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Listen in as Pastor Mike preaches this recent sermon titled: "The Fall and The Need of Redemption (Part 1)" from Bethlehem Bible Church, in West Boylston, MA.
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.
Treason, the offense of attempting to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance, or of betraying the state into the hands of a foreign power, disloyalty, treachery. It's no wonder R .C. Sproul called sin cosmic treason.
It's a topic we don't really like to hear about much these days, sin. We know why the world doesn't like it, but some even in churches don't want to hear about the doctrine of sin. But friends, we are realists, aren't we?
Sin, as one man said, has more empirical evidence that exists for this than anything else in the world, and we know we're sinful people. John Calvin said, no one knows the 100th part of the sin that clings to his soul.
The really bad news is, as Thomas Watson said, sin has the devil for its father, shame for its companion, and death for its wages. We need a Redeemer, don't we? We need redemption. We need someone who stands in the middle of God and man.
We need an umpire. We need an arbiter. We need a mediator. Sirhan Sirhan killed Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and then he said right afterwards, they can gas me, but I'm famous. I've achieved in one day what it took Robert Kennedy all his life to do.
How do we solve the sin problem? Well, Ruth 3 ends with a cliffhanger. Ruth 3 is almost like when I was growing up and there were cereals. Remember cereals? For me, it was tune in tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel, and I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen.
Ruth 3 is like this cliffhanger. We've got a couple. They're in love. They want to get married, but there's a kinsman who's closer. Will he redeem them, or will Boaz and Ruth get married? How's the book going to end?
In the book of Ruth chapter 1, we start off with three funerals. Will chapter 4 end with a wedding? Will chapter 4 end with children? It's a cliffhanger. What's going to happen next? Ruth needs redemption.
She needs a kinsman redeemer. She needs a blood relative who will pay the price of redemption. She needs a self-sacrificial man of valor. Ruth needs a redeemer physically, and we, beloved, need a redeemer spiritually.
If her need physically for a redeemer was great, our need for a redeemer because of sin is greater. And if you remember how great your sin is, your redemption will be much sweeter. Redemption is sweeter when you realize how expensive redemption is.
Turn your Bibles this morning to Genesis chapter 3. Since Ruth has an interlude, we're going to do our own interlude in Genesis chapter 3 and talk about sin, the fall of man, and its consequences. For Ruth, she knew how valuable it was for her to have a redeemer.
She knew the need. She knew the dire consequences for not having a redeemer. And this morning, we're going to remind ourselves about the problem of evil and the fall of mankind and how one trespass led to the condemnation of all men, as Romans 5 says.
And as we study this, I think it will be helpful as we can quickly tell how much Ruth needed the physical redeemer. Do we need a spiritual mediator, and how badly do we need him? And when we realize how great our sin is, our praise in our Savior, who's overcome sin for us, should increase.
Now, Genesis chapter 3 describes the fall, but let me read a few verses in Genesis chapter 2. This ideal setting, this idyllic setting, this Edenic setting, and then we'll see the contrast in chapter 3.
We need a redeemer. It says, though, in Genesis chapter 2, verse 15, notice when you see the word L-O-R-D, all capitals, that would be Yahweh, a covenant-keeping God, a gracious God in His name. The Lord God, it says in Genesis 2 .15, took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You shall surely eat of every tree of the garden. Notice that. You shall surely eat of every tree of the garden. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat it you shall surely die.
Then the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. Verse 21, So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man He made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, and this is a poem, it's a jubilation, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man, Moses writes, shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
And now we come to the catastrophic next chapter. It is historical, but it's more than that, it's theological. Now lots of people when they come to Genesis chapter 3 with the fall of mankind, they think it's a myth.
And they say, this only happened in the mind of Eve. This didn't really happen on earth, there's no Eden, it just happened in Eve's mind. This is written as theological history. Hosea confirms it, Isaiah confirms it, Romans confirms it, 1 Timothy confirms it.
This is a historical account, but it's also theological. And it follows creation, one of the most amazing stories, true stories in all the Bible. Far reaching events, and this is even reaching as far.
Some say there never was an Adam, there never was an Eve, this is a parable. You've got a talking serpent, you've got all these things going on here, it's all symbolism. How do we describe evil getting into the system?
This is just kind of our little story. Let's take a look at it and find out. And again, my premise this morning is, as Ruth left us as a cliffhanger, will there be redemption? Let's just pause for a moment as we're looking at Ruth to remember how great our Savior is, and how badly sinners need a mediator.
Look at the temptation found in Genesis chapter 3, verse 1 and following. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field, that the Lord, Yahweh, God, Elohim, that the covenant keeping name of God, the Creator, had made.
He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And immediately we're brought face to face with questions like this. We can't blame our environment for our sin.
We can't blame heredity for our sin. They're in the garden, this is perfection, this is Edenic. And now we have a talking snake. This is a crafty snake, friends, this is a literal snake, a literal serpent.
Later, God, in chapter 3, verse 14, judges the literal snake. This is a real snake that talks. This is a snake that is possessed by Satan. Do I believe in demonic possession? Answer is yes. Do I believe in satanic possession?
Yes, right here. Snake possessed by Satan himself. A literal creature, a real snake. And too often I notice, even as I read this week, people go to Genesis chapter 3 and they immediately start saying, well, why do snakes travel on their stomachs?
Why is nakedness a problem? Why do people have snake phobias? One third of all people in the U .S. have snake phobia. Ophidiophobia. Ophidiophobia. Why do people have that? And we start getting off track.
We start spiraling into ophidiophobia stuff. By the way, I did find out this week, according to National Geographic News, that the fear of snakes is rooted in evolution. Just wanted you to know that. Because if you weren't afraid of snakes, they'd bite you and you'd die, so eventually, I guess our feet figured that out and told our brain and we changed.
The issue is not should we be pre-wired against snakes and have snake phobia. The issue is sin. We're not to be distracted from the fall. Sin entering into the universe. This beast is being used by Satan.
It's a real serpent and he's cunning, Satan is. Satan uses this instrument, the snake, to bring in sin and deception. Sin, the interloper in the garden, the stranger. Now, if I were to write this, I would say, I'd have Satan show up and say, I am a screaming, rabid maniac who hates God, and I'm going to make you hate him too.
But notice the strategy, notice the cunning, notice the wiles of Satan. We should expect craftiness. The serpent's crafty combined with Satan's craftiness. And look at what he says. Did God actually say, you shall not eat of the tree, of any tree in the garden?
There's nothing special about this tree. Certainly, it's not a metaphor for sexual intimacy. It's not a metaphor of anything else. It's just a tree. By the way, lots of people say, it's an apple. Don't eat of this apple.
How do we get this apple into the story? Well, the answer is, the Latin word, malum, apple, sounds like the Latin word, malice, evil.
It's just fruit.
And you know, maybe Eve saw this and she just thought in the garden, there's maybe some good angel and he's talking. Some people say, Satan was kind of throwing his voice. He was a ventriloquist. And there was a snake over there and Satan was throwing his voice, kind of like Edgar Bergen with Charlie McCarthy or Sherry Lewis and Lamb Chop.
I mean, I don't think those really work out too well. By the way, ventriloquism started off not as entertainment, like in the 1700s and 1800s, but it started off, when you would hear a noise in your stomach, you would think that was some dead person talking, and then the people would interpret your stomach's growling, like they did with Apollo and Delphi, and then they would translate or interpret the sounds, and so you could speak to the dead through the stomach growling.
Just thought I'd throw that in there. Ventriloquist means vent or belly or loci to speak. So gastromancy was belly talking. But this was a real serpent talking, demonically, satanically. You say, well, that's weird.
It's no weirder than Balaam's donkey talking, is it? It's no weirder when demons possess a man and the man says, my name is Legion for we are many. We shouldn't be that surprised. And now Satan comes over and he's going to talk about God in the third person.
It's going to be a comparative religions class. It's going to be a discussion about God with his, Satan, as it were, the attitude of having his slippers on and a robe and a pipe sitting by a fire. Let's just talk about God.
I believe in God. Satan is going to come across as showing. Let's just have a little religious conversation. Has God really said, as one Lexicon translates it, is it really that he said that? Is it really true you shouldn't eat of this particular tree?
Satan wants Eve to consider this restriction. He wants her to consider that there's someone greater than she is, with more authority, with more power, and she's under another, and he restricts. It's not even a complete sentence, verse 1.
Satan is cut off by Eve. It's an incomplete sentence in Hebrew, translated maybe like this, even though God has said you shouldn't eat of the trees of the garden, surely God isn't going to limit you. Now the careful Bible student is going to notice what?
What did he say? What did he leave out here? He said to the woman, did God. You look at Genesis chapter 3, and it is Lord God, just like earlier in the verse. Lord God, Lord God, Lord God, Lord God. The covenant-keeping name of Yahweh tied with the word God, Elohim, the creator.
And this is how God is referred to by the narrator Moses every single time until Satan just now calls him God. Not Elohim Yahweh, but just God. Let's have a little seminar about God. It's kind of like the original Jesus seminar for those of you who haven't lost your marbles.
Only the people that know the story laugh. This is just like people today. Just like our contemporary mainstream liberal theologians. They don't say outright, forcefully, initially, there's no God, you can't believe in his word.
It doesn't start off that way. It starts off satanically, just like Satan did here in the garden. S. Lewis Johnson describes it this way. Can it be that God has really created you too, and he does not allow you to eat up all of the trees of the garden?
Has he withheld something from you? Can a loving God really withhold things from his creatures? Think of it. A creature of this great God you're talking about, restrained from any tree in the whole garden?
You're going to see just shortly here in the next verse, she's starting to teeter-totter, she's starting to waver, she's starting to wonder, she's starting to question. Satan's adding to the words of God.
We'll soon find out, just like every cult tries to do. You know, I've been in this garden for a long time, Eve, and I've got some news. Pray tell, is this news true? Could God be restricting you? God has exceptions.
Must be mistaken. And Eve is falling for Satan's trap, questioning God. Is God good? Is God reasonable? Can God's laws be so confining? Reminds me of Jesus' words in John 8, you belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire.
He, the devil, was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he, Satan, speaks, he speaks his native language, as one translation says, for he's a liar and the father of lies.
2 Corinthians 11 says, but I'm afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
That's why some think Eve just thought he was another angel of light. Satan goes right for her mind. Did God really say these things? Question, where's Adam? Where's Adam? Verse 2, a woman said to the serpent, by the way, Eve now is functioning as the religious instructor, the religious authority.
A woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but I'm going to have to admit that I'm restricted by another. I'm kind of entertaining the idea that maybe the restriction's too severe.
Maybe God's a little too harsh. But I feel the restriction, and maybe I should even try to interpret something and defend my position as one who's being restricted. 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.
Eve interrupts Satan and says these things, but she should have said this, something similar thousands of years later when Jesus said, get thee behind me, Satan. That's what she should have said. And now she's starting to try to defend God.
She's trying to defend how she should be content to live within the constrictions and restrictions of God. The issue, the core issue, is always unbelief. Do you believe God's word, or do you believe Satan's word?
People say sin is lawlessness. That is true. But the initial root of sin is always unbelief, which leads to lawlessness, which spirals into immorality. The basic root of all sin, market friends, is unbelief.
I don't believe God, and in this particular case, I'm believing Satan instead. Jesus said in John 16, concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. Paul said in Romans 14, for whatever does not proceed from faith is what?
Sin. The root cause of sin is always unbelief, which leads to immorality, which leads to lawlessness rather, spiraling into immorality. What you told me, Satan, doesn't match up to scripture. I reject it.
That's what should have happened. I'm not going to accept it. I'm not going to listen. Ever see a kid put their fingers in their ears? La, la, la, la, la. When we had TV, I mean, we have a TV monitor now, but without the commercials, but that was a lot of, okay, heads down.
She's not believing in God's word. She's not trusting God's word. Unbelief is the root of all sin. 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 an idle threat, theory only, or maybe God's motive's 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 dine, die.
You think you're going to die, but you're made to believe you're going to die, but you're going to 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 Enosh 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. 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 8 .30 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.
The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.