Mozambique Training Message

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Alright, well, as many of you know, there's a team going to Mozambique this summer, and we're going through Genesis, and I was...
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When I first heard we're going to be going chronologically through the Bible, I was kind of not used to Genesis, I guess, and more been in the
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New Testament for most of my saved years, and I read an interesting article on chronologically studying the
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Bible, and how a missionary in Peru, I believe, he kind of highlighted the importance of chronological study of the
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Bible, and I printed out an article here, which you guys are welcome to have a look at after, but this is
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Lesson 10, this is when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and this is such a vital part of our
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Christian faith, I mean, it's the bedrock. If Adam and Eve didn't fall, then we wouldn't have the Gospel, we wouldn't have the
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New Testament, we wouldn't have... so it kind of sets the precedent for the rest of the
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Bible, and I was impressed upon that, specifically reading through some different commentaries on Genesis 3, 1 -8.
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So I just kind of want to preface, before I get started into this lesson, I'm going to try to teach it like I would in Mozambique, maybe with a few things
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I may not use in Mozambique thrown in there, but for the most part, it's going to be like I would teach it in Mozambique.
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So, I mean, this story of Adam and Eve falling in the garden is kind of...
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in culture today, people think it's a fable. Everybody knows about this Eve picking from the tree that she wasn't supposed to, and eating this fruit, and then giving it to Adam, and people don't really take it seriously.
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People, especially in this culture, think you're a fool if you believe this to be factual data.
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Many people believe it to be a myth, but again, just to reiterate, this is a critical point of all human history before the coming of Christ.
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So, kind of an overview of this, Satan's characteristics and tactics are highlighted, and the immediate results of Adam and Eve's sin, separation from God, are revealed in this chapter.
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Again, this is a basis for the Gospel. This ensures people understand the story of Christ and are properly prepared for the
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Gospel. Again, getting back to this article from this mission, this guy that was in Peru, it really highlights that they actually had a church there that was kind of all caught up in works righteousness.
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And it was because they didn't have a good foundation of Genesis, and that's why these people didn't understand their faith.
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And this guy came in, started teaching us through the Bible chronologically, and these guys, their eyes were opened and they were able to understand what the
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Gospel was. They understood, hey, God requires the death penalty for sin. God requires death for sin.
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And there's nothing I can do to merit that. So even as we see
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Paul entering into the synagogues and acts, he always brings the Old Testament truths before he brings the
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Gospel. So as we kind of start getting into this, most critical events in all of history.
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God said that man would die if he ate from the tree of good and evil. Just a couple questions here for the morning.
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What did God mean when he said that man would die? Anyone have an answer?
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Guess. When God said man would die when he ate from the tree, what did he do?
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Yes. There's actually three deaths that are referred to. So man would die as eventually his body would die.
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He would be separated from a relationship with God. And he would be separated from God eternally in hell.
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So life in the garden, brief overview. Adam and Eve had everything they needed. God was their friend.
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He loved them. And they were very happy. God had put Adam in a position of manager over all of God's beautiful creation.
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They had not sinned. So there's no hindrance to their communication with God or with each other. So imagine that perfect husband -wife relationship.
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Perfect communication. Because Satan hates
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God, he wanted to destroy man and woman that God had made. Satan planned to deceive
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Eve. Satan is a deceiver. Barry, if you could be so kind to read
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Genesis 3 .1. So Satan used this serpent to disguise himself and deceive
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Eve. Satan fights against God in his will. Satan is a liar and a deceiver. He hates man.
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So he disguised himself to deceive. Satan himself entered into the snake. He disguised himself as a snake so that he could deceive
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Eve. Satan, his very core nature is a deceiver. He's effective at this.
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He comes as an angel of light. He's attractive, reasonable, enticing. All these things to Eve, it sounded good.
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Did not God say? And he kind of twists it and makes
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Eve believe what he said. And he's just a master of that. His name means deceiver and accuser.
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He tries to make what is evil appear good. He tries to infer that God is lying. Again, indeed how cunningly
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Satan deceives Eve. Has God not said? And then he kind of moves on. And as she responds, kind of peaks his deceiving and kind of knows what buttons to press.
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And he knows what buttons to press on humans. He's been around for a while and he knows our nature.
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Barry, if you could read 2 Corinthians 11, 14. Again, he would appear to be attractive, reasonable, enticing.
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He deceived her by coming to her in the form of a snake. So Eve had no reason to be scared of snakes at this point because this is the perfect garden and there's no reason to be afraid of any animals.
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Satan still deceives people. Satan's motives and his deceitful tactics have not changed. He's still trying to deceive and destroy people.
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Satan often deceives people by speaking in different ways to them, whether that's through outward influences.
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When Satan comes to speak to people, he doesn't let them know. Of course, hey, this is, you know, when
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David was deceived and slept with Bathsheba, it wasn't like, you know, hi, this is
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Satan, attractive woman, you should go sleep with her. David was deceived.
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And so Satan himself can only be in one place at one time.
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So, of course, there's other spirits that Satan uses to tell us lies.
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Satan will speak to you even if you're listening to God's word. He may put the question in your mind, why should
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I believe the Bible? Satan doesn't want anyone to know or believe the Bible. He hates God, he hates
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God's word, he hates the Bible, even though Satan knows that it's true. Sometimes Satan uses other people through whom he speaks these lies.
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Satan uses other people, false prophets. He tries to make us feel good. That will miss out on something if we don't follow along, you know, with the status quo, that it's more important for us to follow a wrong leader or a crowd rather than risk losing our friends by doing what we know is right.
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And I think that pinpoints one of the hardest things for people is we fear men.
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We fear what they're going to think of us. And that's why the call of Jesus to take up your cross daily and follow me, you know, you might lose your friends.
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So Satan also speaks to us through areas of our own pride. And I think this would be one of the biggest areas.
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We exalt ourselves. Men want to be self -sufficient. We may not want to identify with a crowd, but instead we want to be more wise than everyone else and be self -sufficient.
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Satan has brought many people to destruction through the lie that he says men can be independent from God and do as he pleases because he's so intelligent and capable.
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And I highlighted that because I think that highlights our culture. Men like to create and exalt themselves.
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And we've exalted our own knowledge to exceed that. I mean, look, when people are describing creation, we've got science and we've got all these different things.
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And so you can kind of push God off to the side. On recent days, we're hearing a great deal about Satan worship and similar practices.
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Many people are becoming involved in more subtle ways of this practice. Anything that makes you look to a power other than God for the answers in life.
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Anything that exalts or gives good, pleasant or attractive connotation to anything that is really evil.
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Anything that denies God's existence or even waters down the Bible. All these kinds of things are really authored by Satan.
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Satan tempted and he was deceived. So let's jump in again to Genesis 3 .1.
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Now the servant was more crafty than any beast. And he said to the woman,
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Eve, as God said, you shall not eat. So why did
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Satan ask Eve this question? I mean, he already knew the correct answer, right?
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Again, this is a tactic. He didn't care what God had said. He was attempting to cast doubt on God's word.
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This specifically was one of Satan's favorite tactics, to cast doubt on God's word. And then
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God communicates with man. Genesis 3 .2 .3. So Satan had already succeeded in confusing
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Eve. God didn't say that Eve can touch the fruit. So we can see that Eve is already confused here.
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He said that you must not eat the fruit. God's command was both for Adam and Eve. God first gave the command to Adam.
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And Adam apparently told Eve what God had said. But even though God did not give the command directly to Eve, the command included
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Eve. God doesn't have different messages for different people. His message is the same to everyone.
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Whatever He says in His word, He also says to us. So if you would read
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Genesis 3 .4 .5. Surely you will not die.
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That is a direct lie from Satan. He was no longer casting doubt.
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He was just straight up denying. Complete opposite of what God said. He was saying that what
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God said was not true. You won't die. What are you, crazy Eve? You're not going to die if you eat that fruit.
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Look, it looks good. You've eaten other fruits and you haven't died. God said you will die.
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Satan said you will not die. So what's really behind Satan's lie? So we know that Satan rebelled against God.
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He sinned when he wanted to take God's place. He didn't want to obey God anymore. He wanted to be independent of God and rule his own life.
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Now Satan was suggesting to Eve that she should rebel against God. That you would be like God.
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And that was the keynote of this. You'll be like God. You'll be independent of God. You'll know what's good and what's evil.
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Satan wanted Eve to believe that she wouldn't need God to tell her what was right or wrong. But here's the truth.
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God didn't make people live in their own ideas or thoughts. God made us to be guided by his word.
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It doesn't matter what I think, what you think, what other people think, or what Satan and his demons say. The important thing is what
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God says. So Eve ate and also gave fruit to her husband.
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Genesis 3 .6 So Satan deceived
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Eve and she believed him. She believed Satan was telling the truth. She believed that she would be wise like God.
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And Adam knew what the command from God was, not to eat of the fruit. But Adam disobeyed
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God by taking the fruit from Eve and eating it. Adam turned away from depending on God.
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So this is a turning point in our human ancestry. Up to this point,
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Adam depended on everything from God for everything that he needed.
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All the food he needed, the garden he was taking care of. So Adam wanted to be independent of God.
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He wanted to decide for himself what was good and what was evil. I decide, I choose, I am the master of my own destiny.
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This is just a part of our human nature. Don't we all want to decide we're all independent naturally?
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We're independent of God. Instead of God being first in Adam's heart, Adam now made himself first.
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He wanted to be his own boss and do whatever he wanted to do. Adam didn't want God to rule over him anymore.
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Did God have the right to rule over Adam? Absolutely.
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God created Adam. Again, if we were to talk to somebody in the street, they would say, you know,
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God doesn't have a right. You start talking the gospel to them and the first thing that's going to come up is,
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God doesn't have a right to do that to me. I am my own man and God can't tell me what to do.
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Au contraire. God gave us our life. God gave us everything.
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It's only by His grace that we live and breathe today. Every breath is from Him. Adam and Eve since separated them from God.
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God is faithful and He never changes. What God said, He wasn't...
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Talk to a person who gives you a promise and doesn't follow through. Well, God is going to follow through with what He said would happen when
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Adam and Eve ate the fruit. We look at Genesis 3, 7 and 8. They knew.
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They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves cupboards. And they heard the sound of the
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Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Presence of the
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Lord God among the trees of the garden. So again, what did
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God say would happen if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? They would die. They didn't drop dead immediately when they ate the fruit.
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They were still walking around. They were making themselves coverings out of leaves. Does this mean that God's word didn't come true?
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Of course not. They were immediately separated from God. They were no longer in friendship with God.
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They were now enemies of God. And just to reiterate, God of course doesn't change
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His mind. His threats to punish disobedience of His commands, He follows through with those. Because God is holy and righteous,
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He demands a death penalty, death payment for sin. Why did their sins separate them from God?
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Isaiah 59, 2. Sins have hid your face from Him.
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Because God is holy and righteous, He will not continue in friendship with those who disobey Him. He hates everything that is wrong and punishes all disobedience of His commands by death.
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Romans 6 .23 says, God is perfectly holy, righteous and just in that severity.
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Because Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they were cut off from friendship with God. Their relationship with God was dead.
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They were once friends with God. They walked with God in the garden. But now they were cut off.
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No longer were they in oneness with God. Imagine how horrible it would be if you had a friend that you knew for many years and you fellowshiped with him.
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And then all of a sudden they just betrayed you and turned their back on you.
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This would be an image of what man did in the face of God. He said, I don't want to obey you, I want to be my own man,
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I'm going to do my own thing. How heartbreaking it would be to see a friend become your enemy.
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And this is what happened. A branch is broken off from a tree.
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This was just broken off this morning by Simon Beckwith. He gave me a piece of his plant because he's teaching this lesson to the kids downstairs.
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But this is going to survive for a little while. It looks green, it looks good. But eventually what's going to happen, it's going to wither up and it's going to die.
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Leaves are going to get all crusty and it's going to no longer be looking green like this because it's been broken off from its source.
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So they had died to God. The part of them which was made in God's image so they could know, love, and obey his commands were immediately separated from God when they disobeyed his command.
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Their bodies would eventually die and they would go to a place of everlasting punishment which
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God prepared for Satan and the evil spirits. This was a sad day for Adam and Eve.
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I'm sure, I don't want to speculate on this, but I'm sure as Adam and Eve looked back and had more children and they were kind of reminiscing with grandfather,
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I mean, looking back on this day, this was a sad day when they were broken off from relationship with God.
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Signs of their separation. First, their attitude towards their bodies changed. Before they disobeyed
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God, they were naked, unembarrassed, but now they were separated from God and their minds were no longer under God's control.
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Their minds became evil, their attitudes towards their bodies changed. They were embarrassed by their naked bodies.
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Secondly, they tried to provide for their own needs. Before they were separated from God, they looked to God again for everything they needed, everything was provided for in the garden.
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God, they were in perfect communion. Adam would go to God and get his commands directly from him.
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What do I need to do? God would tell him. Now there was a separation there. They clothed themselves with fig leaves.
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They no longer trusted God to give them what they needed. They were trying to live independently of God. Perhaps they reasoned that if they clothed themselves,
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God wouldn't notice that anything happened. I can just picture God in the garden. Adam, nothing happened, everything's okay.
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He's got his fig leaf and everything's fine. Nothing changed. What was he thinking? But God doesn't accept us based on our outward appearance.
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Just as Adam and Eve tried to make themselves acceptable to God by putting on clothes, many people today think they can make themselves acceptable to God by their outward appearance.
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Even things like becoming a church member, serving in your church, being good parents, endeavoring to be law -abiding citizens.
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People think that these things are going to merit their salvation or somehow they're going to be able to please God. We were talking to a guy the other day doing evangelism.
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90 % of the people you talk to, I'm a good person. I do these good things. I do A, B, C.
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Therefore, when I stand before God in judgment, He's going to say, come on in. 1
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Samuel 16 .7 Is that in that, Barry? So Adam and Eve not only tried to cover their nakedness, but when
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God came to visit Adam and Eve, they also tried to hide from Him. God is loving, merciful, and gracious.
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Do you have friends who you enjoy visiting with? God loved Adam and Eve so much that He came at the close of the day to talk with Adam and Eve.
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Before they were separated from God, they loved Him and they wanted to talk with Him. Now their attitude had changed toward God because of their disobedience.
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They were no longer His friends, so they were hiding from God. They were now of one mind with Satan.
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Because they had disobeyed God, they were ashamed and they were afraid of God. Sin, disobedience to God brings fear and causes people to turn away from God.
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When God created Adam and Eve, they didn't fear anything. There was nothing to fear in the world. God was their friend. No animals would hurt them.
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All the world, everything in the world was good and beautiful and perfect. Sickness and death did not exist.
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Disobedience to God is the reason that we have fear in the world. I mean, the newspapers are fueled by fear.
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Open your Boston Globe tomorrow morning and there's going to be something on the front that's going to say, you know, gas prices are going up.
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I can't survive anymore. And sickness, death, financial ruin, enemy attacks, war.
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Those are all results of sin. Read the paper. Again, listen to society full of fears.
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Is the water drinkable? Is the food safe to eat? Will cancer strike in our home? Is it safe for our children to go to the playground?
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I think this more, I mean, when I was a kid, it was safe for me to go to the playground. Now, it's like you've got to have a parent there.
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I used to just run around the neighborhood and things are getting less safe and there's more fear. Even now.
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So, theme, God is faithful. He never changes. Do you think that Adam and Eve should have been afraid of God?
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Would God really punish them for their disobedience? Or did God, like so many people, only make idle threats?
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You know, how often we hear news that some terrible threat is going on in the
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Middle East. You know, bomb threat in London. It doesn't follow through. But we know that God is faithful and He never changes.
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His ways are beyond our ways. God always does exactly what He has promised and He is not like us.
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Had Adam and Eve ever been warned of the consequences of sin? Absolutely.
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It was clear to Adam and Eve what not to do. They themselves chose to sin.
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The devil didn't make them do it. It was of their own decision that they chose to sin.
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What should Adam and Eve have done in response to God's command? They should have obeyed
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Him out of love. And they should have obeyed Him because He clearly warned them of the punishment of disobedience.
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But Adam and Eve went ahead and disobeyed God in spite of all the kindness and stern warnings that He had so clearly presented.
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All that they had came from God and Adam had deliberately disobeyed God's commands. God always punishes those who disobey
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His commands. God is everywhere at all times. He knows everything.
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Where Adam and Eve able to hide from God? What a joke.
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How am I going to hide in the bushes? God's not going to find me. Can anyone hide from God?
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No. Is there anywhere we can go where God's not? No. God's everywhere. We can't hide from God. The darkness and the light are all the same to Him.
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Jeremiah 23, 23 and 24 please. Do I not...
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So when people do things they know are wrong, they normally do them away from people.
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You know, in the dark. Nobody's looking. I can do this. There would be a lot of things people do in the dark that they would be ashamed of to do in front of people.
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And they think they can hide. You think you can hide from God? No, you can't.
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God has heard and seen everything we can do, we have done and said from the day we were born.
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He knows it all. We can't hide from God. We can't hide our sin from God. So, in conclusion, what have you just heard or what you have heard is not a simple tale about a man and a woman and a snake.
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It's the tragic event of man's separation from God. Adam and Eve were separated from God because of their sin.
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They were separated from Him immediately just as He said they would be. This is one of the most important things we can learn from this story.
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God always tells the truth. His words are always true. He has given us the Bible that clearly teaches us what
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God wants us to do and requires of us. But in contrast to God, who always speaks the truth,
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Satan is a liar and a murderer. He said Adam and Eve would not die if they disobeyed God, but he knew they would.
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And he blatantly tried to trick man and succeeded in it. Because he hated
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God. He hated God and he couldn't compete with God, so he went to his creation, created in God's image.
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He deceived, lied, and tempted Adam and Eve because he wanted them to die. Satan is still the same today.
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He's not the character sitting there with a pitchfork. He's a deceiver, the enemy of souls.
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He will use any method to keep you from listening to God's word. He'll even use people who use
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God's word to try to trick you, thinking that this is what God said. And they'll even have a Bible there.
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The Bible speaks of false prophets, people who come in the name of God, but who are ravenous wolves.
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And they're not going to come in and say, hey, I'm a wolf, I'm here to deceive you. No, they're going to say, hey, I'm a sheep. Disregard the thanks.
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They're going to come in in a way that makes people want to listen. Just as Satan in the garden was so crafty in his deceit of Eve.
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So, in closing, just a couple of questions here. God told Adam that if he ate from the fruit of the tree of knowledge and good and evil, they would definitely die.
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But Satan told them Eve would not die. What was Satan suggesting
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God to be? A liar. A liar, exactly. What did
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Satan tell Eve would happen to them? Yeah, they'd be like God.
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They'd be able to decide for themselves. They'd be able to be their own men and women. They'd be able to make their own decisions. They'd know what was good and what was right.
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Why doesn't Satan want people to hear and believe God's words? Because he hates
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God. He hates every person and wants them all to go to everlasting hell, fire.
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God said that Adam and Eve would die if they ate from the tree of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil.
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Satan said they would not die. Who spoke the truth? Bingo!
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Satan is very strong. Was it all his fault when Adam and Eve sinned? No. Man was responsible.
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Eve chose to sin. God had made his instructions clear. He had been very loving to them.
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He had given them a will to make choices. And they chose to disobey God. Adam and Eve didn't fall dead immediately when they ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
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God had said they would die for their disobedience. So what did God mean? Does anyone remember those three deaths?
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Exactly. What did Adam and Eve do when they realized they were naked?
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And why did they do this? Yeah. I don't know.
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Exactly. Adam was messed up. He didn't know what to do.
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So he went and... Absolutely. Since Adam lost his mind, he is now separated from God who gave him life.
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They tried to take care of their own needs instead of asking God to help them. So, again, this is such a pivotal...
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I love this lesson because it's... We're seeing God provides everything for Adam and Eve up in the garden.
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Creates a garden for Adam and Eve out of love. You see an omnipotent, all -powerful creator
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God creating the universe and everything that's in it. Creating the animals.
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Then we see this sad moment in history. Again, this is kind of in closing.
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This sets the precedent for the gospel. And I hope to just continue to improve on teaching this lesson.
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And I would appreciate any feedback. I know this lesson... We kind of want to go through this lesson just as it's written.
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So I think some of the stuff in there I may not necessarily be certain of. So I'd appreciate any feedback on the material that was read.
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And... Let's see what time it is here. Does anyone have any questions on the material or Mozambique?
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What we'll be doing there? Genesis 3? No. No suit.
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Well, I don't know. Depends what Pradeep does. Is it fair to be in a primitive environment?
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Because it is going to be primitive. That's for Pat, you know.
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Yeah, I was actually in Botswana, Africa for a couple summers. I'd say that's primitive.
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We lived out in a tent. We lived there for two weeks. Two and a half weeks.
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And I took two showers. Yeah. So, I think that...
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It's great that we're going to a place that people haven't even heard the gospel. Where were you in Botswana? I was in Maun, Botswana with a missions agency.
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We were going hut -to -hut to do ministry. A little more Arminian at that time.
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But God was faithful. Any other questions?
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So you've been able to... Yeah, that's another dynamic of this lesson.
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That took 35 minutes. With a translator, you've got stop, pause, translator, translates.
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And so that might take twice as long. I've done it before with a translator. Usually you build a good relationship with the translator.
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You get to know him. You kind of see how he's going to translate certain words. I think that's the key.
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If you're on par, so to say, with the translator, and you kind of feel your translator, and you know kind of his rhythm, then you're in good shape.
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I hope so. I'm trusting that the agency we're going with here, it's a
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Baptist organization that's been doing these trips for a while. I mean, Pastor Mike, I think, knows some of the guys over there.
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I don't know. Just throw that Pastor Mike work out.
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We're all good. Hopefully we'll be in good shape.
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I think we're going to have four translators. That might be a little tricky. I've been on trips before where there's not enough translators, and so you've got a group of eight people going hut to hut.
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Hi, it's your turn now. Just go to the next guy. Hopefully we have enough. I think this is a pretty well -established organization, so I'm assuming everything's going to be taken care of there.
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It is, but I think it's going to be pretty warm during the day. It's going to get cool during the night. I think we are going to be intense, so that'll be fun.
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What we're doing is, as far as I understand it, different people from the team will be responsible for cooking each day.
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We have someone with us who's kind of the chief chef, and there's going to be like a... I know in Botswana we just had this big pot that we carried around.
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Most nights were stew in the morning, oatmeal, something we could cook over a fire, so I'm assuming it's going to be similar to that.
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I know we're going out in the bush. We're starting in... I forget the name of the city. Barry, do you remember the name of the city we're starting off from?
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Yeah, it's right at the bottom, the southernmost part. And there's a city
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I know in Mozambique we're taking off from, and it's like an eight -hour... I've seen pictures of the off -road vehicles going through, so it's going to be an adventure.
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Again, these people, a lot of them haven't heard the gospel before, so we're very excited to have the opportunity to go to these people.
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Yeah? I think the conscience is such an indicator of that.
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Even kind of my last resort when I'm witnessing to somebody is their conscience, and you start just tweaking on that conscience, and people know they're sinners.
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There's no excuse. Romans says there's no excuse for men. You can't stand before God and say, God, sorry,
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I didn't think your Bible was true. And they think that's kind of...
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Wouldn't God be fair to just give me a chance? We've got about ten minutes left, so if there's no other questions,
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I just wanted to read. I read through Calvin's commentary on Genesis 3, 1 -8.
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It's like 20 pages long. And again, just highlighting that I just threw out a couple areas here, pulled out a couple of areas that were interesting.
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It appears to many absurd that this defection of our first parents is said to have proved the destruction of the whole race.
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And on this account, they freely bring an accusation against God. Pelagius, on the other hand, lest he falsely feared that corruption of human nature should be charged upon God, ventured to deny original sin.
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But an error so gross is plainly refuted not only by solid testimonies of Scripture, but also by experience itself.
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The corruption of our own nature was unknown to the philosophers who in other respects were sufficiently and more than sufficiently acute.
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Surely this stupor itself was a signal proof of original sin.
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For all who are not utterly blind perceive that no part of us is sound. The mind is smitten with blindness and infected with innumerable errors.
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That all the affections of the heart are full of stubbornness, wickedness, the vile lust, other diseases, equally fatal, reign there.
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And that all senses burst forth with many vices. Since, however, none but God alone is the proper judge in this cause, we must acquiesce in the sentence which has been pronounced in the
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Scripture. You said that original sin...
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So many theological errors are an attempt to protect God. As if, you know, what he says about himself in the
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Bible should somehow be explained away because it makes God look bad. God said exactly what he wanted to say.
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He told us exactly who he is. And so any attempt to undermine that is really no different than what
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Satan did in the Garden of Eden. Well said. It's also worth noting that if you look at what
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God actually said, you know, back up a few verses, what did God say? God said, you can eat of every tree out here.
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He made a positive statement. You can eat of any tree that you want except this one.
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And Satan turns that around and makes a restrictive thing out of it.
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And we don't know how many thousands and thousands of trees there were in the Garden of Eden, but anyway,
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Adam and Eve had free run all of them. There's only one thing, this one tree, you can't eat of that.
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And yet Satan twists this around. You know, the history of God's dealing with man,
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God has always set a test in front of man that man always fails.
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And here it is, there's only one thing you can do. There's only one possible sin that you can commit.
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And they find it and commit, you know, because we're rebellious children.
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And Eve, okay, Eve was deceived. But Adam, in full honor,
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I mean, he just did, you know, because, I mean, apparently the serpent wasn't around when
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Adam sinned. And so he did it of his own free will.
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He put that in quotes, you know. Yeah, blatant. It's a blatant thing.
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It's just like you said, you can't eat of any tree. There was another tree there, the Tree of Life, that they could have eaten from there and lived forever.
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But now, because the logic of evil God prevented them from eating of that tree and that one as well.
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So, even before then, they could have eaten of that one too. Yeah, Bruce?
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I was just wondering, in your teaching with what Lewis was just saying, Eve being deceived,
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Adam sinned. Are you going to put more, I mean, it seemed like a lot of the presentation was on how
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Satan deceived Eve. Are you going to put an emphasis on Adam?
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That's a good point. I think this lesson highlights more the deceitfulness and there's two sections on it.
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There's the first section and then, so, thank you for mentioning that because I think the general, did everybody kind of get that general that Satan's a deceiver?
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Was that more emphasized on? That's a good point. I mean, there's a brief section on his sin, so I'm trying to go through the lesson faithfully, but that might be a good point to bring up.
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Hey, it's man's responsibility. Too much emphasis on Satan, maybe. I mean, they want to see what the limit is.
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Are you serious? What's going to happen if I do that? Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but so is sin.
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Absolutely. Alright, I'm just going to close with one other quote from Matthew Henry.
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I love quotes, I love reading some of these great men of faith. So, again, perhaps as a sad, a saddest story, all things considered, as we have in the
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Bible, in the foregoing chapters, we have had a pleasant view of God and His holiness, happiness of our first parents, the grace and favor of God, and the peace and beauty of the whole creation.
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All good, very good. But there is a scene, the scene is altered. We have here an account of the sin and misery of our first parents, the wrath and the curse of God against them, the peace of the creation disturbed and its beauty stained and sullied.
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Sad, very bad. How has the gold become dim and the most fine gold changed? Oh, that our hearts were deeply affected with this record, for we are all nearly concerned in it.
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Let it not be to us a tale that is told. The general contents of this chapter have
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Romans, verse 12, By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned.
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Let us pray. Lord, we just thank You for this time, God. Thank You for Your Word. Thank You for a Genesis that just gives us such a clear view of our fall in Adam, that all have sinned and our very nature is sinful.
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We are inclined to every kind of evil, Lord. And we thank You, God, for Your Word that teaches us about these things,
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Lord. We thank You for Your kindness towards us and salvation, Lord, that has rescued us from our just -due end of hell and eternity,
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Lord. We thank You for Your great, loving kindness towards us, Lord, in regenerating us and giving us life,
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Lord. We thank You as we continue to delve into Your Word, Lord, as I pray for our
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Mozambique team that You would help us as we're teaching through Genesis. It would be faithful to Your Word that we'd be true to it,
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Lord. It would be understanding that the people in Mozambique, Lord, You would save some,
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Lord, that You would work in the preaching of Your Gospel. We thank
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You for this time together this morning and we pray that You would bless the teaching this morning,