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[00:00] So we are in Genesis chapter 3. I'll be able to spit it out eventually.
[00:04] So if you have your Bibles or your phones or whatever you're using, open your Bible to that.
[00:10] Passage chapter 3 verse 8. Well, we're going to start at verse 1 again. We remember we talked
[00:15] about verses 1 through 7 last week, but let's read it just so maybe it kind of will jog your
[00:20] memory about what we talked about. It says this chapter. Well, I'll give you a second because I
[00:24] know I just said it and then I started reading right away. I'll give it a time to get there.
[00:30] 3 verse 1. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God
[00:36] had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say you shall not eat of the tree in the garden?"
[00:42] And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
[00:45] but God said you should not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.
[00:50] Neither shall you touch it, lest you die." He never really said neither shall you touch it,
[00:54] but whatever. We talked about that last week. But the serpent said to the woman,
[00:57] "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat it, eat of it, your eyes will be opened,
[01:03] and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for
[01:07] food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,
[01:12] she took up its fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.
[01:17] And then the eyes of both of them were open and they knew that they were naked. And so
[01:21] fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. Verse 8, "And they heard the sound of the Lord
[01:26] God walking in the garden of the cool of the day. The man and his wife hid themselves from the
[01:31] presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. The Lord God called to the man and said,
[01:35] 'Where are you?' And he said, 'I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I
[01:40] was naked and I hid myself.' And he said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the
[01:45] tree of which I commanded you not to eat?' The man said, 'The woman who you gave to be with me,
[01:51] she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate.' Then the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is
[01:57] this that you have done?' And the woman said, 'The serpent deceived me and I ate.'" Let's pray.
[02:02] Father, again, we are thankful, we are grateful for your work. We're thankful that we can come here and
[02:12] fellowship with one another. We can sing praises to you, Lord, and we can learn about what you have
[02:19] said in your word. And so, Father, I just pray today that as we go over this sad story today,
[02:26] that you would help us learn what we do not know and help us to walk away here, Lord,
[02:36] even more grateful, even more thankful, even more joyful because of what your son Jesus has done.
[02:43] We love you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. So, you know, we read that passage and
[02:50] I think everyone knows this passage. I think pretty much everybody's heard this, you know,
[02:55] as far as the Lord, you know, is coming into the garden. They sowed, you know, Adam and Eve sowed
[03:00] fig leaves. They sinned. You know, they did what they weren't supposed to do and now they're
[03:04] ashamed, right? And so they sow these fig leaves on, these goofy little fig leaves that cover up
[03:08] themselves and they go and hide themselves. And you think about how sad that is, right? I mean,
[03:13] if you really read this and you understand where they came from, right, the perfect relationship
[03:19] that they had with God, the joy that they had with God, the love that they had, the relationship that
[03:25] was had between God and Adam, Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve and God, right? And now here we find them
[03:33] hiding in the trees and bushes of the garden, scared, shameful. And I would ask you even before
[03:46] we start just even talking about it, right? Have you ever, and this is just for you to, you know,
[03:52] the rhetorical kind of for you to answer to me, but are you thinking about, have you ever
[03:57] looked back on your life with great shame because of things that you've done?
[04:04] And so I think at the end, that's kind of where I want to get to. I mean,
[04:12] we're going to talk a lot about what's going on here. There's, you guys know the story,
[04:15] but there's some really interesting, when you dig into it, there's some really interesting
[04:18] things happening here. But I think, you know, shame can be good for one way,
[04:24] good in a way, but it also can be very bad in a way, right? And I think even we see that today.
[04:33] So what we see first is that, you know, we see Adam with great fear, right? They're hiding.
[04:44] They're hiding right off the bat. That's right. And they heard the sound the Lord got walking
[04:48] in the garden the day and the man, his wife hid themselves for the presence of the Lord
[04:52] among the trees of the garden. And so they have fear and we already know they have shame
[04:56] because it's covering themselves up. They saw that they were naked before all this happened.
[05:00] They didn't even like that wasn't even a thought. Their thoughts were perfect. They're right. Their
[05:05] relationships were perfect. And now here they are. And they're fearful, full of fear, full of shame.
[05:13] And what's the cause of their fear, right? The voice of the Lord God walking in the cool of the day,
[05:20] that's the fear. Well, how sad is that, right? At some point, they would have heard the Lord
[05:28] God walking in the cool of the day and went running to him to talk and to enjoy his company
[05:36] and his presence, right? And here they are now hiding. But what's more scary than the approach
[05:48] of the ultimate judge when you have done wrong? But yet he comes in such a way
[05:56] that it makes it scary only to guilty consciousness. Now, I don't want to get into there's some
[06:08] there's some discussion about, you know, wait, the Lord God is walking. Is it God walking? Is it God's
[06:15] spirit? Doesn't the Bible say God is spirit? No, we see Lord God is walking in the garden. And some
[06:20] say, well, that must mean it's Jesus that's walking in the garden. And those are all great questions,
[06:24] except for the fact that God doesn't tell us exactly, right? And I'm with John Piper when he
[06:30] says people need solid food, not possible food, right? We need solid food, not possible food,
[06:35] right? So we don't know, right? It says the Lord God. So however, however, that's good enough for
[06:42] me, right? God doesn't expand on it. So neither will I, except to say that. Okay. But it does appear
[06:51] that he, the way he comes to them is what he's done in the past. It's not something new, right? It says,
[06:57] and they heard the sound of Lord God walking in the garden. It didn't sound like that was something
[07:03] new that had happened before. And so he comes to them in a way that they have seen him already
[07:08] in the garden. But it is interesting that he comes. And I think when we look at the passage,
[07:14] he comes in grace and mercy and love, and he's not coming to terrify them. He comes into the
[07:22] garden as one who still wants and wants and desires a relationship with them. And we see this because
[07:31] right, just some interesting things. He comes walking. He's not rushed. He's not like, you know,
[07:40] he's not sudden all of a sudden appears in front of him, scaring, you know, what did you do? You know,
[07:45] like that thing, you know, like you ever sneak up behind one of your kids when they're doing wrong.
[07:48] And you're like, what are you doing? You know, they're like, oh, they jump out of their minds.
[07:53] Not that anybody, maybe all it just me. I don't know. He doesn't do that, right? He's not rushed.
[08:02] It's interesting. He comes in the cool day. He doesn't come at night, right? Night with your
[08:07] already, your fears are exaggerated. Imagine them at night, right? Again,
[08:11] they wouldn't have cared at one at before this. They wouldn't care that it was night, but now.
[08:14] And they heard his voice at some distance, giving them notice of his coming.
[08:21] He's not trying to scare them. They hear him calling for them and coming towards them to meet them.
[08:34] And yet they hid themselves before they had sinned again. If they had heard the voice of the Lord,
[08:45] they would have run to meet him with joy, with contentment. And now they hide, but they had
[08:54] sinned and now they know sin, right? And now God to them have become a terror to them. Not on God's
[09:01] doing. He's not a terror in this case, but for them, we got high, right? The judge is coming.
[09:08] God, the creator is coming and they're full of fear and shame and confusion.
[09:15] And it is interesting because their own conscience, right, accuses them.
[09:25] It kind of sets their sin before them, right? They sow fig leaves on, but they would do no
[09:31] service to them, right? Because it didn't help them not feel fear. They know they did wrong.
[09:36] Their conscience is accusing them. God is coming forth to them and in their mind,
[09:43] not as a friend, not as their creator friend, God, but as almost an enemy now, right?
[09:51] All of creation is at war with them in fear. They hid themselves in trees, knowing they were guilty
[10:03] and knowing they didn't want to stand before the judge. And so they try to flee from justice.
[10:07] I think it's what's interesting is the deception of Satan. Remember the Satan's deception in verses
[10:15] one through seven, right? He kind of leads them to believe that they would be, if they eat of the
[10:20] tree, that everything's going to be okay, right? They'll be safe. They're not feeling so safe now,
[10:26] are they? He said, you won't die, right? But yet now they feel that they're forced to flee for their
[10:33] lives. He promised them that they would be knowing, right? They would be all kind of knowing. They
[10:39] would gain all this knowledge, but they don't even know what to do or where to hide, right?
[10:46] He promised them they would be like gods, but they have been found out as almost common criminals,
[10:53] scared, trembling, and wanting to escape. It's interesting because they didn't want to be subject
[11:00] to the Yahweh, right? When they ate of the tree, they didn't want to go by His rules. We're not
[11:06] going to be subject to you. And so now they're prisoners of their own doing.
[11:14] And I think for us in that, when we think about that first verse, that verse eight there,
[11:19] "A man and wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God."
[11:24] Right? I think that sometimes the thought process for us is when we sin,
[11:30] is to think it's possible or it's a good idea to hide. Now, how we hide looks a little different
[11:38] than Adam and Eve had hid, right? We ain't going into hiding the bushes and the trees and, you know,
[11:44] all that stuff. We kind of separate a lot of times. And this is just one example. We separate
[11:50] ourselves from the body of Christ, right? From the things of the Lord. Oh, if I was in the Bible
[11:54] study, if I'm reading that, I don't want to read because that's convicting, right? I don't want to,
[11:58] I already know that I did wrong. So let me step away from that. If I'm in church, I don't want
[12:02] to go to church. And I don't want to be here consistently. Why? Because there's conviction
[12:08] that comes with that. God is present. And that feeling is I don't, I don't want to be around God.
[12:13] Right? I don't want to sing praises to the one who I've now sinned against. Right?
[12:19] And it is interesting because Jeremiah, which we already know this, you know, David has talked
[12:26] about this too, but in Jeremiah, it says in 23 verse 24, it says, "Can a man hide himself in secret
[12:32] places so that I cannot see him declares the Lord? Do I not fill heaven and earth and declares the
[12:36] Lord?" Like the idea that we can hide from God is a joke. And yet Satan loves to tell us, right?
[12:43] Come on. You can't, you can't be a part of that anymore. Just stay away. You've gone too far.
[12:51] When we seek, when we sin, oftentimes we, when we're living in sin, especially we all make mistakes
[13:00] as we sin, that's different than kind of living in intentional sin, right? We seek to remove
[13:07] ourselves when we sin often from the one who can give life, right? From the fountain of life,
[13:15] who alone can give help, who we separated ourselves from the one who alone can give
[13:22] grace and mercy and joy. Do you guys remember Jonah? When we did Jonah study, remember Jonah's prayer,
[13:30] when he's in the belly of the fish, right? He's, you know, praying. And he says, "Those who pay,
[13:36] pay regard to vain idols." Remember what we said last week? That at the core of everything that
[13:43] Adam and Eve got, it was idolatry, right? "Those who pay regard to vain, vain idols forsake their
[13:49] hope of steadfast love." That's Jonah 2.8. "Forsake their hope of steadfast love."
[13:55] And that's what we do. When we run from God, when we try to hide from God by, you know,
[14:02] being separate from the, from what God has for us and cutting ourselves off for everything that
[14:08] God has for us, we forsake the hope of steadfast love, God's steadfast love.
[14:19] Besides all that, I think there's, when we run because of our sin, we end up living in somewhat,
[14:31] hopefully, probably in some cases, in shame, right? And then when we come back to God,
[14:39] we can, through His grace and through His mercy, we come back to God. Sometimes we still live in
[14:43] that shame. That's what I'm saying. There's good shame and bad shame. There's a good shame that
[14:48] draws us back to God, right? And then, but if we stay in that, then what did God, then what did
[14:56] Jesus die for? Right? When we say Jesus died, when we say we had to preach the gospel to us,
[15:02] it's not just to ourselves, preach the gospel towards us, it's not just about preaching, "Oh,
[15:08] I get to go to heaven." Right? I'm in relationship with God now. I get to go to heaven. It's
[15:12] understanding that Jesus literally took our shame too, as one of the things there's lots. And I'm
[15:19] not going to go over it overall, but I want to, because we're speaking of this, He took our shame
[15:24] on the cross. He suffered shame on the cross, right? And you think about Jesus on the cross,
[15:30] right? Even before the cross, right? You have men who are spitting on the Savior of the world,
[15:38] on God, Emmanuel, God with us, putting a crown of thorns, saying, you know, nailing Him to a cross,
[15:45] naked. Some say the Romans would crucify people naked. But even if He wasn't fully naked, He was
[15:53] pretty much naked on the cross, right? The Son of God. And so when we say He took our shame,
[15:59] He literally took our shame. And so when we hang out in shame, we kind of let it infest our lives,
[16:05] even when God has forgiven us and we're past it, we kind of look like Adam and Eve, right?
[16:12] We still talk, kind of like we're still in sin, even if it's only in our own minds.
[16:17] We think about this fear and this shame that come with sin. Again, a reverent fear is necessary,
[16:33] the fear of the Lord, you know, all of a sudden, right? We want to fear, but it's a reverent fear
[16:37] of understanding God and all that He is. But then there's a guilty fear, right? Guilty conscience,
[16:43] right? And that's part of sin. And then everything that comes with that,
[16:47] right? You think about what sin does. I've always said this, and I think I've had conversations
[16:52] with multiple people in our group about it, right? We do not truly understand the evil of sin.
[16:59] We have troubles in our families, right? Because of sin. We have trouble with our spouses, our kids,
[17:09] you know, friends, work, other humans, right? Because of sin. We have death because of sin.
[17:18] You see Adam and Eve, who were the perfect partners. Remember when we were looking at
[17:25] in chapter two, when Eve was presented to Adam and Adam basically shouts? Because he's so, you know,
[17:30] he's so happy to have Eve. And now here they are, hiding in the bushes, in the trees, miserable,
[17:38] miserable companions to each other. And so how do you know they're miserable? Well,
[17:44] you'll see. It doesn't go well for them, right? And so we have Adam and Eve. They knew and had,
[17:53] they sinned and knew sin at this point. And now they're going to engage with this perfect judge
[18:01] who calls out to them. And yet this judge comes in all fullness of grace and mercy, even now,
[18:10] even starting with the question that he asks Adam. Look what he asked Adam.
[18:16] Very simple. But the Lord God, verse nine, but the Lord God called to the man and said to him,
[18:25] "Where are you? Where are you?" And I was, I was thinking, like, you go back, you know, you think
[18:34] about how happy God must have been with Adam before this, right? Just love. He created him.
[18:40] He loved him. He cared for him. This is his favorite son, right? All that he had already
[18:45] given Adam and all that he would have given him, like, from then on. And this Adam now has forsaken
[18:56] God, ran and hid, right? Brought ruin upon himself. And so God says, "Where are you?"
[19:06] And I think that question is not necessarily what you think, right? I think part of it is not just
[19:15] where are you physically. Obviously, God knows where he is, right? He knows everything about him,
[19:19] but he's trying to reach Adam. And so he says, "Where are you? My favorite son,"
[19:28] which is easy to have a favorite son in a way because he's the only son at that point, you know,
[19:33] earthly son. "Where are you?" But I don't think he's talking about place as much as he's talking
[19:41] about condition. You know, where are you, Adam? What is going on in your heart? You have eaten,
[19:53] have you eaten, you know, the fruit, have you eaten of the tree? You, Adam, the one that wanted
[20:02] to be with me, who is now running from me? The Lord God said to the man, "Where are you?"
[20:14] And I think those of us who have wandered from God, those of us maybe who are wandering from God now,
[20:25] should seriously consider where they are. They are far from all good. They're in the middle
[20:33] of the enemy camp. They're basically a slave to Satan and they're definitely on the road to ruin.
[20:44] Where are you? And that question should all, it's kind of like an inventory question right in our
[20:54] lives. Am I running from God because if I am, I need to ask that question to myself, "Where am I?"
[21:00] True. Where is my heart? And as I said, this question should be looked upon as grace-filled.
[21:14] God isn't looking at him like, "Adam, where are you?" Right? That's not how he approaches Adam.
[21:23] Yahweh is reminding him, as David reminded us in Psalms,
[21:28] Yahweh is reminding him that he is a lost sheep.
[21:35] He would have wandered endlessly if the Good Shepherd did not go after him to bring him back.
[21:42] Yahweh is reminding him where he was and where he should not be. How is that not grace?
[21:53] Yes, we should always consider where we are because there is no rest. There is no true rest. There
[22:02] is no peace. And there's a heart full of shame until we return back to the one.
[22:09] Our Creator, our giver of life, our Savior. Adam is going to give an answer and it sounds kind of
[22:22] like a trembling answer almost, right? Verse 10, and he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden
[22:28] and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself."
[22:31] I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. It's interesting because he doesn't
[22:40] really own his guilt here, does he? But he gives himself away.
[22:48] He confesses his guilt by admitting his shame and fear. Because why would he have fear
[22:56] and shame if he hadn't done anything wrong? That's kind of how we have parents. I mean,
[23:03] if you're a parent and you know this, you can kind of tap into that emotion of kids.
[23:08] They have some shame and guilt and you're like, "What did you do?" They know. They won't tell you
[23:14] necessarily what they did. They don't tell you that they did something. They just kind of go
[23:20] into an excuse about why they did it, right? And you're like, "Uh-huh, guilty, discharged."
[23:26] So he doesn't own his guilt. I love this from a quote from a theologian. He says this,
[23:41] "We have reason to be afraid of approaching to God if we be not clothed with the righteousness
[23:46] of Christ. For nothing but this will be armor of proof and cover the shame of our nakedness.
[23:51] Let us therefore put on the Lord Jesus Christ and then draw near with humble boldness."
[23:55] And so for us, as we think about when we sin, when we wander, when we have shame,
[24:04] when we have fear because we've done wrong to God, are we clothed in the righteousness of Christ?
[24:10] Because if we are, then we don't have to. We can come back and we can confess our sins
[24:17] without fear, without shame.
[24:20] So verse 11, he says, "Who told you that you were..." God says, "Who told you that you were naked?
[24:30] Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" And the man said, "The woman who
[24:34] you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate." And then the Lord God said,
[24:39] "The woman, what is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent to see me and I ate."
[24:44] And so we have Adam and Eve here guilty by their own confession.
[24:47] And yet, working to excuse and blame their sin, right? We're confessing,
[24:56] "Oh, okay. Well, yeah, I basically did about it. Her, him, you know, with you."
[25:03] They just couldn't confess and fall at the feet of God and say, "Have mercy on me, a sinner."
[25:14] Right? They said, "No, confess and blame. I'm going to do the confess and blame game."
[25:22] That probably is one of the things, like just from a human standpoint, that infuriates me
[25:27] when people do that. Just take the blame and move on, right? Just take the blame. It is, but like,
[25:35] man, it's like, I just use like a work experience, right? And I was telling some of the people I
[25:40] work this week, or people in my family this week, Stephen and Allison, Ethan. So at work, you know,
[25:48] we're on Zoom call. I'm on Zoom call all day long. It's all day. It's just you're on a bridge and if
[25:54] people need you, they can come get you. And so I meet another guy who's my friend at work. I've
[26:00] never met him, but he's in Tennessee, but we're on Zoom call all day. We're on same room. We kind
[26:06] of take care of all mobile devices. And while I was on vacation, he was supposed to do a bunch of
[26:13] stuff, you know, and all that stuff. And he didn't do it, right? So I come back on Tuesday, I got
[26:18] stacks that I was hot, right? I was like, and I mean, he's my friend, right? Really good, a good
[26:23] dude. He just, he just didn't do it. But remember, we're in the same room on Zoom. And my wife comes
[26:30] home. It's almost the end of the day. And she comes home from work. And she goes, "Oh, how was your day?"
[26:34] Stinking day. This day sucked. I said, I said, "CJ, who's the guy I go, didn't do a stinking thing
[26:41] you were supposed to do with, you know? I wasn't on you." So, all right. So, that's all, you know,
[26:57] Laurie's like, "Well, you know, just tell your boss." And you know, I said, I go, I mean, I go,
[27:03] I'm not telling my boss. I'm like, my friend. I said, "I'm not going to throw anybody on the
[27:07] phone. I'm just checked, right? Because you're supposed to do all the stuff he didn't do." Then
[27:10] I got a little IM message. You're not on mute. All right. So, I was like, all right. Well,
[27:17] I'm just going to put myself on mute and think... Go hide and shame. Go sew some thick leads on and
[27:24] go hide and shame, right? That was a good point. Anyway, so I talked to him this week and I said,
[27:29] dude, I, you know, I didn't even know how to approach it. And so, I waited a couple of days,
[27:33] you know, because I was like, I don't even know what to say. But then finally, I just, I said,
[27:36] "Hey, can we chat?" And I said, "I screwed up, man." I said, "I was just mad." You know,
[27:42] and I said, "There's no excuse for it. You're my friend and I shouldn't be talking about you
[27:46] to anybody in a negative light." I said, "And I just ask for your forgiveness. I understand if,
[27:52] or, you know, you can't that, you know, that you just don't do that kind of thing." And he's like,
[27:56] "Oh, no." You know, he's a big weightlifting black dude. He goes, "No, dog. You're my man.
[28:00] You don't have to worry about that stuff, right?" You know, like, and it made me even feel worse,
[28:04] right? Because he's, you know, and his dad had just died like two weeks ago. And I was like,
[28:08] it's just the whole thing was just terrible, right? All of all. All right. But I will say after I
[28:16] confess to him and talk to him about it, and, you know, just really apologize to him,
[28:20] which was a hard conversation. Because I was, you know, I thought, and part of me wanted to avoid it,
[28:24] right? I would just let it go. I don't see him anyway. And, you know, we still have to work
[28:27] together. So it's whatever, you know. And I was like, okay, I gotta, I gotta chat with this guy,
[28:31] right? Because I did, I did him wrong. You know, there's relief in that, right? There's something
[28:38] that comes with that. And now, you know, by the rest of the week, we're fine. And, you know,
[28:42] it was all good. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm sure he's still hurt by it. But I mean,
[28:47] as far as our relationship, it kind of meant it is definitely back to where it was to some degree,
[28:51] you know? And so Adam and Eve, they just confess, right? God, what did we do? We know we sinned
[28:57] against you. You told us one thing and we did it. You told us not to do one thing and we did
[29:01] it anyway, right? But they couldn't do it. And so they do the blame game. And I love how, you know,
[29:07] God goes to Adam. He says, you know, I mean, if you read, you keep reading here, he says,
[29:12] you know, I was afraid and I, naked, I hit myself and he said, who told you that you were naked?
[29:17] Right? God extracts your confession by digging a little deeper. How did you come to know
[29:27] about naked and shame? Right? I'm going to show naked and afraid. Naked and shame. Shameful.
[29:34] Right? He said, have you eaten of the forbidden tree? Now, is God asking him because God doesn't
[29:41] know? No. All right. Don't ask him because he doesn't know. We're not, he's not, he's not
[29:49] asking Adam to inform him of things he doesn't know. God knows all our sins. He knows everything
[29:55] that we do, do that we think that we don't do that we should do. But he wants confession
[30:01] because not that we're informing him of anything he doesn't already know, but that we may be humbled
[30:08] and forgiven and live in the joy of our salvation. Right? When we don't do that,
[30:16] when we continue to live in sin and we never want to go to go approach God and we want to hide.
[30:20] Right? We all know because we've all probably been there. We've all done something like that.
[30:26] And what then? How do we feel? I feel like I did when I talk about my friend at work
[30:34] and in those days before I approached him. Right? This is not good. Only worse because
[30:41] it's the God of the universe who I've, who I've offended. God reminds him of the commandment
[30:49] that he had given to him. Remember? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?
[30:53] And he's like, I just love it because he's, it's, it's simple. It's short,
[31:04] but he's getting right to the point with Adam trying to bring him out.
[31:07] Becomes his own accuser. I did eat. And the woman says, yes, or die. I ate too.
[31:18] But these are not genuine confessions, right? For instead of being truly sorrowful for this,
[31:24] for their sin, they excuse their sin and lay the shame and blame on others.
[31:30] Adam blames his wife, wife. He basically says, she gave me the fruit. She told me to eat it,
[31:36] which I did because I'm, you know, trying to make her happy.
[31:38] But, you know, which is a weak excuse in and of itself, you know, because remember,
[31:45] he's supposed to be leading, loving, lovingly leading her. And so he should have, and he,
[31:51] you know, she could have taken a fruit and said, you know, he should have stopped it right there,
[31:54] tried to stop it. But maybe she said, don't tell me what to do. I'm going to eat it anyway.
[31:57] It's like, honey, I just want, you know, like I can't partake in that.
[32:01] Right. And then, you know, destroy the serpent or do something, right? He doesn't do anything.
[32:05] He just, right. We talked about that last week.
[32:08] And so it's bad that he blames her, but that's not the worst. That's not the worst,
[32:21] which is also interesting, though, too, because, and maybe I should get to this later, but I do
[32:24] want to say, like, you know, even enticing her husband to eat it is also terrible. Right. Like,
[32:31] it's not, he, he has lots to blame, but we see, obviously, we'll see next week where God, you know,
[32:37] lays out the punishment. Everybody is included. Nobody is, nobody is free from the punishment,
[32:43] right? The consequences of their sin. But she, she entices her husband with it too, which is also
[32:49] wrong. He should have decided early on not to be led by his wife, Adam, and done the leading,
[33:06] but he didn't. And we should remember whether it was Eve who was enticing, which is right.
[33:14] Be very careful because if you're enticing other people to sin, now you're also in on that sin,
[33:19] right? Your sin and their sin, because you've enticed them to sin.
[33:23] But here's the deal. We should never displease God to please anybody.
[33:32] Our spouse, our kids, our friends, our family, whatever job, we should never look to please
[33:38] anybody if it means displeasing God. Right. And I see this in families especially. Right. And what
[33:48] I mean by this is like, I think, I think, and I'm making generalizations here, so that, you know,
[33:54] this is a big generalization. Right. But fathers to their daughters, moms to their sons, excuse
[34:03] all kinds of sinful behavior. I've even heard parents say, that's, that's my boy. I don't care
[34:10] what he does. I'm going to support him. Uh, careful. Right. Yes. You want to love him still
[34:18] or love her still, but if they sin, you as parent, even an older parent to an older son or daughter
[34:26] should still say, you are a Christian. If you're a Christian, if you're following Christ,
[34:32] doesn't matter if you're a parent or not, if it's just somebody, a friend, you should say,
[34:36] you know, did you think about that? Cause here's what scripture says, you know, is that,
[34:40] but I am parents all the time. I've seen it a hundred times kid goes way off, which happens.
[34:46] Right. But then they, they, there's no problem. They're like, Oh,
[34:50] right. I don't know. That's my, that's my boy. You know, I still love him. I'm still going to
[34:55] support him a hundred percent. That's, I honestly don't understand it. Like that doesn't,
[35:01] I can't even understand that because I'm like, so you're okay with continuing the same relationship
[35:07] in the same way, even though they are fending your savior, your creator grievously.
[35:14] Anyway, that's a little side. That was for free. But here's Adam, right? It's not the worst of it.
[35:23] Right. The woman, bad, right? Lane. That's not the worst of it. All right. Look what he says.
[35:31] Not only lays the blame upon his wife, but also on his creator.
[35:36] It is the woman you gave me, you know, she gave me the fruit. Otherwise I wouldn't have to eat.
[35:43] And really you're fine. But you made her for me. And thus I've sinned now because of you.
[35:50] That's what Adam's saying. The man said the woman who you gave to be with me,
[35:56] she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate. Now you could have said the woman made me do it
[36:01] and maybe thought, okay, well that's bad enough. I ain't blaming his wife, but left it at that. No,
[36:06] no, that's not where he leaves it. He said the woman whom you gave me, God, made me do it.
[36:14] Gave me the fruit. Yeah. I think that's an interesting habit in those that are,
[36:24] that wandered or in sin oftentimes. Right. Is to say they are tempted of God. Kind of
[36:33] blame God for it. I've seen it. Well, you know, I had a rough life or I, or God, you know,
[36:39] I did God did this or God took this. So it gives us an excuse to sin. But it is interesting because
[36:46] God gives us this life on here on earth. He gives us all kinds of good gifts that we may serve him
[36:53] cheerfully in the enjoyment of those gifts. But when we sin against him and blame him,
[37:01] right? What a, what a devastating thing to do.
[37:11] It is our sin. We don't blame the creator for arson. Remember, remember even me, even
[37:20] James says, right? Remember when we studied book of James, but each person is tempted when they are
[37:25] dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. That's how sin works.
[37:31] We blame ourselves. Oh yeah. Satan is evil. He's a great tempter. He's, he's death.
[37:40] They don't make us sin. We sin on our own accord. And so it is vital that we understand that when
[37:48] we sin, we don't blame others. Eve, who's she blamed? Serpent. And in reality, she's also
[37:56] blaming God who created the serpent. God who allowed the serpent into the garden. God.
[38:01] Our sins are ours and ours alone. And as such, we go to God.
[38:16] Right. When we sin, we go to God without excuse and say, I have sinned. Remember what David,
[38:24] remember we read, looked at that last week against you and you alone have I sinned.
[38:28] I think it's interesting. I talked about how, you know, we don't look you sin as evil as it is.
[38:45] So we don't, you know, we think of Satan and we're like, yeah, he's a tempter, you know,
[38:48] kind of like Joe Brown, you know, a little pitchfork, you know, born this guy, you know,
[38:53] doesn't really look that intimidating, you know. Man, evil. We could understand this, this evil
[39:01] that even where the Bible says he, you go around with like a roaring, lying, seeking whom to devour,
[39:06] right, to rip apart, to shred, to kill.
[39:10] So what I think should happen is not, you know, lessening our evil against God by making excuses
[39:26] and by worrying about, you know, who made me do it and how I got tempted. But it should increase
[39:33] our anger towards Satan, right, because we should hate him so that I would listen to somebody like
[39:44] that and sin against my God and my Savior. I'm going to be deceived by a known cheat and lover of death,
[39:55] right. It's sad to think of Adam and Eve with leaves covering them, crouching down,
[40:04] trembling in fear when their Creator comes looking for them.
[40:07] How do you respond to sin? Do you cling to the promises of Jesus?
[40:23] For forgiveness? What do you try to hide from Him?
[40:27] Maybe you try to save yourself by minimizing your sin, you know, or doing good works,
[40:36] you know, you know your sins, or you kind of make up for it on this end, doing lots of good things,
[40:39] but they're not out of gratitude to God for all that is given you and done,
[40:46] right, but for your bad deeds to try to make up for it.
[40:52] And so I would just say to you today, Adam and Eve sinned and then they made it worse, right.
[41:00] Sin is already bad, but they make it worse because then they blame each other, they blame God.
[41:05] How do you respond to sin? Do you go to your Savior, do you go to your Creator and say,
[41:13] Lord, I have sinned against you and you alone, and then remember the promises of God. We confess our
[41:23] sin and He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us, continue to cleanse us
[41:30] from all unrighteousness. And the other thing I want to say is for those of you who have committed
[41:41] grievous sin, all sin is grievous against God, but there are some sins, right, that just are like a
[41:46] whirlwind, right? The Bible says so the wind reap the whirlwind, right? We talked about this, right?
[41:51] Like, you know, there's those sins that kind of impact you and you have to go before God and ask
[41:54] for forgiveness because, you know, you did something stupid, like I did. I mean, it affected another
[41:58] guy, but it was really just between me and him. But then there's those, right, that you've sucked
[42:03] in a lot of people, a lot of hurt, and a lot of pain as a whirlwind of sin, and you come out of it
[42:11] and you go before the Creator and you say, "I have sinned," but then continue to live in shame.
[42:17] I think you have to be careful of that. Sometimes we feel good about it because we feel like we
[42:24] should stay down because we've done, Satan wants you to say, you know, stay down, you know, like,
[42:28] you've gone too far, you've done too many bad things. But that's not the gospel.
[42:36] When I say Jesus took our shame and our pain and our sin on Him, then we have to believe that,
[42:42] right? And put the stuff that we've confessed and believe that Jesus forgave us and then move on,
[42:52] right? And glory is light. We say that, but that's what it is because there's a darkness
[42:57] that hangs over us in shame. And we need to remove, get past that. Because if not,
[43:03] you basically don't really believe in all the promises of God.
[43:06] And so He took your sin. He redeemed your pain.
[43:15] But remember, He also took your shame to live beyond that.
[43:22] The song that we're going to sing has a, has a verse in it. And I just like,
[43:29] the one of the reasons why I picked the song that we sang right before,
[43:33] you know, death was arrested. It's because it's important to remember when we read this story,
[43:38] the sad story of Adam and Eve sinning. And then next week, the consequences of all their sin,
[43:44] they'll keep reminding us that Jesus, right, is alive. That because of the cross,
[43:51] we still move forward. We have hope. We have peace. But this song, this next song that we're
[43:58] going to sing as the second verse in there says something like, shame put behind me,
[44:03] grace before me. And I just love that. If you're a believer today, that's the song you should be
[44:11] singing. Grace, shame behind me, grace before me. What is your response to sin? I hope that you'll
[44:20] think about it this week. I hope that you'll ask God to kind of open your eyes to maybe areas in
[44:25] your life that you're sinning and you don't even know, right? You've kind of like, you've let things
[44:32] go. But I hope more than anything that you seek repentance, right? You repent before God and you
[44:42] go before him and you know without shadow or doubt that your sins are forgiven and you move forward
[44:47] in joy, peace, love, and in his mercy and grace this week. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the
[44:53] story. Although it is sad to think about Adam, the hiding from their creator, wondering what's going
[45:04] to happen next. I thank you for your word. I thank you for Jesus. No, we know what happens.
[45:09] We read the Bible. We already know what's going to happen.
[45:13] So we can live in those promises today, Lord.
[45:20] Father, I pray that you would help us, convict us on how we respond to sin.
[45:25] May we not just, may it not be something small to us.
[45:30] May it be something, may we not blame, may we not do the blame game.
[45:38] May we not try to minimize it.
[45:44] But, Father, may we also confess it and when we do, may we remember your promises. You do not bring
[45:50] shame to us for those who are in you. Oh, Lord, we love you so much. Help us to live in the promises
[46:01] of God this week. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.