The Battle Royale (part 2) - [Luke 4:1-13]

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Mistakes We Make In Evangelism (part 3)

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Who are the two most important men in the
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Bible? Who are the two men in the Bible that if you understand them, you understand all of the
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Bible? Who are the two men in the Bible that if you grasp their significance, salvation is much easier to understand?
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Who are those two men? Any guesses? You can answer out loud. Younger ones?
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Adam and Jesus. All right, let's close in prayer. That was easy. Good job, congregation.
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Adam number one and Adam number two. That is the literal
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Adam in Genesis and the last Adam, the Lord Jesus. Matter of fact,
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Paul calls Jesus the last Adam. 1 Corinthians 15, it says, thus it is written, the first man
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Adam became a living being, the last Adam became a life -giving spirit.
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Dear congregation, if you can be reminded that everything revolves around the first Adam and the last
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Adam, you can understand the sweep of Scripture. And it's important for us because the
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Bible is a big book. There are a lot of things going on in the Bible, lots of moving parts, lots of individual things that are very important and strategic.
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But understanding the first Adam and the last Adam and our relationship to both of them is important.
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And of course, for unbelievers, they are in the first Adam. They have a relationship with Adam, the fallen man, the sinful man.
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And only those who are born again, those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus, are in relationship to the last
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Adam, the life -giving Adam. And as you know, we've been going through the book of Luke, the
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Gospel of Jesus according to Luke. And we've been watching the last
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Adam. One of the things that you could think about Jesus is He's our representative. He is a representative sent by God and He represents all those who would trust in Him.
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What we call Jesus often is a federal head, a public person, someone that does something not just for Himself.
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Jesus came to do something for others. And Adam, the first Adam, is the same way.
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He is a representative and what He did affected all those in Adam.
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And so instead of going to Luke chapter 4 today first, I'd like to talk a little bit about the first Adam.
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Luke chapter 4 has been talking about the last Adam, Jesus. And we watched last week, did we not,
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Jesus overcoming temptations in the wilderness, on the mountain and in the temple, or on the temple.
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And we watched Jesus, our representative, even thinking back to Jesus' baptism. John the Baptist said,
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I must baptize you. And Jesus allowed Himself to be baptized, not because He, Jesus, needed repentance, not because He, Jesus, was sinful, but because Jesus wanted to identify with mankind.
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And so therefore Jesus is baptized. He is the representative. So this morning, if you'll take your
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Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 3, I want us to see the first Adam and His fall and how
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He interacted with Satan, so that you'll appreciate what the last Adam did all the more.
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You'll see how Satan works and you'll see how, although the first Adam fails, we have the last
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Adam as our champion. And so today we're going to look at two Adams, one in Genesis 3 and then, quickly,
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Luke chapter 4. If you've been reading through the Bible with your Robert Murray McShane Bible app, daily
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Bible reading, or maybe you just have another way to do that, you've just read Genesis 3, not that long ago, and today we're going to see what happens in maybe what could be the seed plot of all the
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Bible that has really a summary of everything. We have Adam in the garden, tempted, but we see the grace of God.
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One man called this the pivot point of the Bible, Genesis chapter 3. And I would dare to say that if you don't understand
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Genesis chapter 3, you don't understand much of the Bible, because it really gives us the origin of sin.
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It tells us what happened with the fall. It tells us why Jesus even needed to come to rescue us.
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It gives us every detail that we need to know as Adam commits an offense against God, high treason against God.
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I looked up a definition of treason, the offense of attempting to overthrow the government to which the offender owes allegiance, or betraying the state into the hands of a foreign power, disloyalty, or treachery.
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And as R .C. Sproul said, sin is like cosmic treason, and that's what we're going to see here in Genesis chapter 3, as Adam sins.
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And then we'll recognize how great the fall was, but also then how great our salvation is.
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This morning we'll look at Genesis chapter 3. I want you to see the first Adam, so that you'll have a higher regard for the last
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Adam. Who could undo the fall? And when I say the fall, dear New Englanders, I don't mean the autumn colors in the fall.
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It wasn't that good this year, was it? I mean, it was fine and everything, but today we're looking at Genesis chapter 3.
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How did we become sinners? Answered here. Is there any hope for those affected by sin? Answered here.
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Does our sin cancel out God's grace? Answered here. Now before we look at Genesis 3,
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I just want you to remember the bliss and the joy of creation in Genesis 2. Look at verse 15, how wonderful this must have been.
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Actually, it would be Edenic. The Lord God, verse 15 of chapter 2, took the man, put him in the
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Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the
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Garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. From the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
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Then the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.
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Verse 21, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
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And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
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Then the man said, by the way, this is exalting poetry right here that Adam gives.
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Just praising God for what he's given him. This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
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She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.
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And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Everything is ideal.
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Everything is perfect. Everything is wonderful. And it will stay that way as long as Adam obeys.
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Obedience will be the key for Adam. Think about God, he creates and he wants his creation to obey him.
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Certainly the stars and the sun and the moon, they obey him. But will Adam.
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For Adam, obedience was the condition. And God put him in a covenant.
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And sometimes if you read in theological works about this covenant, it's called the covenant of works.
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And the covenant of works or the Edenic covenant is something that God put Adam under and Adam was to obey.
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It was simple. He had to obey with thought, word and deed. He had to perfectly obey everything that God told him to do.
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And he had to obey what God said not to do. And this is called the covenant of life or the covenant of works.
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Even Hosea talks about that. They, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant.
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And if Adam obeys, bliss. If Adam disobeys, death.
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The condition was obedience. And remember, of course, in the Bible we learn that to obey is better than sacrifice.
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That's what God wants, is obedience. And here Adam is the representative. What people call the public man.
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He was not just representing himself, he's representing everyone. Will Adam succeed?
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The father of the human race, yes, but more, the legal agent of the human race.
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And by the way, aren't you glad that God picked Adam to be the federal representative, to be your representative?
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He had a perfect mind. He was in a perfect place. He had a sinless wife.
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And he was going to represent us. Otherwise, each of us would have to stand before God, think about it, even as an infant or a toddler.
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What would we have done? I'm sure we would have fallen much faster than Adam. Nonetheless, God chooses
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Adam to be your federal head. And by the way, before you think, that doesn't really seem fair, I didn't vote for Adam.
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Before you say that, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you deep down like federal headship.
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You deep down like God's choice for you to represent you. Because as awful as Adam's fall was, the
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Lord Jesus is your legal representative. Aren't you glad that God chose Jesus to represent all those in Christ?
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So before we say, we don't want to have anything to do with this federal headship. No, we should say to ourselves,
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I like God's arrangement. That was the perfect pick. We would all stand there and say, surely we pick
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Adam. Now some people would say,
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Adam wasn't even real. There are some Christian scholars that say, Adam wasn't a real person.
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Others say, Adam wasn't even the first person. There's 5 ,000 people, 6 ,000 people, and in the middle of a bunch of breeding population of homo sapiens,
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God says, you're Adam and you're Eve. I hope you say, that just sounds weird. That is as weird as Vincent's face just looked.
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By the way, if you say, I wonder if he can see me sleeping or not. If you can see my face, I can see yours. Some breeding population?
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No. Two people, the first two people, God has Adam and Eve, and Adam is going to be the legal federal representative.
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And what he does will affect everyone else. That's Romans 5 .12, by the way. And for me,
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I like Luther's comment. Trust that the Holy Spirit is more learned than you. Or anyone else who says,
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Adam wasn't really a historical person. Acts 17, God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth.
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So we're not looking at mythology, we're looking at history. And so now let's look at Genesis chapter 3, 1 and following, with Luke chapter 4 and the last
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Adam in our minds. We will see the fall, but we'll also see the grace of God.
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Now, the serpent was more crafty. That should give you a heads up, something's going on here.
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The serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
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He, the serpent, said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?
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You know what's happening. Satan tries to overthrow heaven.
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That didn't work out so well. So now, let's go after Adam. Perfect place.
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Edenic. And here we have the serpent. Moses calls it a beast of the field.
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A literal snake. People say, well,
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I've got to understand, why is this snake not on its stomach? What's going on with all kinds of phobias about snakes, and everything else.
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Don't get distracted from the main issue. Sin, the fall, disobedience, federal headship.
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The point is, God wants us to know why we're sinful and why we need a redeemer. Some people come up with weird ideas that Satan used a snake and he just kind of threw his voice.
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Remember those guys on Ed Sullivan, I'll tell you how old I am, watching Edgar Bergen and Sherry Lewis, like ventriloquists throwing their voice with lamb chop and Mortimer Snurd and others.
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The young people are like, who is this man? Look it up. Not now, but a little bit later.
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It's not really that uncommon in Scripture to see a horse,
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I mean a donkey talk. It's uncommon, but it's there. This is a real serpent. Satan is indwelling, and he's talking.
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That's interesting. Luther said, the devil was permitted to enter beast, as here he entered the serpent.
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For there is no doubt that it was a real serpent in which Satan was, and in which he conversed with Eve. And what's his strategy?
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Do you see it? Did God actually say? This is a satanic strategy that he uses even now, and he used with Jesus in Luke 4, did he not?
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Causing doubt. Did God really say? Now here's something that intense study will reveal to you.
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What has God been called from Genesis 2 -4 up to Genesis 3?
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Yahweh Elohim. Yahweh is the covenant keeping name of God, the personal name of God.
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You'll see that in all caps in your Bible, L -O -R -D. And God, Elohim, Creator, Powerful, Sovereign, He's called
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Yahweh Elohim the whole time. Twelve times up until this point, and after Satan gets done talking,
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He's called that again in verse 8 and following. And He changes the name
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Satan does. Did God actually say? Now you'd think maybe that Satan shows up, and he would say, well
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God I hate, and God's a liar, and I'm a monster. No, see how crafty
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Satan is? See how wicked he is? Did God really say, you shall not eat of any tree of the garden?
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We're talking about a real fruit in a real garden. This is not like in medieval times, something to have to do with alcohol, something to do with sexual intimacy, has nothing to do with that.
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It's not even an apple. The Latin word for apple is malum, and sometimes they confuse that with the
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Latin for evil, malus. But a real serpent is talking, bluntly, boldly.
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I remember Jesus said to the demon -possessed man, what is your name?
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And he replied, my name is Legion, for we are many. Demons can overpower people and speak through them.
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Certainly Satan overpowers, or just indwells this snake. Has God really said?
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Did He really, really say that? By the way, let's talk about religion a little bit. Let's talk about God a little bit.
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Let's have a little seminar on truth, and God, and what He says. This demands correction.
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Where's Adam in all this? He's talking to the woman. Where's Adam? Satan puts in doubt.
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He puts in distrust. Can you really trust God? Is He really good? He omits
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Yahweh. He's not really the covenant -keeping good
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God. He's a secretive God, a malevolent God, a God who's taking away from you.
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It's almost like Satan shows up and says, you know, I might be mistaken about this, but did God really say this?
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And one man called this the disastrous, most disastrous dialogue in human history. I want to shout out, resist the devil, and he'll flee from you.
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This is what liberals do. This is what modernists do. They don't say the Bible's hogwash.
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They put the question, they try to frame it so you'll think wrongly about the Bible. It's not a point -blank denial, but it's an attack on God's Word nonetheless.
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Is this really true? I heard some news about God and His Word. Did He really forbid this?
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Surely, God wouldn't let you miss out on all that. How subtle Satan must be.
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John 8, Jesus said, you belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire.
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He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there's no truth in him.
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When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
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And no wonder Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11, but I'm afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may be somehow led astray.
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Where's Adam? Verse 2, and the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, not the
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Lord God, she's buying into this big guy upstairs kind of talk about God. You may not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
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She's buying into misrepresenting what God has said. And she adds, and you must not touch it.
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And now all of a sudden, Eve, by the way, where's Adam? Eve is now in charge of this religious conversation and she's in authority.
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And she's buying into this satanic lie that God is restrictive.
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God doesn't want your best. God is not overflowing with goodness toward His people. Because she's buying into the restriction.
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Even adding a restriction, you shouldn't touch it. I mean, what a harsh God. You can't even touch this.
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She should have said, get behind me, Satan. I wonder where Adam is in all this. She misquotes the terms.
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She misquotes the divine prohibition. What in the world is going on?
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Dear congregation, the root of all sin is unbelief. Yes, it leads to lawlessness, but the root of all sin is unbelief and she doesn't believe what
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God says. Every sin flows from unbelief and it flows from unbelief right here.
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If she had believed God's Word, she would have said, no, that's not true. That's contrary to God's Word.
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I won't accept it no matter what you say, no matter how plausible it seems to me. I will not accept it.
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But sin at root is unbelief. Luther said we cannot do any greater despot to our
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Lord God than by unbelief for it. Because when we don't believe God, we make
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God a devil. Thinking about last week,
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Jesus in the wilderness. So different in His response. Verse 4 of Genesis 3,
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But the serpent said to the woman, what's the first big issue in all the
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Bible? No judgment. You shall surely not die. You're not going to die.
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That's a hollow threat by God. It's a theory. It might be a hypothesis, but it's an idle threat.
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God's motive is bad. His Word is bad. Don't trust Him. And interesting, some of the Jewish writers said as soon as this was said by Satan, he pushed her into the tree so she could touch it.
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And she still didn't die. You see what's going on here? Doubt, then denial.
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I'm going to make you a skeptic first, and I'll make you an atheist later. I'm not going to trust in God's Word.
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Forget about the consequences of sin. Forget about the goodness of God. Forget about the badness of sin.
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Satan's much bolder now. He sees an opening. There's a breach. He's going for it.
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Direct contradiction of God's Word. It starts off just with skepticism and some wordplay and a word order play, and now it's, you're not going to die.
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Denying judgment. By the way, when you hear of theologians today denying hell, denying judgment, denying judgment day, you should say to yourself, that's coming from the father of lies,
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Satan. The first big lie.
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You're not going to die. Verse 5, 4, not the
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Lord God, but God. Just this generic God. This restrictive God. Not this personal
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God that cares for you. Lord God, but God knows when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.
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And by the way, God, this fake God, is jealous and He doesn't want you to experience what
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He's experiencing, so God isn't good and gracious.
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God is selfish. God is deceptive. God wants to be God Himself and now Satan maligns
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God. By the way, this is how Satan fell, wanting to be equal with God and now he says to Eve, you can be equal with God too.
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Want to know what the New Age movement is all about? You can be God's too. I mean, it's the same thing repeats over and over and over.
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S. Lewis Johnson said that Satan was afraid. He said, he's afraid that you'll learn his recipes,
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God's recipes, and if you learn God's recipes, well then, when you don't need Him. So, verse 6, where's
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Adam? So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, believing
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Satan's words, not God's, 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, exchanging
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God for Satan. God is stingy. Satan is generous.
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So unlike the last Adam, Jesus, man shall not live by bread alone.
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I mean, look how fast it goes. It's like running downhill. She took. She ate.
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She gave. He ate. I've asked four or five times, where's
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Adam? The answer's found here at the end of verse 6.
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Gave some to her husband who was with her. Probably the whole time, he's standing right there as Satan is attacking
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Eve. He should have gotten a sickle out and chopped Satan's head off.
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He should have crushed Satan. He should have said, we're not going to listen. He should have defended
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God's honor. He should have defended Eve. He should have said, we're not going to believe those things.
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1 Timothy gives us insight into what happened. While Eve was deceived, Adam's sin was deliberate and heinous.
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It was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived fell into transgression.
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And before you think, well, that's worse of Eve to have happened. No, it's worse for Adam as he's passive, as he's watching, as he lets it all happen.
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He watches Satan in the serpent talking to Eve. He doesn't say anything.
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He doesn't contradict anything. He doesn't stand up for the Lord God in his nature, in his person. He watches
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Eve take the fruit. And he watches Eve eat the fruit. He should have said, don't do that. And then he eats the fruit.
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Eve follows the snake. And Adam follows Eve. One man said, and no one follows God. To disobey
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God? Derek Kidner said, so simple the act of eating, so hard it's undoing.
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Moses doesn't really say much. He could have put some shocking statements in.
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He just lets it settle with all its tragedy.
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No defense by Adam when God's word was challenged. Silent when God's honor was at stake.
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Adam and Eve claiming autonomy and self -authority, determining what was right in their own eyes. One of the confessions says, our first parents being seduced by the subtlety and temptations of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit.
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This their sin, God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purpose to order it to his own glory.
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By this sin, they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God and so became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all parts of soul and body.
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Verse 7 of Genesis 3, then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked.
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Remember, they weren't ashamed back at the end of chapter 2. And they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
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There are two religions in the world. The religion of divine accomplishment, what God in Christ has done by the power of the
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Holy Spirit. And every other kind of religion is all works -based. And here's the first works -based religion.
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We'll sow fig leaves. Man -made religion.
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Now some people think maybe there was some kind of light over their naked bodies before and now the light's gone.
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I don't think so. They just didn't mind being naked. No shame. And now they're naked and ashamed.
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Thousands of years later, there'll be a naked man hanging on a soldier's casting lots.
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And they heard, verse 8, the sound of the Lord God. Now we're back in Moses' mind.
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A God who cares for people. A God who's kind. A God who is good. And they heard the sound of the
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Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the
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Lord God among the trees of the garden. By the way,
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I don't think they hid together. The text literally reads, the man hid himself and the woman herself.
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So they're scattered, as it were. They're hiding. And here comes
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God. The God of grace. The God of initiative. The God who could just kill them that second. But here comes the
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Lord God. Of course we believe in a seeking God.
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An ascending God. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.
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That's John 3 .17. Even in Ezekiel, I will seek the lost.
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I will bring back the strayed. And I will bind up the injured. I will strengthen the weak. The fat and the strong I will destroy.
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I will feed them in justice. They hid themselves.
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And now they have fig leaf outfits. Just to take a little break.
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I know this is not really a funny passage or anything like that, but it's so stupid that it seems funny to me.
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I wonder what fig leaf outfits would feel like. I heard they're scratchy. I heard they're itchy.
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I don't want to know that. While I shop pretty much only at Marshalls and TJ Maxx, I have not found the fig leaf outlet fits there.
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Even at the outlet. By the way, there's no grace before the fall.
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Grace is unmerited favor. It's demerited favor. There's goodness before the fall.
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There's kindness before the fall. But no grace until the fall. And now we see the grace of God's initiative seeking things out.
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Seeking them out. And I think this is the pre -incarnate Jesus. We have Jesus, before He adds permanent humanity to Himself, seeking.
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Verse 9. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?
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Singular, by the way, because Adam's the federal representative. Adam's the one in charge. Never, in all the
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Bible, is one word of blame placed on Eve, even though she sinned. Even in 1
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Corinthians 15. For since death came through a man. Romans chapter 5. As sin entered the world through one man.
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It was Adam who was required to give an explanation. Not Eve, because Adam is the federal head. A Redeemer's needed.
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An intercessor's needed. Verse 10. I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.
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Instead of being naked and not ashamed in chapter 2, I'm ashamed. Who told you that you were naked?
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Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat? And what do we have in verse 12?
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Will Rogers said that American history could be divided into two eras. The era of the passing of the buffalo and the era of the passing of the buck.
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The man said, verse 12, essentially, God, you sinned. You did it. Do you notice?
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The woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit and I ate. You're the sinner here,
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God, not me. See how deceptive sin is. See how awful this strategy is.
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One writer said, stupidity always accompanies sin. What should have
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Adam said? You're right. I shouldn't have done it.
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I want to give all kinds of excuses, but I confess, I agree with you, God. I've sinned.
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Please forgive me. Hey, God, you gave her to me.
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She gave me the fruit. What was I supposed to do? From God's gift to blaming
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God. Adam, the federal head, so sad.
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Is there any hope? Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is it that you have done?
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The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, verse 14, cursed are you above all livestock and above all the beasts of the field.
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On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. When you eat dust, that means you're defeated.
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I'm going to leave you in the dust is our language today. Condemnation to the serpent, but any hope for Adam, any hope for Eve, any hope for us who are in Adam.
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Verse 15, there's good news in the middle of it all. This is the first Gospel right here, dear congregation, as you know,
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I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.
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He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.
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The sin is so bad it's going to take the Savior to forgive such sin. Continuing the imagery of the snake, but now the snake on its belly heals crushing snake's heads as they slither around.
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The only remedy found in all the Bible. John Gerstner called
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Satan the greatest blockhead the world has ever known. The very fact that he's probably the most intelligent being ever created makes him the greatest blockhead, for he was supremely stupid to suppose that he could outthink the all -wise or overpower the
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Almighty. How Adam disdained the truth.
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How Adam dishonored the love of God. How Adam could not care less about the majesty of God.
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Can you then begin to think about the Lord Jesus, the last Adam, exactly opposite of the first Adam?
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The true man Adam, sinning in all these horrible ways. The last man Jesus, the last
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Adam Jesus, honoring God's love, standing up for His justice, saying, yes,
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He's benevolent and good, vindicating the love of God. How much different was Jesus' decision than Adam's?
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Jesus comes to seek and save the lost, sympathy for the afflicted, taking the wrath of God on Himself.
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Verse 16, Genesis 3, to the woman He said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing, in pain you shall bring forth children, your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.
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And even though there's pain and childbearing, praise the Lord, in one of those painful, childbearing moments, the
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Messiah, Jesus was born. Adam's actions condemned the human family.
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Eve gets a critical role, even in liberation of sin's consequences through birth.
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Adam, the federal head, God said to him, because you've listened, verse 17, to the voice of your wife, and have eaten the tree, which
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I commanded you, you shall not eat, cursed is the ground because of you, in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles it shall bring forth, and you shall eat the plants of the field.
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It's gonna be difficult, and it's gonna be hard, verse 19, by the sweat of their face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, and out of it you are taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
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Adam introduces death, Jesus tastes death for everyone.
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Adam introduces a curse, Galatians 3, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.
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Adam introduces sorrow, Jesus was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.
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Adam introduces thorns, Jesus came out wearing a crown of thorns, and the purple robe, and Pilate said, here is the man.
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Adam introduces sweat, and being in anguish, Jesus prayed more earnestly, and his sweat like drops of blood falling to the ground.
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Verse 20, and the man called his wife's name Eve. I mean, we've been calling her Eve the whole time, but she wasn't named until now, because she was the mother of all living.
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Another sign of hope, and now we see the God who provides and procures salvation.
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Verse 21, forget the fig leaves, and the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim, made for Adam and for his wife, garments of skin and clothed them.
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Did you see it? How do you have skin clothing people?
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Well, you have to kill something and skin that animal. And now you see the first glimmer here of substitutionary atonement.
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The animal dies instead of Adam. An animal dies instead of Eve. And God does the work.
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God does the saving. Men and women were enslaved to sin. We can't rescue ourselves. What could Adam and Eve do to get themselves forgiven?
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Nothing. It doesn't tell us what kind of animal was slain, but it doesn't have too much of a stretch for me to think there's the
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Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. It probably was a lamb. And now we see the two religions very clearly in Genesis 3.
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The religion of fig leaves, of I'll do more good than bad. I'll try to keep the
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Ten Commandments as best I can. I'll try to be a good person. I'll try to get baptized and catechized and I'll just do what
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I can civilly and morally. Hope it all pans out. The way to heaven is just be a good person and die.
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Or the other religion, God has to provide. God has to do it all. There's only two religions in the world.
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Sin has to be dealt with. The wages of sin is death. Dear congregation, you know this, but I want to repeat it over and over and over.
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Time doesn't forgive sin. Our own death doesn't forgive sin.
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Like, what do you have to do to go to hell? That old bumper sticker. Nothing. Because you need to be forgiven.
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Here's God's provision. Here's God's restoration. Here's how there's fellowship with God.
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Substitution. One writer said, our filthiness deserves that God should hold it in abhorrence and that all the angels should spit upon us.
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But Christ, in order to present us pure and unspotted in His Father's presence, resolved to be spat upon and to be dishonored by every kind of reproach.
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For this reason, that disgrace which God the Son once endured on earth obtains for us favor in heaven and at the same time restores in us the image.
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Can you imagine Adam and Eve? They're hiding. God seeks them out. And now God clothes them.
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I wonder what went through Adam and Eve's mind when they saw death for the first time. Here's this animal slain and skinned.
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I wonder what went through their mind. Now they understand the horror of death. Now they understood the wages of sin is death.
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Now they understood the soul that sins shall surely die. Unlike what Satan said. They must have been thinking, an innocent animal dies for me?
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The innocent dies on my behalf? Then the
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Lord God, verse 22, said, Behold, the man has become like us, knowing good and evil, now lest he reach out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat in his sinful state and live forever.
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Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
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He drove the man out and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed a cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
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What does God owe Adam? What does God owe Eve? Nothing and nothing. But look what
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He does. And to make sure that they don't somehow live forever in a sinful condition,
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He guards them. He drives them out. He exiles them. Sends them away.
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They live forever as sinners. He guards that tree. Because there's going to be another tree coming in the future that someone's going to be lifted up upon.
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So now, since that's my introduction, turn to Luke 4.
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It's going to be super easy, part 2. I'm just going to read Luke 4. 1 -13 that we looked at last week.
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And I want you to read it knowing first Adam, garden. Last Adam, wilderness.
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I want you to be thinking about even another son of God called Israel who like Adam, if he could have looked at it today, is in the wilderness and sins.
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He's on Mount Sinai and sins. In the tabernacle and sins. But Jesus in this strategic passage here,
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Satan takes him to the wilderness, to the mountain, and to the temple to be tempted.
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And instead of Jesus somehow believing Satan, you're going to see something quite different.
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Instead of somehow Jesus blaming God, you're going to see something different. And I want you to know, if you're an unbeliever here today, your father is
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Adam. And that's why you do what you do because your father is
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Adam. And we were all born with father Adam. But now, there's another legal agent and his name is
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Jesus to undo everything that the first Adam did and more. And we are only in this last
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Adam by trust. By faith alone. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation.
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I want you to see the difference and my goal in reading chapter 4 verses 1 -13 is to show you what the last
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Adam did and for then you to be thankful. Because if Jesus did what Adam the first one did, we're all going to hell.
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But if Jesus is victorious and is tempted and overcomes it, then we're saved.
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That's why Luke is writing this. And Jesus, full of the
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Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by the devil.
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And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him,
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If you're the son of God, command this stone to become bread. I mean, you're the son of God and you can't even eat?
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What kind of God must the Father be to you? Verse 4, And Jesus answered him,
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It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone. The devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him,
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To you I will give all this authority and their glory. Your eyes will be opened, knowing good and evil.
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For it has been delivered to me and I will give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours.
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And Jesus answered him, It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.
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And Satan took Jesus to Jerusalem and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, If you're the son of God, throw yourself down from here.
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You like to quote scripture? So do I. For it is written, He will command His angels concerning you to guard you,
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Psalm 91, and on their hands they'll bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. Jesus answered him,
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It is said, not believing Satan, garbling of Psalm 91,
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You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.
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How should you read Luke chapter 4? With joy and enthusiasm. And not primarily, this is how you overcome temptation.
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Although there's lessons to be learned. But primarily as the last
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Adam. You can just imagine Luke writing to Theophilus. He doesn't know the ending quite yet. And he's wondering,
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Will he, Jesus, do what everybody else does when it comes to temptation? Adam sinning,
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Eve sinning, David sinning, Cain sinning, Noah sinning, Moses sinning,
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Samuel sinning, Saul sinning, Solomon sinning, David sinning. Will somebody not sin when tempted by Satan?
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Please! Why am I shouting? And the answer is found in the last
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Adam. How do you know Jesus is the real Jesus? How do you know this is not all a fake religion?
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Because He, the last Adam, said no to Satan. And that's how
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God sees you if you trust in Him. Aren't you glad? I've been tempted and fallen. But God sees us as tempted and not fallen in Christ Jesus by faith.
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Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. Only you, with the
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Son and the Spirit, could take something good out of the worst thing that's ever happened in the world.
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Sin. I think about cemeteries filled with people because of Adam's sin.
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I think of hospitals filled with people because of Adam's sin.
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But I also think of heaven filled with saints because of Jesus' obedience.
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We thank you for that hope. We're thankful that you're a God, as we learn in 1 Peter today, a God who has great mercy, and you cause us to be born again.
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We would be just like Adam, still in our sins, but you, a
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God who is rich in mercy, who has loved us in eternity past, loved us at the cross, loved us now.
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We're thankful for that. We worship you by worshiping the risen Savior, Jesus, the one who overcame temptation and will one day finally banish