The Fall and The Need of Redemption (Part 2)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

Unbelief as the First Lie in Genesis 3

Martin Luther said, we cannot do any greater despot to our Lord God than by unbelief for by it we make God a devil. And again, on the flip side, we cannot do him any greater honor than by faith when we regard him as savior.

Therefore, we cannot abide a doubting heart like the Turk who doubts or the monk who in despair runs to a monastery and says, oh, how hot is hell, I will therefore do good works to placate God. But by good works, we do not become Christian, but we remain a heathen.

Unbelief is the chief sin and source of all other sins. Mark it. Genesis 3, verse 4, the threats hollow. I think it might just be a theory. Interesting hypothesis, Eve. The serpent said to the woman, you shall not surely die.

It's a hollow threat. It's idle threats, theory only, or maybe God's motives bad and he's just giving you lip service. Just a threat. And actually, one Jewish writer says that as he said this, Satan pushes Eve into the tree, she touches it, and then he says, you're still alive, therefore, it's safe to eat.

Literally, you shall not dying die. You think you're going to die, but you're made to believe you're going to die, but you better question it. Isn't this Satan's way, question, doubt, deny over and over and over.

That is the satanic logical reasoning. You're not going to die. God's not good, sin's not bad, trust me, believe me. Why doesn't God want you to have it? I mean, the restriction of another. How many reasons does Satan have to give to Eve to disobey God?

You shall not surely die. By the way, go to Genesis chapter 5, there's lots to learn from genealogies. If you just skip over genealogies, you miss some great stuff. Genesis chapter 5, remember Satan's words, you shall not surely die.

Verse 5, thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. Verse 8, thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died. Verse 11, thus all the days of Enos were 905 years, and he died.

Verse 14, thus all the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died. Verse 17, the days of Mahalal were 895 years, and he died. Jared, verse 20, and he died. Methuselah, verse 27, and he died. Lamech, verse 31, and he died.

You're surely not going to die, and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died. That's right, and he died. Satan sees the opportunity, and now he's going full force. First it was questioning earlier, he sees his opening, and now he goes headlong.

Direct contradiction of God's Word. This is the first lie in the Bible, a direct assault on the Word of God. It's a strong Hebrew negative. There's no possible way you're going to die. You're not going to die.

As one writer said, and of course, ultimately, it will involve death, theoside, because it will be necessary for the Son of God to come and to die upon the cross at Calvary in order that the race may be saved through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It's fascinating to me because the first lie in all the Bible is about divine judgment. We don't want those fire and brimstone preachers. We don't want those preachers talking about judgment all the time, and sin, and death, and hell, and the fire brimstone, denying the judgment of God.

The first lie in the Bible, denying death, denying physical death, denying spiritual death, denying eternal death, eternal judgment. I teach preaching classes on occasion, and I was struck when a writer said, no homiletics professor in any theological seminary of which I am aware ever tells his students to preach hellfire and damnation.

It's unpopular today. Don't preach it. Verse 5 of Genesis chapter 3. Let's go back to Genesis chapter 3. As we're reading this devastating account, I hope in the back of your mind you're thinking, if Ruth needed a physical Redeemer, how much more do I need a spiritual Redeemer?

How much more does mankind need an umpire, an arbiter, a mediator, a go-between? You know, God's holding out in you, Eve, verse 5, for God knows. Basically, you're going to be equal with God if you take this, and He doesn't want to have any rivals.

If you're going to be like God, then maybe you can retire Him from service. You're going to learn His secrets. God knows, and again, not Lord God, not Lord God, not Lord God, but God. For God knows, it's kind of like a third-person discussion.

He knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. He wants to forbid you being like Him. Who knows what she's thinking? Hey, God can create worlds.

If I would eat, I could create worlds. Just run over there and eat that thing so you can become independent of this restrainer. You need to be like God, by the way. Doesn't this sound like Mormonism and other New Age religions, like the New Age movement?

You can be like God. Sounds like Isaiah 14 language as well. I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will be like the Most High. Jewish rabbis would say that nothing but malice had prompted God's command.

This is what Satan is saying to Eve, according to the rabbis, because as soon as you eat of it, you'll be like God. As He creates and destroys worlds, so will you have the power to create and destroy.

As He does kill and revive, so you have the power to kill and revive. God Himself ate first of the tree, and then He created the world, and now He forbids you to eat of it, lest you create other worlds.

He doesn't want you to learn His little tricks. Eve is listening. It is not true that if you know the knowledge of good and evil, that's what makes God, God. That's another lie. It's a lie that God is jealous of His knowledge.

Everywhere, lie after lie after lie. And He's attacking Eve. I have a question for you. Where is Adam? I'm sorry to tell you the answer is found in verse 6. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, when the woman believed the words of Satan, when the woman did not defend God's honor, and it was a delight to the eyes, the text says, 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, mark these four English words, the whole time, who was with her.

He was present during the entire time. He has not opened his mouth. Who was with her? Headship gone, leadership gone, authority gone. Who was with her? And then with these three ominous words, as Young calls them, stark alone words standing out, the Hebrew text is she ate, comma, he ate, she ate, he ate.

Adam was with her the whole time. No wonder Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2 of Adam's deliberate and heinous sin as federal head it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived fell into transgression.

Adam passively watched this whole thing go down. And Eve was deceived. Adam wasn't deceived, and his sin was worse for lots of reasons. One, he's the federal head. Two, he's the leader, but he knew better and still did it.

So one man said, Eve followed the snake. Adam followed Eve, and no one followed the Lord. She ate it. I don't see her face turning all weird. I'll eat it. She ate it. She didn't fall down dead. She ate it.

Nothing happened to her. Robert Raymond writes, having abdicated his protective headship over her, he went along with her in her transgression and permitted her to disobey God, thus transgressing himself.

In sum, when Eve fell, Adam also fell. Indeed, they had already fallen. And of course, we know there was sin that happened before the actual bite. The volition inside had already gone against God. Adam, you should have believed God.

You should have reasoned. Derek Kidner said, this act, so simple the act, so hard it's undoing. And because of Adam's sin, the race plunged into depravity. Sin entered the world through one man and death through sin.

And in this way, death came to all men because all sinned. Challenging God's word in front of Adam and he makes no defense. He doesn't stick up for the honor of God. I think this is kind of a good takeaway for some of you here, for all of us here.

God's honor is at stake and then we're silent. May it never be. It's important lessons for us. Take God at his word. Don't become your own authority, determining for yourself what is right and wrong. Westminster Confession of Faith summarizes this awful account.

Our first parents being seduced by the subtlety and temptations of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin, God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory.

By this sin, they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God and became so dead in sin and wholly defiled in all their parts and faculties of soul and body. How sad. Makes me think.

I need a redeemer. We need redemption. Verse seven. Notice the first word. Their eyes weren't both open when Eve ate. She wasn't the federal head. She wasn't the covenant head of all this. Mark it well.

Then after Adam ate, religion spawned. Man-made religion. People trying to hide their sins and be religious before God and acceptable by God's eyes through education, through baptism, through religion, self-righteousness.

Then both of their eyes were open. They knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. I've been told that fig leaves make poor coverings. I've been told that fig leaves are itchy and scratchy.

What a great picture. What an awful picture of the human inadequacy to try to deal with your own sin. They heard the sound of, isn't this interesting? Now we go back to the Lord God. Because this is Moses talking.

This is the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, inspiring Moses, breathing these words into Moses to write again. Satan wants to talk about God as some third person, kind of like a discussion around the fireplace.

And now it's back to the Lord God. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And literally, here's how the Hebrew reads. The man hid himself and the woman herself.

No longer together, now every man for themselves. Communion broken with God vertically and with each other horizontally. They hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Alienation from God, alienation between each other. And they're hiding themselves. They're not strolling down the runway, the fashion runway before God, showing off their fig leaf attire. They're ashamed.

They're embarrassed. They realize these fig leaf coverings like short sheeting a bed. Now here's the fascinating thing. It's like the grace of God in Scripture starts in chapter 3, verse 8. And never ends.

All the way till even today we're reading in Revelation chapter 21. The grace of God just extends and extends and extends. Who's the one seeking? Who's the one searching? Who's the one taking the initiative to seek and save those who are lost?

Who is that? The love of God. He's not going to abandon these creatures. They didn't love Him back. They failed to do His will. They disobeyed. They didn't believe. But God is gracious. And He takes the initiative.

Verse 9. But the Lord God called to the man, said to him, where are you? He said, I heard the sound of you in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The woman you gave me, the woman you gave to be with me, she gave me of the fruit and I ate. It's not good for a man to be alone. I'm going to give this man a woman to be his helper.

And now Adam says, that good gift that you gave me was anything but good. You want to know what my source of trouble is? That woman that you gave me. It's your fault, God. Blaming God. Writers of sin makes man a coward and an evader.

Will Rogers, the theologian said. That American history could be divided into two eras. The era of the passing of the buffalo. And the area of the passing of the buck. You gave me this woman. She's my problem.

Then the Lord God said to the woman, the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And the woman said, she's a quick learner. The serpent deceived me and I ate. She learned quickly from her husband.

That old preacher who said, Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent and the serpent hadn't a leg to stand on. We just need a little. The sinfulness of sin. We'll say, like Joe Osteen, blasphemously talking.

You know what? We all know we're sinful. We don't need to talk about that anymore. I don't have to talk about sin because everybody knows they're a sinner. Well, the Bible talks a lot about sin. Why? For many reasons, but one is because when you realize how sinfully sinful you are and you can't extricate yourself from your sin and you need a redeemer, you need a mediator.

You need an umpire. You need an arbiter. You need the God man to cloak himself with humanity to live the life you were supposed to live. Adam tried and failed. Israel tried and failed. You tried and failed.

I tried and failed. Jesus lives the perfect life because once you see sin, then you realize the Savior and Savior is so much sweeter when I realize the depths of sin. If you're a slave and then you're free, D .L. Moody said, looking at the wound of sin will never save anyone.

What you must do is look at the remedy. But friends, I would remind you that when you see the wound of sin, the remedy becomes sweeter. And it's going to have to take the death of Jesus to kill sin. It says in verse 14, we need to wrap this up.

The Lord God said to the serpent, the judgment's on the serpent. Why do I think it's a literal serpent? Here's the serpent's judgment. Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and above all beasts of the field.

On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. And then we have in verse 15 called the first gospel, the proto gospel. I, we have God speaking to Satan, will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring, a woman's offspring.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. The Messiah is going to kill you and crush you out. You're going to wound him, but he's going to kill you. Jesus is the seed of that woman. Please turn to Job and we're going to wrap it up with just these verses in Job.

And I think we'll come to Genesis three next week as well. So we can finish up this passage. I don't want to leave anything. Job chapter nine, please. And I want to remind you that even though our sin is great, we have a mediator.

We have a go between. We have someone. I don't know if you've ever been in trouble with the law, but you need a good lawyer. It's the first person you want to call. I need a good lawyer to defend my case.

Job knew he needed a lawyer. I won't read every verse, but a few Job nine one, then Job answered and said, truly, I know that it is so. But how can a man be in the right before God? If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand times.

If you go to the dock, if you go to the bar of justice and stand before the judge of the universe, the holy God, how can you stand before him? Don't you need someone to go between, to step in front of, to intercept, to advocate for you, to be a lawyer for you?

That's what Job is saying. Verse 14. How then can I answer him? Choosing my words with him. Like, am I just going to have a word game and I can just be a good speaker to get out of my trouble? Though I'm in the right, I cannot answer him.

I must appeal for mercy to my accuser. I summoned him and he answered me. I would not believe that he was listening to my voice. Verse 20, though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me, though I'm blameless compared to his friends.

He would prove me perverse. I am blameless. I regard not myself. I loathe my life. Verse 20, verse 30 rather. If I wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lyre, if I put fig leaves on, yet you will plunge me into the pit and my own clothes will abhor me.

For he is not a man as I am that I might answer him that we should come together to trial. There is no arbiter or maybe a better translation. Would that there were an arbiter between us who might lay his hand on both of us.

That's what we need. We need to go between. We need an arbiter. Sin is so bad. Who's going to be the defense lawyer? And that's why with wonder and amazement, with the gracious love of God, it says in first Timothy, there is one God and there's one mediator between God and man, not the Jew, but the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all.

If you're a Christian, you stand before God with an umpire, with an arbiter, with a defense lawyer, with an advocate. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad that can you imagine? Let's put it this way. Because our sin was so great, it took the works of Christ Jesus to undo that.

But it was such a great death of Christ, such a great life of Christ that when you get to heaven, you will be no more righteous than you are today. You cannot get any more righteous because you are in Christ Jesus.

You have union with him and God sees you in the beloved. You will not gain any righteousness in Christ. Oh, your positional righteousness will be there. But I'm talking about, I mean, your practical righteousness, but I'm talking about your positional righteousness.

What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 830 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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