"And He Ate" (Sermon on Genesis 3:6)

I want to ask you to turn in your Bibles with me today.

We're going to be back in Genesis chapter 3 and we're going to focus on Genesis chapter 3, verse 6.

And when we read, though, we'll read verses 1 to 7 to set the context for verse 6.

But before we read, I'd like to give us just a few introductory thoughts.

History is replete with some of the most horrific scenes imaginable.

On Sunday, August the 9th of this year, just a few weeks ago, five-year-old Cannon Hinnant was riding his bike with his sister in front of their home.

And without provocation, Darius Sessoms, a 25-year-old neighbor, approached the child with a gun and shot him dead.

The world was stunned.

Yet we are aware that even though that case was tremendously egregious, it is not unprecedented.

Murder is an all-too-common reality in our world.

In Chicago alone, there have been 440 homicides from January the 1st of 2020 to the end of July.

440 people have been murdered.

Among them was a 9-year-old boy who was playing outside of his home with his friends.

Since June the 20th, five children under the age of 11 have been killed in Chicago alone.

And often we find ourselves asking the question, why is the world as bad as it is? Why is it so awful? Down through the ages, philosophers have attempted to answer that question.

And many of them have argued that individuals are good, it's society that makes people bad.

But of course, that fails to recognize that society is not an entity.

Society is simply a reflection of the individuals that make it up.

Society doesn't exist, people exist, and they make up the society.

So society is a reflection of individual hearts.

So the real question is not what's wrong with the world.

The question isn't really what's wrong with society.

The question is what's wrong with people? If there must be a root cause, the root cause is people.

And if all people were basically good, why have we yet to purge evil from among us? We're not even close to a utopian society.

You know all the grand novels about a coming utopia? And the idea that one day, I mean that was the idea of the guy who wrote Star Trek, right? Was that one day all the world would just be this grand utopia where we were so, so happy that we conquered all need, we conquered all poverty, we conquered all hatred, that we became so advanced that we flew to other civilizations to make them as good as ours.

A five year mission.

All right, you remember? Am I the only Star Trek person here? You understand though the idea is that we have reached such a utopia that we've got to go out and make other utopias.

That's where we're headed.

The problem is we haven't gotten anywhere close.

In fact, if we were very honest with ourselves, we would realize that things aren't getting better.

The 20th century was the bloodiest century in human history.

Historian Eric Hobsbawm said this.

He said, The total number of deaths caused by or associated with wars in the 20th century estimated 187 million people, which is the equivalent of more than 10% of the population in 1913.

Taken as having begun in 1914, it was a century of almost unbroken war with few and brief periods without organized armed conflict somewhere.

It was dominated by two world wars.

You understand in the last century, we had two wars that were so big we called them world wars.

Millions and millions of people were killed.

And that was after we became enlightened, by the way.

After the enlightenment, all we became were better killers, more efficient.

Now we can take out not a whole house or a whole village, we can take out a whole city with the push of a button.

We can eradicate.

There are still shadows in Hiroshima burned into the walls of people who were struck by a nuclear bomb that burned their silhouette onto walls.

We become so good at being able to take life.

We're experts at killing.

We become creative with evil.

Consider something as useful as the Internet.

How useful could the Internet be? And has been.

I mean, I'm thankful that the Internet allows us to share our sermons all around the world.

And we have thousands of people that hear our sermons all around the world.

And I'm thankful for that.

But you know that same Internet that is able to take God's word out to the world is also corrupted and used for all kinds of perversion.

Like pornography and child exploitation.

Human trafficking, mob violence, child abuse, rape, abortion on the man, drag queen story hour.

I can go on and on and on.

People say it's society.

No, it's not.

It's the evil hearts of men.

On display.

This is the one thing about Calvinism that I don't have to prove.

Total depravity proves itself.

The tea in the tulip is self-proving.

Just open your eyes and look around.

But what is the root cause of it all? Well, today we're going to examine the root cause.

We're going to see the beginning of man's sinfulness and how that has affected all men.

Brother Mike preached last week and he gave a disclaimer at the beginning of his sermon.

He said, no, this will be a theology lesson.

All of our sermons are theology lessons in a sense because we're theological preachers.

All of us, Brother Andy, Brother Mike and I, we can't help it because we love the Bible and we love God's Word and we love theology.

But I want to give the same disclaimer Brother Mike gave because we're about to do a study of original sin.

That's what we're going to look at today because Adam ate and he ate.

We're going to look at that, but we're going to see how that takes you from Genesis all the way to the New Testament and we see an unbroken chain of sin from our first father to us.

So that's what we're going to look at today.

So let's stand and give honor and reverence to God's Word and let us read.

We'll read verses 1 to 7, but we'll focus primarily on verse 6.

It says, Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

But the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

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

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

Father, thank you for your word.

May you bless me now as I preach to be kept from error and cowardice, and may your people be moved to the truth of all that is said today.

In Christ's name, amen.

Thank you, and you may be seated.

When I was in my university studies, working on my degree in social science, I came across a section of my textbook that was very telling.

Hope, sit down.

Hope Foskey.

Alright, sorry.

She's mine, I can do that.

So, let me start again.

When I was in university, I had a textbook, and the textbook said, Man used to believe that he was born in a state of sin because of Adam, but we now know better.

That was a line in my textbook.

I mean, that was exactly how it read.

It said, Man used to believe that he was born in sin, but now, thank you brother, you're a blessing from God.

Thank you.

But now we know better.

And the textbook went on to give an outline of saying basically that psychologists have come to the conclusion that the root causes of human behavior have to deal with all kinds of things from the nature to the nurture.

And if you know anything about psychology and popular psychology, you know the argument between whether or not you're born that way or whether or not society causes you to be that way.

But whatever you do, it's never your fault.

It's always someone else's fault.

It's always pointing at something else.

It's either your nature or your nurture, but it's not got anything to do with Adam because all that's a myth.

And so, the world denies out of hand what the Bible says about mankind and what the Bible says about sin.

And sadly, many Christians do as well.

One of the most well-known preachers in America, and if I said his name, every one of you would know his name.

He is one of the largest.

His church meets in an old basketball stadium and it's filled to the brink.

And he has said publicly, beyond any, without any hesitation, I believe all people are basically good.

I believe all people are basically good.

Not only does that fly in the face of biblical theology, that flies in the face of what's obvious.

How can we look at the world and conclude that man is basically good? Moreover, can we look at ourselves and conclude such a thing? There may have been a time when I was a kid where I would have considered myself a good person.

I learned a long time ago, I'm not a good person.

Not when compared to true goodness.

Not when I compare myself to Jesus Christ.

You know what people did in the face of Jesus Christ? They fell down and wept.

Think about, you know my favorite story is when Jesus takes Peter out and he's fishing.

You just throw your nets over and take in the fish and so Peter did and he took it in and as soon as he realized, because he'd been fishing all night, no fish.

As soon as he realized, Jesus gave him this tremendous catch of fish.

You would have thought he would have turned to Jesus and said we need to go into business together.

You would have thought he would have said thank you Jesus for making this trip so bountiful.

What did he say? Leave me alone for I am a sinful man.

Master depart from me because I'm a...

You picked the wrong guy.

You have chosen the wrong man because you chose me.

See Peter knew he was a sinner.

Isaiah knew he was a sinner.

Isaiah chapter 6, he sees the Lord high upon his throne seated in the temple.

The train of his robe fills the temple.

The seraphim are surrounding him saying holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty and what does Isaiah say? He says woe is me for I am undone.

I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the Lord and I don't deserve this.

I don't deserve to be here.

Woe is me.

There's no way to conclude that man is basically good unless we just simply deny what the Bible says.

But we have to ask the question why? Why is mankind so steeped in evil? We go back to the beginning of our story and we find out that there was something that happened that did affect all of us.

Adam was created good.

Adam was created a perfect man.

He was made in God's image.

He was wholly innocent.

He was without sin.

I don't know if you remember this brother Mike but a few years ago we were at the fair and we were inside the booth and it was raining.

And we were, we just happened to be standing there couldn't give out tracks because it was raining so we just stood there in the booth and we, you know, just talked to each other.

We talked theology, we talked about Adam.

And we talked about the fact that you know imagine what Adam could do because he wasn't bothered by sin.

Like if he was nailing a nail he'd never miss the nail because part of missing the nail is part of that imperfection in all of us.

Adam was perfect.

You know Adam was, Adam was an amazing human being made in the image of God.

But he did have the ability to sin.

He had the ability to fall.

God did not constrain him from falling.

And so Adam fell.

Willfully.

Rebelliously.

And in doing so he brought death and sin into the world.

A good, perfect world.

By the way if atheists ever come to you oh why would God make a world that is so evil? First of all don't ever let that question or that argument bother you because right away, right away you understand that the argument is coming from the sense that the idea of good and evil exists.

And the only way for good and evil to exist is for there to be a standard to judge good and evil against.

And the standard is God himself.

So the argument is self-defeating right away.

But always be willing to remind people that God created the world good.

And Adam rebelled against the goodness of God.

God gave him every tree in the garden from which to eat.

And Adam chose to eat from the one tree that God said you shall not eat of this tree and if you do you will surely die.

The fall of Adam was the most destructive force in human history.

We talk about the damage of Hurricane Laura.

We talk about the damage of Hurricane the one that came a few years ago rode right up the coast and ate a hole through the coast all the way up sat over the Bahamas for like three days and just beat the Bahamas down.

We talk about the destructive force of that hurricane and yes it is destructive.

Nothing close to the destructive force of Adam's sin.

Because the destructive force of Adam's sin affected every man and woman in the human race.

We talk about the dangers of the COVID-19.

And I mean when you look at the numbers the numbers are so minuscule.

They're so small.

When you compare it to actual real life people and the amount of people who actually exist the numbers are so small.

Not insignificant.

They are important.

But what I'm saying is imagine a virus that touches everybody.

Imagine a virus that no one can escape.

Imagine social distancing and masks and hand sanitizer and sitting at home for weeks at a time would do nothing because it's going to reach all of us.

That is the destructive power of Adam's sin.

It has reached everyone.

So today what we're going to do is we're going to look at two things.

If you'll bring it up on the screen know we're going to look at two things.

We're going to look at the circumstances of Adam's sin and we're going to look at the consequences of Adam's sin.

Let's look first at the circumstances of Adam's sin.

Verse 6 tells us So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took of its fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.

Now I don't know if you've noticed this before but I think it's very interesting to point it out.

If you look at the text it says her husband who was with her.

And I spent a lot of time really kind of considering that because last time I was here it's been a couple weeks now but last time I was here we looked at Satan's interaction with Eve and we saw how Satan caused Eve to question God's word he touched on her pride he touched on her willingness to disbelieve what God had said and we kind of looked at the interaction between the serpent and the woman but we didn't talk about Adam at all but if you look at this situation here you look at Adam and it says he was with her now we have to interpret that because there's different ways to understand that.

It could mean that he was right there with her while she was receiving the temptation.

Some people have never considered that but it could be that he heard the serpent's arguments as well and that he was moved by that.

The text doesn't tell us that so we're having to kind of use a little bit of sanctified imagination it says he was with her but does that mean he was right there? John Calvin says no John Calvin says no he wasn't there at that moment he came up right afterward.

I don't know where he gets that I mean again I'm just that's what Calvin says that's not what Jesus says but that's what you know Calvin's trying to explain how it says he was with her but at the same time Calvin is saying I don't think that he heard the serpent and other people say the term he was with her doesn't have anything to do with proximity but it has to do with relationship because this is the first time it uses the term husband this is the first time in the Bible we see the word husband used of Adam and we know when the marriage happened it happened at the end of chapter 2 for this very reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife the two shall become one flesh we know they've been married they are married and so because they are married now she is called wife and he is called husband and so when it says he was with her it could be referring to the fact that they were united in marriage but not necessarily that they were in the same place at the same time so it becomes kind of an issue of interpretation how are we supposed to understand it? well in my estimation I think here's what really matters not necessarily whether or not Adam was there with her but how we understand the attitude of Adam when this happened because some people believe Adam acts in an altruistic way what do I mean by that? some people believe that Adam eats because he knows Eve is going to die and he's going to die with her you know, manly man my wife's eating she's going to die I'm going to die if she must die I shall die with her I don't think so one, the text does not tell us it was altruistic in fact, I want to read from another passage if you'll open your Bibles keep yourself in Genesis but turn over to 1st Timothy chapter 2 turn over to 1st Timothy chapter 2 in 1st Timothy chapter 2 verse 13 Paul appeals to Adam and Eve for his reasoning as to why women are not supposed to teach men in the church by the way, that is something that is true that's something that Paul teaches he teaches that in 1st Timothy 2 verse 12 but then in verse 13 he tells us why he gives us the reasoning he says, for Adam was formed first, then Eve and Adam was not deceived but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor now, notice it says Adam was not deceived some people say, well that's a good thing Adam was not deceived it's actually worse Eve was deceived Adam was not and yet he still ate you see, that's a bigger problem if you have an ESV study Bible this is what it says in 1st Timothy 2 verse 13 it says, though Eve sinned first as a result of being deceived Adam's sin was conscious and willful with devastating consequences for the whole human race and I know many of you probably don't have one of these but if you happen to have a Geneva study Bible you know what the Geneva study Bible is? it was one of the first English Bibles ever produced and it had the notes of the reformers at the bottom it's a very important, ancient study Bible and this is what it says in 1st Timothy 2 it says, Adam sinned not so much to please his wife but because he was moved by ambition at her persuasion so what happened? Eve is convinced that this fruit notice what verse 6 says this fruit is good to the taste it's good to the eyes and it's going to make us wise and she tells Adam, look, this fruit will make you wise and Adam says, I want to be wise I want to be my own God that's the great temptation God has given you all things except for this one so what do you do? you demand that one thing Eve provides an opportunity and I don't think she had the words quite out of her mouth before Adam was wetting his whiskers with the juice of the fruit Adam was ready to be his own God and by the way, the failure for this laid squarely at the feet of Adam you go through the Bible you go through the New Testament the fault is not laid at Eve Eve was deceived but Adam was not therefore he bears the guilt and it is his guilt that becomes the foundation for all men's sins we don't sin in Eve, we sin in Adam that's important and I'm going to talk in a minute about why that's important but keep that in mind when we get to the New Testament and it talks about sin it never points to Eve, it points to Adam so we see the circumstances of Adam's rebellion we see the circumstances of Adam's sin but now I want us to look at the consequences of Adam's sin now if you look at chapter 3 you'll notice later in the chapter we get some immediate consequences we get the consequences on the serpent we get the consequences on the woman we get the consequences on Adam working, the sweat of the brow the thorns and thistles and all of those things we get that but that's not the consequences that I'm talking about because in a later sermon I'm going to go through each one of those and talk about how sin affected the serpent what do we think that means how it affected the woman how it affected Adam immediately and temporally but there was a larger and that's why if you notice the notes well it shouldn't say consequences it should say consequence I thought I put that that's my mistake that shouldn't say consequences of Adam's sin that should say the consequence of Adam's sin because I meant for it to be in the singular because the scripture tells us that when Adam fell there was a consequence that went to all men it was a dramatic spiritual consequence how many times is Adam mentioned in the Bible? not very many actually not very many he's mentioned in Genesis and then when we're in the Old Testament he's not mentioned again until Deuteronomy then he's not mentioned again until the book of Job and then 1 Chronicles and then Hosea and that's it he's not mentioned very much in the Old Testament however what we do see is after Adam there is an unbroken line of sin there is an unbroken line of sin coming out of Adam you realize Adam's first son was a murderer following this we have passages after passages about the sinful nature of man think about Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 don't ever forget Genesis 6 verse 5 what does it say? the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually only evil continually somebody might argue well this is because of what happened in Genesis 6 and this is what happened with the intermarrying and the sons of God and the daughters of men ok go over to Genesis 8 verse 21 it says speaking of the Lord smelling a pleasing aroma it says the Lord said in his heart I will never again curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth you got kids did you have to teach them how to lie? I've never ever taught my daughter to lie but she does lie my son will lie all of them I've never had to teach them evil it simply is in their intentions from their youth and we see this wickedness run its course even in the lives of the faithful people Abraham lied and almost got his wife in a situation where she was going to be in bed with the king think about Israel Jacob Jacob and his mother plotted against their father put hair on his arm so that she would feel and think that he was Esau and these are the patriarchs David sits on the roof of his palace and he looks over and he sees a woman bathing who is this woman? she is the wife of Uriah which means hands off mister she's someone else's wife not going to stop me I'm the king oh now she's pregnant okay we'll have Uriah murdered and David was a man after God's own heart you follow the line down Psalm 14 verse 2 the Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there is any who understand who seeks after God and they have all turned aside together they have all become corrupt there is none who does good not even one and later in Romans chapter 3 Paul will use this to demonstrate that every one of us has sinned and fall short of the glory of God Jeremiah 17 verse 9 will tell us the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it I always hate that when people say well I'm just going to follow my heart I say please don't people say you know the songs listen to your heart please don't listen to God's word when your heart agrees with God's word you're in a good place when your heart doesn't agree with God's word you're wrong that's it over and over and over the Bible condemns man of sin down through the line you don't come to any generation where they say and this generation was great it's always something it's always something over and over and over we see the line of sin from Adam is unbroken and then we find out why we come to the New Testament and we get to Romans chapter 5 turn to Romans 5 Paul is explaining the problem of sin and righteousness and we get to Romans 5 verse 12 Paul explains one of the most important realities about sin and Adam in all the Bible Paul has a very robust Adamic theology he is very it is very important to Paul that we understand our relationship to Adam and here he goes he says in Romans chapter 5 beginning at verse 12 therefore just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given but sin is not counted where there is no law yet death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam who was a type of the one who was to come what do we learn from that? now we're going to go on in a minute but what do we learn from that? we learn this if you want proof that sin has affected all men all you need do is look at the fact that every man dies the universal reality of death is the proof of the universal existence of sin in man I once had a pastor tell me I don't believe in original sin and by the way that's what we're talking about today original sin is not Adam's sin but how Adam's sin affects all of us that's what the doctrine of original sin is he said I don't believe in original sin I believe it's possible that a man can be born and live his life without sin I don't believe it's ever happened but I believe it's possible I said so you don't believe that man is by nature corrupt and is by nature a child of wrath as Paul says in Ephesians 2 no I do not I say how do we explain the universality of death? death is universal because sin is universal the bible says the wages of sin is what? death death reigns over all because all sin even those who didn't transgress a law like Adam did notice what Paul says he says there are those who live between Adam and Moses and they didn't have a law to break and listen to what Paul says because this is important he says where there is no law there is no sin but yet they still died why did they die? because they have inherited the guilt of Adam it's very important did they sin? yes they sinned because they were just like their father Don Carson, D.A.