SLJ Fall of Man and Human (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle

Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'"

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her king.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and I'm your host today.

And I want to do something special to you, for you, about you, through you, in you, on behalf of you.

Now what I'd like to do today is I'd like to play a sermon, part one of a sermon by S. Lewis Johnson.

Samuel Lewis Johnson, known to his friends as Lewis, is maybe my all -time favorite

Bible teacher. It's hard to push John MacArthur out of the way since John was my physical, real pastor.

But S. Lewis Johnson, by the way, you can go to Believer's Chapel, Texas, and find his messages online for free, thousands of them.

But I want you to listen to S. Lewis Johnson and so you can be encouraged, you can understand who he is, and you can start to listen for yourself.

One of my favorite Bible teachers, S. Lewis Johnson, died several years ago, now in glory, still great theology.

The scripture reading this morning is in Genesis 2 and Genesis 3, and then one text in the

New Testament. We are studying, for those of you who are visiting for the first time, the eight most important Christian truths.

Now, of course, that has no divine authority, that title, it's simply my selection of the important truths of the word of God.

But the one that we're looking at today has to do with the fall of man and human inability.

And so we're reading Genesis 2, verse 15 through 17 first. And the

Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat.

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.

Now let's turn to the passage mentioned on the program. Verse one of chapter three.

Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

And he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden,

God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof that your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

That plural term in the authorized version that I'm reading from probably should be a singular.

The word can be rendered either way, of course. Now in the New Testament, one text,

John chapter six and verse 44. John six, verse 44.

These are very familiar but very important words of the

Lord Jesus himself. Speaking to one of his audiences, he said, no man can come to me except the father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day.

May the Lord bless this reading of his word and let's bow together for a moment for prayer.

We give thee thanks, Lord, for the ministry of the word of God to us.

When we reflect upon the greatness of the son of God and the saving work that he has accomplished in the shedding of his blood, we are most grateful to thee.

We thank thee for not only that which Christ did but also the work of the third person of the

Trinity, the Holy Spirit, in bringing home to our hearts the truth concerning Christ and his salvation for sinners.

We thank thee, Lord, that thou hast in grace brought us to the acknowledgement of him as Lord and to the reception of him as our own savior.

We are thankful and grateful and we give praise and thanks to thy name. We thank thee too,

Lord, for the other blessings of life that are ours through Christ, the guidance of the

Holy Spirit, the provision of all of our needs, the assurance of divine providence that guides and directs and protects and undergirds all of our steps in this life.

And we thank thee for the hope that we have, the hope of the ages of eternity in the communion with the triune

God, how blessed we are. We thank thee,

Lord, for the privilege of prayer and we pray for those whose names are listed in our calendar of concern particularly.

Minister to them, encourage them and strengthen them and give them if it should please thee that which their hearts desire.

We pray, Lord, for those particularly who are ill and who need the healing touch of the

Lord God. Oh God, touch them for thy glory in accordance with our will.

We give thee thanks for our country, for our president, for others who are over us in the political and governmental sphere.

We pray for the whole church of Jesus Christ and all believers wherever they may be gathered and in whatever churches they may be found.

Bless the ministry of thy word today. We pray for our elders and deacons and for the members and friends and the visitors who are here today.

Lord, speak to them through thy word for the glorification of the

Lord Jesus Christ. We pray in his name, amen. We are studying, as I mentioned in the scripture reading, the eight most important Christian truths and we have looked at two already and this morning the third is the fall of man and human inability.

Perhaps just a word or two for those of you who may not have been here for the two preceding studies since last week

Mr. Rainey was here may have caused some of you to forget exactly where we are.

We began with one of the most important of all truths in the

Bible and that is the truth of divine revelation, namely that God has spoken in the scriptures and we set out the fact that this was an axiomatic assumption of Christians given by God with such power to believers that we cannot fail to believe.

Now we laid stress upon the fact that all reasoning is based upon assumptions.

We cannot even begin a discussion without assuming certain truths.

I mentioned, for example, the laws of thought and said something about them. For those of you who may have forgotten or may not have heard, we invite you to get one of the tapes and listen to that introductory study.

We pointed out or tried to point out that Augustine crystallized the historic Christian position putting into God's mouth the words in his work, "'Indeed,

O man, what my scripture says, I say.'" Now we contend that that is a fundamental truth, perhaps the most fundamental truth of the word of God, divine revelation in Holy Scripture.

It is stated in many ways in the Bible. For example, in the Psalms, we read, "'In thy light we shall see light.'"

In the New Testament, it's illustrated in Paul's ministry to the Corinthians in which he says as he records what he was doing when he was among them that he did not preach to them in enticing words of man's wisdom.

He came to them in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. And he tells us why he preached not in wisdom of men but in the demonstration of the

Spirit's power. He says that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

In other words, if we are looking for assurance and certainty in spiritual things, the testimony of God himself is the most objective and the most powerful testimony that can be given to spiritual truth.

And that's what Paul is talking about when he says he did not preach in the wisdom of men.

He came to them in the demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit that their faith would not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Obviously, if our faith rests in the wisdom of men, then ultimately someone will come along who appears to have more wisdom than the one whose wisdom we have trusted in previously.

And then our faith is shattered by what appears to be greater wisdom. So ultimately, assurance of the truth of God comes from the objective testimony of God the

Holy Spirit. No testimony is stronger than the testimony of God himself.

And he gives testimony to the truth of his word. That's a simple philosophical approach but it is grounded in good reasoning, good philosophy, and best of all, in scriptural teaching from the word of God.

The second of these truths was divine creation. God has given us a creation.

It was a free creation, we said. In other words, God did not have to create.

He freely created. He did it in time. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

He created this universe ex nihilo, that is, out of nothing.

It was an act of the triune God for his glory. And the result was a creation that was dependent upon him yet distinct from him.

We do not have emanation in the scripture, we have creation.

A creation that has come from the hands of God, dependent upon him yet distinct.

He created the universe, he created male, he created the female, and we are dependent upon him and distinct from him.

We made the statement also that it seemed to us that this was a kind of overture for the main thing that would follow.

The overture of the orchestra for the chorus of life that would come.

And so everything that flows from Genesis to on is the unfolding of the divine plan.

But creation is the first step along the way. Now I think there can be little doubt about the fact that if we are to have a half a dozen truths that we point out as being extremely important, then what we are to study this morning has to be among them, the fall of man and its consequences.

How important it is to have clear views of sin. Sometimes we don't realize,

I think in our world at least, how important this is. You cannot understand yourself if you do not understand human sin.

You cannot understand your neighbor or your fellow men if you do not understand sin.

You cannot understand the world of which you're a part if you do not understand sin.

You will not be able to understand the Christian faith at all if you do not understand sin.

You will not be able to make heads or tails of the

Bible if you do not understand sin. In fact, apart from the first two chapters of Genesis which set the stage, the real subject of the

Bible, in fact every chapter of the Bible is what man does about our sins.

Lose sight of this theme and you lose sight of the Bible at once.

So how important then the understanding of sin is when we think about the

Christian faith. Now we have seen Adam and Eve created and male and female

God created them. He placed them in the Garden of Eden and first Moses describes the probation under which they were put.

Now in verse 15 through verse 17 which we have read in our scripture reading,

Moses describes some of the details of that probation. Man was created in the image of God.

That means that he had a rational nature, he had a moral nature, and he also had a regal position.

He was to have dominion over this creation. In fact, the story of the

Bible is also the story of how man's dominion over the creation is recovered through the successful saving work of the second man, the last

Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. So created in the image of God, Adam and Eve are in the garden.

God has made a provision for them that is a model of parental care.

Everything is provided for them. There isn't anything that they could have reasonably asked for that God had not provided for them.

If we look at those opening statements of these two chapters and think about the nature of God, we would have to conclude that God is good.

That's one of the attributes of the divine being revealed in scripture, but you would see this from the opening chapters of the book of Genesis.

A model of parental care. They are brought under a covenant of works.

Now the term covenant of works is not found. There is a statement in the book of Hosea which may refer to this particular passage and there the term covenant is used.

I don't want to debate the necessity of the precise term appearing in the Bible because it's not necessary that that precise term be here.

There are many concepts that are taught in the word of God which may not have their expression in the precise words by which we describe them.

The term Trinity is an outstanding example. It's not found in the Bible, but the

God who is set forth in scripture is a Trinitarian God. So when we speak about covenant of works, we're talking about the arrangement between God and man in the garden.

And if we were to define what a covenant is, we would see if we studied this chapter that the elements of a covenant are found here.

So we'll call it the covenant of works. We could call it the Edenic covenant and the truth would be precisely the same.

Adam was placed under the covenant of works. There was a condition in the arrangement.

There was a penalty if he disobeyed and implicit a promise of continuance in life if he obeyed.

So he was put under a covenant of works. Now I suggest that it was a very gracious arrangement, but it is specifically a gracious arrangement that lays the foundation for another covenant head, the

Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam, who in the final analysis is the only tree of life.

So this arrangement then was an act of a gracious God who put

Adam and Eve under the covenant of works requiring only one thing, faith in the word of God.

That's all, believe the word. As Eve expresses it in chapter three, we may eat of all of the trees of the garden, but of the one tree we may not eat.

How could God have treated them more graciously than he did?

Well, they didn't understand even how graciously they were treated because in the putting of them under a covenantal head, the first Adam, God made it possible for a second covenantal head to come and recover the damage that was caused by Adam's fall.

So they were placed under probation. Now, secondly, in Genesis chapter three, we have the description of the fall of man.

We do not know from the study of the word of God where or how, perhaps it would be better to say, we do not know how sin originated.

We know from scattered statements in scripture that sin appears to have originated in the angelic world, but how it originated, we are not specifically told in the word of God in any kind of detail.

We do know how sin entered this world of which we are a part. The apostle

Paul makes it very plain from Romans chapter five and verse 12, when he talks about Adam and the headship of Adam and the headship of Christ in that fifth chapter.

The apostle writes in Romans chapter five and verse 12, wherefore is by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin.

So sin evidently was an existence before it entered into the human race through the fall in the garden of Eden.

That's evident from the fact that the serpent, obviously a tool of Satan, already is a tool of an evil being.

So sin had its entrance into the world in Genesis chapter three. We learn also from this that sin is an intruder in our society.

It's not good in the making as some theologians have sought to teach us, that this is primitive life and through the centuries we've been getting better and better and sin is good in the making.

It is not, it is an intruder into our society. What Moses describes and of course we are doing this with a great deal of summary of what is found here, you will find in our tape ministry, fuller treatments of all of these sections if you are interested in them.

What we have here is the most disastrous dialogue in human history. Notice that it is initiated by the serpent, the tool of Satan, and he asks for a seminar about God.

He said, children, let's have a little conversation about God.

You'll notice it's in the third person. Very frequently discussions concerning God take place in the third person.

It's always better to speak of God in the second person. That is to enter into a hand -to -hand or person -to -person contact with God.

When we talk about God, it's legitimate, but when we talk about God, the tendency is to speak in a way in which the necessity of our personal relationship with God is made secondary.

So a little seminar about God in the third person, the serpent suggests.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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