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Bro. Bill Nichols
Okay, well, I will go ahead and get started and as people filter in, they will filter in. We're going to be, for the most part, today dividing our time between Genesis 3 and Luke 4, and you'll see why as we go forward.
For prayer this morning, I want to do something a little bit different. I want you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 6, and you can start reading at verse 9, and I would like for you to join in with me as we get to verse 10.
Matthew 6, 9, and you'll see what this is when you get there, and I said verse 10 will actually start in the middle of verse 9.
Matthew 6, verse 9. His disciples have asked him how to pray, and he gave them a long set of instructions as to how not to pray, and then he tells them how to pray, and this is what he said.
After this manner, therefore, pray ye.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.
Amen. Now that's the model of how he said to pray. He didn't say pray this prayer every time you meet, or recite it in public all the time, but this is the way we are to pray.
Now, I want to go to Luke chapter 3, verse 21, and reread a couple of verses that we did last
Sunday before we got into the genealogy. Now, when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also being baptized and praying, the heavens opened.
And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven which said,
Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased. Then he goes on for 15 verses of genealogy.
And now we come to Luke chapter 4, verse 1. And Jesus, being full of the
Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
Now before we actually begin this morning's study, I want to focus your attention on the peaks and the valleys that occur in the lives of all men, and that would include
Jesus. We can conclude that Jesus lived his life and performed his ministry as a
Spirit -filled man, choosing not to rely on the resources of his divine nature, but willingly limiting himself to what could be done as a man by the guidance of God the
Father and the empowering of the Holy Spirit, resources that are available to all men when they're walking in the
Spirit, but unavailable to them when they're not.
Now we shall soon see Jesus move from the highest of all possible peaks.
That's why I read the section in chapter 3, being praised by God the
Father as my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. What higher peak could you have? Moving from that highest of all possible peaks to a deep valley, being tempted by Satan in the wilderness.
And that, having been led there by the Holy Spirit. He was just not in that wilderness by accident.
He was led there by the Holy Spirit. So if you look back at the
Lord's Prayer, not every request that we make, not even in the
Lord's Prayer, is granted to us in the way we wish. I'm going to read verse 13 again of Matthew, and you can tell me, is any or all of this request granted?
Verse 13 says, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Did I get it backward? Oh, that part, that part was not granted by God the
Father. That part was not granted. He was led into temptation, but he was delivered from the evil one.
So that request was half granted. Well, I thought that was interesting.
I wanted to spend a little time dealing with that, and now we go back to verse 1.
And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned to Jordan, or returned from Jordan, and was led by the
Spirit into the wilderness. Jesus was in the wilderness because the
Holy Spirit led him there. He didn't wander there by accident. Now there are two words, pleires, the
Greek word for full. It means lacking nothing. It means perfect.
It means complete. The word used in that verse was not indwelt.
That's our condition. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit if we belong to God.
We have obtained an inheritance, and yet even though in God's eyes, outside the realm of time, we have all of the inheritance.
So from God's point of view, we have all of the inheritance. From Jesus' point of view, and from our point of view, from the point of us in time, we have, as it were, the earnest money, the down payment, not the full inheritance.
It will be redeemed. The full inheritance will be redeemed later in, as the
Scripture says, the fullness of time. Go with me to Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3.
Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places.
Now I've got a question. When was that done? When we were blessed, hath is in the past tense.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
When was that done? That's right. It's in the next verse.
It tells us that. Accordingly, as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.
That's before the world and before time. It was out of time altogether. That was done before there was a time.
That we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise and the glory of his grace.
Wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. Well when was that done?
When were we made accepted in the beloved? At the same time.
At the beginning. Actually, before the beginning. Before the foundation of the world.
Before the beginning of time. Before the world. Before time or the world existed.
That's when. In whom we have redemption through his blood. The forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.
Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence.
When was that done? At the same before time. Having made known unto us the mystery of his will.
Now that's a little bit different word. Having made known to us the mystery of his will.
That's being done as we speak. That's being done now.
It will continue being done as long as we're on the earth partially knowledgeable, receiving wisdom and knowledge and the mystery of his will.
That he will reveal to us as we go along. So we'll get to that at different places in our time.
So not everything that God does was done before the foundation of time. Some of it is done while we're here.
And it's done for the same reason. According to his good pleasure. That's because he wanted to in text.
He did it because he wanted to. Which he hath proposed in himself.
He made up his mind to do that way long ago. That's back in the half notation.
Already having been done. He purposed in himself long ago that he was going to reveal to you the things he reveals to you when he reveals them.
It is done in God's eyes. It is not done in our eyes until we actually assimilate it, until we get it into us.
You're absolutely right. Everything that was done has always been done in the eyes of God.
He is out of time and always doesn't even pertain to him. But Jesus was not always out of time.
And we are not out of time yet. I think some time we'll be out of time.
But that's not yet. We will run out of time and then time will be no more.
That's an old gospel song, isn't it? I can't remember what that's from, but I like that particular sentence.
When time shall be no more. The dispensation of the fullness of time.
That in the dispensation of the fullness of time he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him.
That's clearly not been done yet. Everything is not in him altogether in heaven, the things in heaven, the things in earth.
It's not now that he has gathered together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in him.
That's to be done later. In whom we also have obtained an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.
That we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ.
In whom you also trusted after you heard the words of the truth, the gospel of your salvation.
In whom also after that you believed you were sealed with the promise, with that Holy Spirit of promise.
Now when were you sealed? We were either sealed in the beginning from God's point of view or we were sealed when
God revealed to us that we were his and we recognized that he had revealed it to us as Brother Otis said when he informed us that we were his.
We didn't always know we were his. He always knew we were his. So if I say when did he know we were his, when did he seal us with the promise?
Well he did in the beginning but we don't know it until we know it.
When he turned that switch on. Well I still like to quote Brother Otis because his quotes are more clever than Brother Dave's.
Because he is a cool old preacher. And now Brother David is now becoming a cool old preacher so I can start quoting him more often now.
Pardon me. I got carried away. Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.
When is that redemption going to occur? Later even after we are in heaven.
Which is the earnest of our inheritance. I'm going to start that again. You were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.
Which is the earnest. The promise was not the inheritance. The inheritance was the inheritance.
The inheritance is the earnest of the inheritance until the redemption of that purchased possession.
That will be done later in the fullness of time until the praise of his glory.
Okay. That was Ephesians take on salvation and predestination and when things were done.
Now let's go back to Luke 4 verse 1.
And I'll stay there for a few minutes and then we'll go to Genesis. And Jesus being full of the
Holy Ghost returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
And again, why was he in the wilderness? Because the Spirit took him there. Where was he tempted?
He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness and who was with him?
Who was with Jesus in the wilderness when he was being tempted by Satan?
Well you can say God was with him and I'll accept that. You can say the Holy Spirit was with him and I'll accept that, both are true.
But was there any other people with him? He was alone in the wilderness.
Just as alone as you would be if you were in the wilderness because he had already renounced all of his divine resources.
Did God forget me?
It is right. And I guess
I can close the lesson today. That's where we're going.
Yes ma 'am, that's exactly where we're going. What happens, happens because God made it happen.
And because God made it happen, it is right. And we sometimes think it's not right and we sometimes take missteps.
But we don't take any missteps that God did not understand we were going to take.
Now we're going to look at two instances of temptation. Two instances of temptation by Satan.
One of Adam. Now Adam was a natural man who sometimes, and I put a little qualifier in here, maybe
I should have said often, walked in the Spirit. I would say this,
Adam walked in the Spirit more frequently than I do. I think. I was not there, but I suspect
Adam walked in the Spirit more frequently than I did. Or did. The other was
Jesus. Jesus was a physical man, but he was not a natural man.
He was a spiritual man. He was a man who always walked in the
Spirit. And the short answer is, that's why Jesus succeeded and why
Adam did not succeed in resisting the temptation of Satan. First Adam, Genesis 3, we're going to start in verse 1.
And we won't start with Adam, we'll start in fact with Eve. And we will note the apparent absence of Adam.
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? Now a question you might ask right now is, before we go any further, was
Eve walking in the Spirit now? And the second question is, where was
Adam? Eve is in the garden. The serpent comes up to her and says,
Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden? Now before we go any further, we would do well to consider some of the methods that Satan uses to deceive men.
We're going to go back to Ephesians 6, we're just a second, Ephesians 6, verse 11, and you'll recognize this.
I'm not going to wait for you to get there, I'm just going to start reading. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
And then I went down to 14. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
And above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
So what are we to take with us? We're to take with us truth, and righteousness, and preparation of the gospel, and faith, and salvation, which has been provided to us by God.
And the sword of the Spirit, which is what? The word of God. Now, what
Eve didn't have with her right now is a good understanding of the entire word of God.
I'm going to lay that out up front. I'll show you in just a second what I mean. Sometimes Satan creates doubt.
That's one of the wiles of the devil. He creates doubt. And how can we stand against that doubt?
Or how might Eve have triumph? Well, here's what she said, and you tell me what she didn't say.
Or what she said extra, maybe I should put it that way. 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 had said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
Now, I'm thinking this. Maybe it would have been better had she not added to the word of God.
She had not, but she had been given some of the word of God, and the part that she had been given was given to her by Adam, which may or may not have been given to her totally and accurately, but to which she obviously added something.
That's all I'm trying to get. She added to the scripture, and we can be well informed to understand that it's bad when we add anything to the gospel as well.
Yes, sir? It could have been Adam that added that. I suspect, in fact, that it was
Adam that added and Eve repeated, but we don't have any way really of knowing that. So, I think the major blame is on Adam.
Either he didn't explain it to her carefully enough, or he added something. That would be the answer anyhow, whether or not he passed it on to her.
He should have been there with her, and in fact, I believe he was. I'll tell you why
I believe he was in a second, too. Okay, so here's what I had said. Maybe it would have been better had she not added to the word that God gave
Adam, or Adam added to the word that God gave
Adam. I can almost imagine the serpent coming up. Now, this is before the serpent was a snake, and I can imagine the serpent with two hands.
And I can imagine him coming up, picking an apple off the tree. I know it wasn't an apple. It was just a fruit of the tree of knowledge, but I'm going to call it an apple because that's what we always say.
Picking the apple, rolling it over his hands, looking at it, tossing it up in the air, and pointing to Eve and saying,
Why am I not dead? You are, you just don't know it yet, and if she had a better understanding of the
Scripture, she could have told him that. But she didn't. Or maybe the problem was
Adam failed to properly explain what God told him. It could have been one or the other.
Either Eve added something, or Adam added something, but one of them added something.
If you touch it, you die. Well, he could touch it and not die, at least as they could see.
If you don't touch it, you can't eat it. That's right. It does sound like a husbandly addition to me, too, and that's what
I kind of thought, too. And that's exactly what Marianne thought. It is.
It is illustrative of the husbandly nature of protecting his wife, and that's a good thing.
But sometimes you can protect them too much. In fact, now that this has come up, could
God have protected Jesus from the temptation of Satan? He absolutely could have.
The Spirit could have led him to his ministry right away and not taken him to the wilderness. But then there'd be other problems associated with that.
It makes it more reasonable that we would mess up, but it doesn't make it more allowable.
Yeah. I agree with you. Opportunity.
I know they never thought it would be this bad, and it didn't take long for them to recognize how bad it was.
John, you had a question or comment while ago? I was just eating.
Uh -huh. And so two things about that. If she was, was she allowed to ask a question?
You know what I'm saying? It's kind of what that is about, I realize, but it's just, what did you think that if she was along with Adam and, you know, once a week, whatever, you know, she had the opportunity to ask questions.
I think they were both. And they were one, and they were considered one.
It wasn't one less than the other, one greater than the other, one subservient to the other. That only comes after the fall.
Right. Well, she didn't.
Mary Ann is right about that. She probably had no understanding to ask because she had not seen the ups and downs.
But all I'm saying is, is if she was told whether it was by Adam or…
She might have been well served to ask God then, should I eat of this tree, or should
I touch it? Uh -huh.
And, Kenner, you had a comment or question? Well, see,
I think the tree was in the midst of the garden, and she could not go around it. Right in the middle. It was right in the middle.
It was there. It was there to do what it was there to do. And it was there to be a temptation for us.
Now, we talked about Jesus. Was Jesus led into the wilderness? Was Jesus led into evil?
I can't remember what the… I'm trying the Lord's Prayer. Lead us not into temptation.
Was she led into temptation? She was led into temptation the same way Jesus was led into temptation.
We all are led into temptation. But she was not at this point protected from the evil one.
Jesus was because he didn't succumb to the temptation. Yes, ma 'am. And it was
God's reason that Eve was in the garden by the tree where Satan could tempt her with the apple.
Yes. That's right.
It was not forgetting that.
He has this tree and was not tempted.
Was Eve tempted until Satan showed up? That's a good question. I don't know, but we do know this.
When Satan showed up, he did tempt her. He may have been there 40 times or 400 times when she walked by the tree and was not subject to temptation, and this time he recognizes something different about her.
Maybe that was it. But yes, we don't know. We don't know how many times she walked past the tree without being tempted.
As well, that's right. Well, I know that's the case.
That's right. It's all yours. And he don't hit you until it's time for him to hit you.
As a matter of fact, I had a whole section about Job in here, and I said if we do
Job, Brother David will not get to do his sermon today. That's good.
That's correct. We do know that it's human nature.
That she could have obeyed. We don't have to understand to obey. And chose to dwell there.
And the serpent. Okay, verse 4.
The best laid plan of mice and men often go awry. And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die.
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Now, when she eats of the fruit, she's not only going to know good, she's now going to know evil.
And this was all spiritual. It is. I think it was.
No. Yeah, no, you're right. No, she didn't know what death was until God killed the animals to cover her sin.
Then she knew what death was. For God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
So the next step of Satan is after he creates doubt, he denies the truth of the gospel.
After the denial, first the doubt, then a denial that what he said was true.
God didn't really mean that. He knows. He didn't mean that. He knows that when you eat the fruit, you'll be like him, knowing good and evil.
And then he appealed to the lust of her eyes. So first the denial, first the doubt, then denial, and then the appeal to lust.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant for the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her.
And he did eat. Where was he all this time?
With her, watching her struggle, not adding anything to the struggle. Not taking his role as the spiritual head.
Yes. He wasn't really spiritual head yet.
You are totally right. I backtrack on that one. Did he say to us?
He did imply that he was one, and I thought it was stronger than that when you said, as us.
That's right. And that's what his problem was.
That's why he was where he was. And so the question is, where was
Adam all this time? He was with her. Did he?
I mean it says, gave also to her husband with her. It didn't say she had to run out and find her husband and give him the apple.
She just took the apple that Satan gave her, took a bite and handed it to Adam and said, now you. Yeah. That was tasty.
And the eyes of both of them were opened. And they knew that they were naked.
And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. So they both knew they had done wrong.
And they heard the voice. They heard the voice of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
It could have been evening. It could have been morning. Or it could have been the middle of the day when it was cool. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the
Lord God among the trees of the garden. And God called unto
Adam and said unto him, where art thou? So who does he signal out now?
Adam, who is now going to be the spiritual head of the family. And says, where art thou?
And he said, I heard the voice. I heard thy voice in the garden. And I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.
Yes, ma 'am. Of course he knew.
He wanted Adam to say where he was. I suspect so.
He wasn't hidden well enough. And he said, this is
God. And he said, who told thee that thou wast naked? He knew that question too.
Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat it?
He knew that too. And the man said, the woman that you gave me, she gave me of the fruit of the apple of the tree and I did eat.
So he blamed it on his wife. He blamed it first on God for giving him the woman and then he blamed it on the woman for giving him the apple.
And the Lord said unto the woman, so now the Lord shifts his focus. What is this that thou hast done?
And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat. So the
Lord turns to the serpent and says, And the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field, and upon thy belly shalt thou go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of the life.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
And we get the first hint of salvation. I have a number.
Where are you in that day? Did you eat of the tree he gave?
He didn't give the serpent any opportunity.
That's true. All he told the serpent was, there's going to be a battle between your seed and her seed, and you will bruise his heel, and it will bruise your head.
And unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over you.
Now you have the spiritual leader of the family set up, that Adam will be ruling over Eve.
That's correct, they didn't. We don't know, but we know this.
They didn't have any children until after the fall. But there would be no reason for them to have children either, because the population would not have had to have been added to, to account for the death of people.
Yes, but he didn't tell them to multiply yet.
Well, it did say thy conception will be multiplied as well as the sorrow.
So it will be difficult, and there will be more of them. Yes. I'm certain that's what happened.
He knew that they were going to sin, he knew they were going to bear children, and he told them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.
But, don't start now, start after you fall. That's true.
The word study, the word multiply, it doesn't just mean produce.
To be fruitful means to produce, and then to multiply means to produce a lot. And to be productive.
They could certainly be productive in the garden. Okay, I really misjudged the time, but I'm going to read the rest of Genesis, and I'm going to do the second half of this session tomorrow.
And to Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, which
I commended thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, Cursed is the ground for thy sake, and we could spend a lot of time on why cursing the ground would be for the sake of Adam, but we won't do that now.
Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken, for thus thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.
And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
And now verse 21, And to Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them.
Where did the skin come from? The animals that he killed, to show them two things.
Number one, death had to be the result of the cleansing or the covering of their sin.
And now they knew what death was. And he covered them, so we can infer that both
Adam and Eve were covered, and will be with us when we rejoin them in heaven later.
And the Lord God said, Behold, man is become as one of us, not in everything, but just to know good and evil.
Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever, therefore the
Lord sent him forth from the garden, to till the ground from which he was taken.
So he drove the man out, and placed at the east of the garden of Eden, cherubims with flaming swords, which turned every which way to keep the way to the tree of life.
Now, everybody understands that to mean, to keep Adam from going back and eating of the tree.
But someone once said, in one of the commentaries that I've written, it was not just that.
It was to keep the way to the tree of life available to those that would come back and eat of the tree of life, and live forever, but that's not now.
That will happen later, after you are in heaven, in the
Millennial Kingdom, eating of the tree of life, and living forever. But he didn't want, the
Lord did not want Adam living forever in the state of sin. I think it's in the dimension, it's in a different dimension from what we are, but I think it's still in existence now.
Now, what we're going to do next week, my next phrase was, now for Jesus.
So we're going to do the temptation that Jesus went through, and compare it to the temptation that Adam and Eve went through, and the result that Jesus had, compared to the result that Adam and Eve had, and why the difference.
And it was not because Jesus was God and man, because Jesus had willingly forfeited all of the prerogatives, all of the resources of being
God, while he was on the earth. Okay? So, that's where we'll be next time,
Lord willing. Let's pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, and thank you for all the many blessings.
Thank you for, in those cases, when you do lead us into temptation, that you provide for us a solution.
Because you will tempt us no more than we are able to withstand. And you will provide for us protection from evil, and protection from the evil one.
Thank you for all the things that you've given us, and thank you for all the things you continue to give us. In Jesus' name we pray.