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Bro. Otis Fisher
Chapter 3 verse 8. And they, meaning Adam and Eve, they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden.
Now why does it say they heard the voice of the Lord? Greg? Right, that's a good point. They were not looking for him. They were hiding and because of their hiding perhaps they didn't see him, they just heard him.
Any other thoughts? I think it does. Both of those reasons are good. We have to remember the world has changed. Adam and Eve turned their back on God. Time is running backwards. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden, so they they could tell that he was walking because the movement of the voice.
And they hid themselves. Now, Joy, they learned a whole bunch of words that they didn't know before. They learned to speak a new language. It was the language of sin. Our vocabulary is so loaded with sin features that it is obnoxious almost.
They learned such words as shame, remorse, fear, a sense of guilty feeling to which the before had all been strangers to them. This disarranged their mind and led them to shun him whose approach prior to this they had welcomed.
They look forward to the Lord God coming and communing with them. But it has changed and the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, where art thou? Now, Joy, why did the Lord call Adam? He knew where he was.
All right, Russell, is that you sitting there? You tell me why the Lord called to Adam. All right, Greg, would Adam have ever sought out the Lord? No, he would not have. Yes, yes, that's exactly right.
Now, David, give me another thing that this seeking of the Lord after Adam shows us. That's right. From the very, very first, the Lord came seeking Adam. If the Lord God had not called to him, then his condition would have been desperate as that of the fallen angels.
I think we said this last week, but just think for a moment if the Lord had not sought Adam. Now, he didn't, the Lord God did not seek out any other animal or being. There was only one being, an animal that we call a being, and that being had sinned.
Ten, and he said, Adam speaking, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and hid myself. Let me look just a minute. I think that I'm teaching you last Sunday's lesson. Did any of you recognize it?
Well, let's continue for a little bit. We really start with verse 18, but Adam said, I heard you. It wasn't that I didn't hear you, but I was afraid and I was naked. My, what an admission to make. Well, the Lord God, going to verse 17, and unto Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto thy voice of thy wife, and the word hearkened, we'll look at again in a minute, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying thou shalt not eat of it.
For thy sake, curse is the ground, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Now, we have in that verse the fact that Adam's going to die, just like the Lord had told him he would when he ate of the tree.
He's going to have to work now for his food, and it's all because he hearkened unto his wife. David, tell us the meaning of the word hearkened. Verse 18, thorns also and thistles shall I bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.
The any longer in paradise, paradise has disappeared. We have here the beginning of thorns and thistles and samburs. Samburs were a curse in my, part of my world when I was growing up. I'd like to go barefooted, but it was very, very difficult because of the hot sand and samburs.
I can remember walking the four blocks down to the elevator, and I would jump from one green or dried patch of weeds to the next instead of stepping on the sand because it burned. And then when I got there, I got a sambur.
Very, very difficult to grow up in such conditions. But the herb of the field, now John tell me, are they meat eaters or vegetarians? All right, and will be until after the flood. But the herb of the field, he has to work to get it.
He has to labor to get it. No longer is it just provided for him and him pick it up. Nineteen, in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. Till thou return unto the ground, for out of it was thou taken.
For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. It actually says in the sweat of thy face, it means the sweat of the bridge of your nose. If the next time you get up a good sweat, and that time's coming very rapidly, check the bridge of your nose.
If it is sweating, I don't mean sweat running down on it, but if the bridge of your nose is sweating, you're working laboriously. Well, that's what Adam is cursed to follow. He said that by this you shall eat bread until you return unto the ground.
Now this was news to Adam. In Ecclesiastes 12 and 7, we find a backup verse, then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Into every human being we find that the Spirit of God is present, saved or unsaved, makes no difference.
If you do not have the Spirit, then first of all you're not a human. Second, you could not be saved. The body, the soul, and the Spirit is what sets us apart from the animal world. I watched yesterday on television, and they're working as hard as they can to tie us to the ape.
I heard just this morning that the orangutan, which I believe was the not missing link but the beast, the orangutan is extremely intelligent. That may be, but they don't have the Spirit of God in them.
20, and Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was, does this belong here? And Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. God named the man and called him Adam, which signifies red earth.
Adam named the woman and called her Eve. That is, he called her life. Adam bears the name of the dying body, Eve of the living soul. It is very likely that the skins out of which their clothing was made was taken off animals whose blood had been poured out for a sin offering to the Father.
For as we find Cain and Abel suffering, offering sacrifices to God, we may fairly assume that God had given them instructions on this, and he gave it to Adam. Nor is it likely that the notion of a sacrifice could have ever occurred in the mind of man without an express revelation from God.
I had never thought of that before, but God has to institute everything. There were no idols until God set up the worship of him. That Adam and Eve needed this clothing as soon as they fell, and death had not as yet made any ravages in the animal world, it is most likely that the skins were taken off victims offered under the direction of the Lord God himself, and in faith him who in the fullness of time was to make an atonement by his death.
And it seems reasonable also that this matter should be brought about in such a way that Satan and death should have no triumph. When the very first death that took place in the world was an emblem and type of that death which should conquer Satan, destroy his empire, and reconcile reconcile God too, and that's wrong.
Reconcile man to God. We do not reconcile God. Convert man, sanctify human nature, and prepare him for heaven. God had to shed the blood when they slew two animals to make two coats to cover two sinners.
Now, and the Lord God said, 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 the tree of life and eat and live forever, and there is a hiatus there.
He does not finish that statement, but the first of that verse I think I would translate, and the Lord God said, the man who was like one of us in purity and wisdom is now fallen and robbed of his excellence.
He has added to the knowledge of the good by his transgression, the knowledge of the evil, and now lest he put forth his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever in this miserable state, I will remove him and guard the place lest he should reenter.
Therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the garden. Yes, absolutely, that's right. Let me read the 23rd verse again. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Now, besides the curse that is put upon the earth and the difficulty that man will have in eking out a living from it, why didn't God just remove the tree? John, Russell, tell me, why didn't God just remove the tree?
All right, David, why did God just not remove that tree? All right, Greg, all right, all right. They had before they sinned. Now, John, you've heard all of these people speak. Have you come to a decision?
That's pretty safe. Well, it is a symbol of the coming Jesus Christ. It cannot be abolished because then he would be abolished. He drove him forth, meaning that he could not any longer eat of Jesus the Christ, but he sought him.
He called to him, meaning that he calls each one of us in exactly the right moment of time. 24, so he drove. Interesting word, he drove out the man, drove. Qorash, to raise up upon a cross, to crucify, is the meaning of the word drove.
And he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword of which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. This sword, it is a flashing sword. No one can get past it.
That's good, or the whole world would be saved. First, we see God's displeasure against a sinful man, evidenced by the expelling him from this blessed place. Now, he cursed the earth, that included the garden, man's unfitness for the place of which he had rendered himself unworthy, by his ingratitude and transgression, and his reluctance to leave this place of happiness.
We see Adam acting like a carnal man. He never had these thoughts before. There was never anything restricted to him except the tree of good and evil. As we may naturally conclude, he was unwilling to depart, and God drove him out.
He had to go. Thus terminates the most awful tragedy, a tragedy in which all the actors are slain, in which the most awful murders are committed, and the whole universe ruined. The beast, the serpent, so-called, is degraded.
The woman cursed with pains, miseries, and subjection to the will of her husband, which was never originally designed. The man, the lord of his lower world, doomed to incessant labor and toil, and the earth itself cursed with comparative barrenness.
To complete all, the garden of pleasure is forbidden, and this man, who was made after the image of God, and who would be like him, shamefully expelled from a place where pure spirits alone could dwell.
Yet in the midst of wrath, God remembers mercy and a promise of redemption from this degraded and cursed state is made to them through him who, in the fullness of time, is to be made flesh, and who, by dying for the sin of the world, shall destroy the power of Satan and deliver all who are children, believe in the merit of his sacrifice from the power, guilt, and nature of sin, and thus prepare them for the celestial paradise at the right hand of God.
I want to go back and make a comment that he died for the sin of the world. That is not, does not mean that everybody will be saved. It does mean the world there is cosmos. He died for the sin that was put upon the cosmos, not willingly, but unwillingly.
We have time to open chapter 4. Are there any questions about chapter 3? All right. Yes, we have quite a bit in that verse. To keep the tree of life, it is made available to only his seed. It is life, meaning eternal life, means that the world will never see Jesus Christ until he comes as judge.
It means that the world, though cursed, will one day be restored. Anything else? Well, first of all, it says that he could reason. Yes, the animal could carry on a conversation. He was responsible. He had to yield himself to the will of Satan, which he did.
Yet, he was not restricted from eating the tree of the good and evil. So, he had responsibility. And if you're asking me what this beast was, I cannot answer. No one can. I don't think it was a serpent, as much as I dislike serpents.
But, no, I can't, I can't accept that. When it says upon thy belly, it doesn't mean that he'll crawl on the ground. If you'll study the orangutan, he eats dirt from the ground. He eats his food from the ground.
And I'm not advocating that it was an orangutan, because I don't know. But the animal, he speaks to the animal. Of course, the Lord can talk to a tree if he wants to. But he speaks to the animal, and the animal responds to him, as he had responded to Satan.
So, sure, he spoke, he spoke to Satan, he spoke to the animal, and he spoke to Adam, and he spoke to Eve. These are the only people in the world, and I use people very generally, including the serpent.
But we have been taught all of our life from the King James, and it uses the word serpent. But the translators were not very particular in translating that word, Naukash, because the same means a hippopotamus, means alligators.
It can mean any number of things as translated in the Bible. There's someone over here. I think that it could. I think that we come in the middle of a conversation that Eve was having with the animal.
I can't prove that, but the words seem to indicate that. Yes. Yes. Well, I know a few that I have. But no, you're right. And this is the only time that the animal was cursed. Yes. Not just for this purpose.
I think it could carry on a conversation with you. What? Just the species, yes. Well, I think he lost that. I have to think that. John, I think we could all cite examples of animals' reasoning. Squirrels come to mind, and they reason out how to attain that food.
It would be very interesting to make an in-depth, detailed study of the beast, but that's beyond my capability now. Yes. No. At this time, there is still no fear in the world between animal and man. Well, we don't have time to open Chapter 4.
I know that this has been a very limited study on a very, very important subject. I hope it spurs you to ask further questions and even to study some on your own. Is there anything else? Russell dismisses, please.