then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, especially those who indulge in the lust of the flesh, defiling passion and despise authority.

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This is exactly what happened with Adam and Eve. They rebelled against authority. They believed a lie.

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They fulfilled their passion to eat the fruit, which, obviously, they didn't have that desire ahead of time, but Satan came in and tempted them.

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So, in the new covenant, God will work from the inside out.

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Right? This is a completely different covenant than the first covenant, the old covenant, where it was based on what we did.

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Thankfully, it is not based on what we did. We are saved by works, but they're just Jesus' works, not ours.

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Thank God for that. Okay. The fall breaks the harmony of Adam and Eve, that they enjoyed since creation, bringing not only tension and discord between themselves, but also with God, with the created world and within their very selves.

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Instead of walking in the garden with God, Adam and Eve hid themselves from the presence of the Lord. Sin separates.

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It pushes things apart. Sin never brings things together. It always causes division.

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This is why it's so important within a church context to properly exercise

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Matthew 18. If somebody offends you, go to them immediately. And in a spirit of love, humility, tell them what they did.

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If somebody comes and tells you that you offended them, don't get your back up.

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That's your flesh. Just hear what they say. Say, listen, can I think about this? And then ask yourself, did

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I really maybe say something or do something that could have been offensive to someone else? We need to learn how to lovingly confront one another and how to lovingly receive correction if we're in error.

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But if it's done with a spirit of humility, the church is going to grow closer together. The devil, sin, wants to separate us.

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God brought restoration and forgiveness and he gives us Matthew 18 as an instruction on how to bring us together.

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I mean, if we can't forgive one another for the things that we've done, what's the outside world going to think? This is how they'll know who my disciples are, that they love one another.

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Confrontation, if done correctly, can bring about great fruit. So don't be afraid to receive correction or offer it in a spirit of humility.

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Adam and Eve are now separated from God. They're separated from His goodness and mercy, but they're not separated from His justice and wrath.

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Everybody is still in contact with God, whether you're a believer or an unbeliever. You're in contact with God through Jesus and you have mercy and grace, or you're in contact with God through Adam, in which that covenant still exists for you, and you have to now appease

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God with your good works, which you're not going to be able to do. You're not going to be able to maintain perfect obedience.

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There's a creator -creation gap. There's a big separation between us and God that only

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Jesus can fill. Sin separates. It causes division. It causes death.

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What is death? Separation of your soul from your body. Sin divides.

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Sin separates. Alright, we're going to do a quick total depravity review, because here's where this comes into play.

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Total depravity. Some people assume that the term original sin must refer to the first sin. Oh, original sin is the first sin that Adam and Eve committed.

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No. The original transgression that we've all copied in many ways in our own lives, that is the first sin of Adam and Eve.

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That's not what original sin is talking about. Rather, the doctrine of original sin defines the consequences to the human race because of that sin.

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In other words, original sin is the transmission of their nature to us. Adam is now going to reproduce after his own kind.

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He's a human being devoid of God's spirit, and that's all he's going to be able to reproduce.

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We are going to be born into this world with sinful natures. Something very serious has happened to the human race as a result of the first sin.

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The first sin results in original sin. It's a state of humanity. That is, as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve, the entire human race fell, and our nature as human beings since the fall has been influenced by the power of evil.

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God created one man from whom the entire race would descend, and who, because of his union with all of his descendants, could be appointed as the legal or federal head and representative of the entire human race.

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You'll sometimes hear us talking about federal headship. Federal headship in Adam would be that's how we got our sin nature.

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There's also federal headship in Jesus. That's how we get our righteousness. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ.

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You might say, well, it's not fair that when Adam fell, I fell. Is it fair that when

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Jesus crucified, you were crucified? That's not fair either. But nobody looks at that and says, that's not fair.

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They like that, in a sense. Because Jesus' death is our death. His burial is our burial.

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His resurrection is our resurrection. The other thing some people balk at is, well, how could

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I have been there when Adam fell? How come I'm responsible for his sin? You ever ask that question?

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Maybe it's just me. Okay. You might ask that question. But the question you could also ask is, how was

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I crucified when Jesus was crucified? If it was possible for me to be in Adam when

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Adam sinned, it's also possible that I was in Christ when Christ died for my sins, so that I would die for my sins.

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So if you reject the federal headship of Adam, you also lose the federal headship of Jesus.

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You don't want to reject federal headship. The effects of the fall, this is our confession.

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Our first parents by the sin fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and we in them, whereby death came upon all, all becoming dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

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We are the image of God, it's just a shattered image after the fall.

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And God is in the process of restoring that image and conforming us to the image of Jesus, right?

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You guys all know this one, Romans 10, as it is written, none is righteous, no not one, for no one understands, our understanding has been tainted, no one seeks after God, our desires have been tainted, all have turned aside, together they have become worthless, that's a moral term, you still have worth and value as an image bearer of God.

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No one does good, not even one, their throat is an open grave, in other words, our speech is affected, they use their tongues to deceive, we lie, the venom of ash is under their lips, that's a reference to Satan, their mouth is full of curses and bitterness, what's the opposite of curses and bitterness?

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Blessing and contentment. The way of peace in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known, there is no fear of God before their eyes.

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What is the fear of the Lord? The beginning of wisdom, the beginning of knowledge. Now we know that whatever the law speaks, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

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The total and total depravity refers to total distribution not total saturation.

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So, even within humanity, we are not as depraved as we could be, so what depravity means that sin has touched every faculty of the human being, our minds, our hearts, everything we think and do is somehow, someway touched by depravity.

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But as the old saying goes, even Hitler loved his mother. He was not so depraved that he hated her and tried to kill her.

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So, we talk about the T, total depravity, the T is true. A little quicker here.

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After Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Genesis says that the eyes of both were open and they knew that they were naked.

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This is in marked contrast to what was said about their nakedness in the previous chapter. The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

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Before they sinned, Adam and Eve loved each other without lust or selfishness. Now that they have separated themselves from God, they are afraid, they're self -conscious, right, self -centered, and have knowledge, experiential knowledge of evil now.

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Not just knowledge written on the heart, they've experienced it. Where there was once complimentary love, now there is tension and discord.

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Once they lose trust in God, they soon lose trust in each other, and if God cannot be trusted, who can?

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When God questions Adam, what does he say? The woman throws her under the bus. The woman you gave me, she's the one who did this.

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Whereas before they were in union, there was no animosity between them. Yeah, the woman you gave me, right.

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He blames God and he blames the woman. Of course he can't be guilty. He can't be responsible for this, but he was.

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In Genesis 3, Adam failed to protect his bride, failed to guard the garden, failed to chase out the intruder, failed to proclaim the truth about God, failed to subdue the devil, and failed to take dominion over him.

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He failed God's command, blamed his wife, and then hid. In only three short chapters, the situation of mankind has gone from very good to very bad.

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Still very valuable are human beings, but very broken.

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We represent a shattered image of what God created. We are still image bearers of God.

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With infinite value and worth and dignity, God created human beings to be in fellowship with him.

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So we are very valuable, we're just very broken. With such a start, how can the story possibly have a happy ending?

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This is why last week we did not talk about the fall at all. We talked about humanity being the pinnacle of God's creation and how important we were to God in being the pinnacle of his creation.

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The fall now presents us with the fact that although we were the greatest of all God's creatures, we've now sunk to a new low.

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The gap between God and man in his sinfulness is exponentially larger than it was before.

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Now for humanity to be redeemed, God is going to have to act. He is going to have to do something.

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And the last thing I want to just point out to you, Genesis presents us with a lot of firsts.

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Does anybody know what the first question God asked humanity? Adam, where are you?

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I want to pose something to you when you're evangelizing. Why did God ask

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Adam that question? Did God not know? Like, oh no, I really lost him.

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Like, where are you? Oh, somebody. Anybody else? Any of the angels know where Adam is? I can't find him.

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He didn't ask Adam where Adam was because God didn't know where he was. He asked

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Adam so that Adam would realize that he was disconnected from God. When you're evangelizing, a really good question to open up with somebody is, where are you in relationship to God?

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Are you in union with Him? If so, tell me how. If you're not, well, how are you going to survive the judgment?

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You realize God's going to evaluate us based on His commandments. And then we can present the law to them and show them their need for a

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Savior. So that question, Adam, where are you? has great significance. We could also look at this from a different perspective.

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Who's the second Adam or the last Adam? Adam, where are you? I need you.

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Jesus, I need you. Where are you? When I sin, Lord, I need you. Please, continue to help me.

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Continue to conform me to the image of Jesus. The last Adam. The perfect Adam. Who guarded the garden.

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Who protected His bride. Who lived a perfect life of obedience in my place. Who loved me to death, dying on the cross for my sins.

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Yes. I would say, well, no, in the sense that the

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Spirit of God left Adam. He was now dead spiritually, not physically.

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God would have to grant Him repentance. He's now in a state that we as humans are in.

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But here's the thing. Adam and Eve were hiding. They weren't pursuing God. They weren't looking for forgiveness.

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Forgiveness came looking for them. What does that tell you? It's the prerogative of God to go after humanity and bring them to Him.

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They didn't ask for an animal to be killed and the skins of that animal to be put on them as clothing.

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God took that initiative. Again, pointing to the one who would be the ultimate sacrifice for sin, the

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Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, showing that salvation is of the Lord. This is not an act of humanity seeking after God, trying to find

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Him. Sinners looking for God is like a bank robber looking for a cop.

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You don't do that. You're guilty. The nature of mankind is to cover it up, make myself look good, and convince myself that I am a good person.

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I do good things, and that's enough for God. It's not enough for God. We're separated from Him spiritually.

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Like Adam, we were all born from below. We need to be now born from above.

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That's what the Gospel provides us. You are more guilty than you ever thought possible, but in Christ you are more deeply loved than you could ever have hoped.

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Because once Jesus dies on the cross for your sins, it's all of your sins, past, present, and future.

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You now have the perfect love of God set on you. Now, some people say, well,

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God loves everybody the same. Really? Then why did God have to set His love on Israel? If He loves everyone the same, why does

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He have to set it on a particular group of people who everybody agrees, no matter what

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Christian denomination you come from, that Israel was chosen of God? Chosen for what? To bring forth the

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Messiah? But He had to set a special covenantal love on them that was not on all of humanity.

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That's why us being in union with Christ is likened to a marriage. Love your wife like Christ loved the church.

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Marriage and our covenant with God is likened to one another. The marriage covenant between father and son and bride, all that the

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Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will in no wise cast out. We are now the bride of Christ.

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We're in that covenant. That's a special love that God doesn't have for all humanity. God has a general love for His creation, but the special covenantal marriage love of God comes only through Christ Jesus after you repent of your sins and call upon His name.

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Right? So if you recognize that you're a sinner, and you recognize that, Adam, where are you? That you're separated from God and you think

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I'm going to cover my sins up and no one's going to see them, your sin will find you out. On that day before God, all of your sins are going to be laid bare.

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What are you going to say? What are you going to plead? The only thing I can plead is Jesus.

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Jesus is my Savior. I trust in Him. If His payment wasn't good enough on the cross, I'm done.

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I'm done. Okay, so, to sum this all up, today was the fall, the fall of Adam into sin and judgment.

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And the story so far goes like this. God created a very good kingdom of which He is the king. He created human beings,

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His children, to represent Him in that kingdom, and they were charged with the responsibility to expand it. Through their sin,

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Adam and Eve rejected God's commission and rebelled against their Father and Creator. Yet God proved

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His covenant love towards them despite their unfaithfulness. Very good did not turn into very bad.

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It just proved the character of who was always the one very good. God is very good and gracious and loving and merciful.

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If you don't know Him, call upon the name of Jesus. Repent and be saved. Let's pray.