This morning we don't have the benefit of some musicians to help us when we normally open up Sunday school, so that gives us a little more time for the lesson, since I added a lot to it, so we need the additional time. We want to open up in prayer and ask the Lord to bless our lesson this morning. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your divine truths. that are given to us by the word that you have ordained for us. We thank you for the word that's written and the word that you write into our hearts that helps us to illuminate our minds as we read your word, to understand the scriptures, to rightly divide the scriptures. Lord, may your spirit have its way with us this morning as we have Sunday school, as we are gathered here worshiping. Father, we pray that you would bless us in all that we do today. And we ask, Father, as well, that you bless those that are camping up in the Sebring area, that you might give them a special blessing this morning as they meet with the church there in Sebring and as they socialize and have a meal together. May you be glorified in their presence and grant to them traveling mercies as they return home here in the next day or two. Lord, bless them and bless us, we ask in Christ's name, amen. Well, in our continuing and ongoing systematic theology, we've been looking at the Word in systematic theology. We've had course units so far on scriptures and God, angels and demons. We're on humanity. We'll be going to visit Christ and the aspects of Christ, salvation, and the doctrine of end times. In specific, man, we call it anthropology. Last week we looked at the humanity created. Today we'll be looking at humanity fallen, and then as Sundays progress, humanity redeemed and humanity glorified. I want to, before we get into the actual lesson, I think, for me, I thought it would be nice if we had a small intro. Okay, sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God by the way we act, in our attitude, and in our nature. And I'll explain some of these things. As an introduction leading to this all-important doctrine of sin and how this aspect of fallen man and what happened to him after the fall, after sin entered the life, we should understand a few things. In Genesis 5, verses 1 and 2, God created man, and that was Adam and Eve. For the sense of our lesson, man means Adam and Eve, unless we say Adam and Eve. He also named Adam and Eve, Adam, in English. So He gave them a name and He called them Adam. He made them in His image, and according to His heart, in a state of innocence, in his nature. He gave them his nature, his righteousness. He made them erect in their posture, not like any other creature on the face of the earth. And he made them without imperfection or any kind of irregularity. This was not a progressive action. He made man starting off that way. We didn't came to that position. This evolutionist stuff just doesn't work in regards to creation of man and God's intention. But Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 7.29, after all of his searching and wisdom and everything else that he had, he said, Behold, I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they sought out many devices. Upright means that we are agreeable to the nature of God, whose work is always perfect and in His image with His nature. We had all these things to start off with. God intended us to be sin free. And we are the ones that distorted the image of himself in our own lives in creation. We lost that image when Adam and Eve sinned. He had to restore that image and Christ was the means for that restoration of his image. Whereas when Adam and Eve sinned, the image was immediately destroyed. Our work in Jesus Christ as Christians is a progressive work. Even though that light went on inside our heads, as everyone gave this example of last week, our work is trying to be like Christ. We still have that remaining sin in our lives now because of what happened with Adam and Eve. So, if God is perfect and without sin, where did the sin come from? God does know about sin. He does know about good and evil. Yes, and that is the reason why, when we see the account of the temptation of Eve, that the serpent tempted Eve, who at the time only knew good, to be like God, who knows about good and evil. So Adam and Eve had all the essential elements of God's nature, except the knowledge of sin. So if God created them with his nature and they somehow had the capacity in them to understand what sin was, so if God created them with his nature and they had this capacity to understand sin, does that make God the author of sin? Well, the answer is no. Job 34.10, Elihu is talking to his friends and he says, therefore, listen to me, you men of understanding. if far be it from God to do wickedness and from the Almighty to do wrong." And again in Deuteronomy, we see in 32.4 in Moses' song, he writes, the rock, his work is perfect for all his ways are just. I got a faithfulness and without injustice. And God cannot tempt anyone to sin or to do wrong. James 1.13, let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil. And he himself does not tempt anyone. God did somehow ordain that sin would come about, but through the voluntary choices of his created beings. The angels sinned first, then even in Adam. They sinned in different ways, but the sin entered the world. God foreknew that He would need to sin His Son to die for that, to be slain for those sins that we're going to create. That was part of His plan from before the foundation of the earth. He knew that there would be sin. In Ephesians 1.4 it says, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the intentions of his will. So since God planned the work of salvation before the foundation of the earth or the worlds, then he knew or ordained sin. But without sinning himself, he did not sin in order to know about or ordain sin. He works all things to the counsel of his will. Satan sinned, as I said, then Eve and then Adam. This evil came into the world through these means. But God is not to be blamed, but he somehow ordained it. The Armenians believed that God didn't want sin to come into the world, but somehow it just crept in. And so we had to make a corrective action through Jesus Christ. Well, this is wrong thinking. He knew about it in advance. He knew it was going to happen. He already had a solution for it. And that solution being our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But another question is, well, if God knew about sin and he ordained it, did sin exist in eternity past? No, sin did not exist in eternity past. To allow for that kind of thinking would mean that sin now and always existed in heaven. and that God had no control over it. But we know that to be wrong. He does have control over sin. That's why he ordained that Christ would come and die for the sins that he knew we were going to commit through our own choice. He foreknew our choice and made a solution for our sins. So having made these important footnotes, I wanted to begin our lesson today that We have the doctrine of fallen man, and then we'll look at three and four as the weeks progress. So we have introduction. When we consider fallen man, we are referring to the origin of sin in our first parents, Adam and Eve, and to the consequences that this event brought upon the entire human race. We assume that the literal history of the account of Genesis 3 is correct, and that in today's class we'll consider the headings of the first 24 verses of Genesis 3 without reading through them in particular because of time. We'll see the fall of man and the woman in our first section, Genesis 3, 1 through 13, and then we'll see curses and promises as a result of this fall, and then man's removal from Eden after the fall. So first of all, the fall of man and the woman in chapter three, verses one through 13, and it was relating to the serpent. The occasion and the nature of this is in the beginning verses of Genesis 3, the serpent appears as more crafty than all the animals of the field. The other portions of scripture tell us that we know this was the case, because it was Satan who took possession of this animal to tempt Eve. And we see accounts of that in 2 Corinthians 11.3, Revelations 12.9 and 20.2. Satan is that serpent of old, the devil. The serpent wanted for Adam and Eve to eat of the tree that God had forbidden them to eat. The tree of knowledge, the tree of good and evil, in which God had said, if they ate, that they would die. He said that in Genesis 2, 9. He told that to Adam. The tree had the purpose to test man's obedience. So why was Eve the one tempted and not Adam? Good question. We're not told the answer to that, but it's probable that Eve was more susceptible to fall than Adam. And that appears to be the argument that Paul gives in 1 Timothy 2. Or maybe because Eve did not receive God's direct order, which would make her more prone to disobey, But we're not sure of the real reasons. An example of that could be that, let's say, I go to the President of the United States and he tells me, C.K., I don't want those people at Cornerstone Bible Church to worship after 12 p.m. on Sundays. And that's a ludicrous kind of statement, of course, but then I say, whoa, this guy's really bad because he's pounding on the table and he's doing all kinds of gestures with his hands. And I come and I say to you, well, the president didn't want us to meet after 12 on Sundays. Well, you don't take me as seriously as you take, as I took the president because you weren't there when I took it. So you might not believe me when I tell you that because you weren't there. So perhaps that's what happened with Eve, I don't know. But Eve was created after God gave the instructions to Adam. So the serpent first exaggerated in chapter 3, verse 1, the divine order. And so the woman did correct that exaggeration in verse 2 and 3. And we see that Eve exaggerated the divine order But I think that she was just trying to explain it to the serpent and apply it as a directive from Adam. Otherwise, we'd have to conclude that Eve sinned at that moment. and that is not what happened until after she lusted and ate from the tree. The serpent openly lied. He was mixing the truth. That's what happens with a lot of good lies, is they have a little bit of truth and a little bit of reality. A lot of cult churches are that way. They add a little bit of God's Word with a lot of untruth. that she was encouraging the woman to eat of that tree. So the woman then looked at the tree, lusted after it, and willingly ate of the fruit. Now, we don't know what kind of fruit it was, as we're all aware, but it was some kind of fruit. Regardless of what it was, God said, don't eat of this tree. So then somehow the text doesn't explain, but she enticed Adam to eat the forbidden fruit. Maybe she fixed a really good apple pie. I don't know. But she enticed Adam to eat that fruit. Now husbands, you know what it's like. Your wife prepares dinner usually. And she brings it, puts it in front of you, you eat it. I'm not making excuses for Adam. But somehow she enticed Adam to eat that fruit. So why did they do this? It was stupid and irrational to go against God's word and command and his decree regarding this tree. How can disobeying God be anything that you could gain from? But they did it. Proverbs 10.23 says that wickedness is like a sport to the fool. And they were certainly being foolish when they partook of this fruit together. The immediate effects of the fall in verses 7 through 13 is that their nature became corrupted by sin. This reflected in the sense of shame they drew from realizing that they were naked. and they were naked to themselves and they were naked in front of God. So, linked to their above spiritual death, their spiritual death took place, that is, separation occurred between man from them and God. I'm reminded of the example that Edwin gave last week, if you recall, last Sunday, that he went over to the light switch and turned it off, and then he turned it back on, remember that? You don't remember that, okay. Well, he did that. To give an example of the illumination that happens when the Holy Spirit comes into your life, that light switch gets turned on. We all have it inside of us. But the light switch gets turned on and then we start seeing things differently. Everything has a new meaning. We are a new creature. Everything has a new... We have a new attitude towards everything else. Well, we had that same kind of light switch for sin in us. We had the ability to understand what sin was. And Satan came to Eve and Adam and turned on that light switch of sin. So we have this separation that created because now they knew good from evil as Satan had tempted Eve with. So, linked to the above, they had the spiritual death, they had a physical death as well. Our bodies now are going to go through corruption and decay. As a result of this corruption, found in their nature, they did not admit their respective guilt and responsibility before God. So with this blame shifting, oh, she made me do it. Remember Adam said to God, well, she made me do it. She made me eat of that tree. Well, the interesting thing is that, and we'll see in a few minutes, is that Eve, while she tempted Adam, Adam knew God's word because he had received it directly. And so he chose to sin against God. But he was trying to blame shift to the woman. Look at the woman, she made me do it. So the curses in the next section, curses and promises have to the fall. Any questions on the first section? Mike. Just the fact that as I read it, it appears that Adam was right there. I mean, it's not like Adam came along later or Eve would bring him an apple later or whatever. It appears from the text that Adam was right there because, you know, she ate and took the fruit and ate it, and she also gave it to her husband. It's not like later on he came or she brought it to him. So the point was, he was there and he apparently did nothing to stop her. Yes, you're right, Satan is tempting Eve, and I guess Adam was oblivious to the conversation going on between those two. but he doesn't try to stop her, he doesn't try to stop her from picking it in the first place. Well, that's an interesting comment. We don't know the amount of time between when she took and when she gave that forbidden fruit, because you notice there's a semicolon there, maybe in your copy. We don't know what that period of time was between the two. And I was reading that, I was thinking to myself, well, where was Adam during all of this? Well, I wasn't there to protect his wife, because he knew God's decree. So I chose to believe that Adam wouldn't let her do that if he was there, because he knew. Well, it's the grammarians who tell you. I mean, Jason knows better as far as whether it's in perfect tense or whatever. It looked like it was pretty rapid, but I just don't know the time between the two. Carl? Well, what I got out of it is that, okay, Eve, as the father said, Eve was deceived. Adam was not deceived because he knows better, right? So, he voluntarily sinned, but he didn't want that to happen. Maybe he told Eve, or maybe God told both of them, Right. He chose to disobey. Right. That's right. Adam chose, and he was deceived, but Adam chose. Chris. That's right. I guess it depends on your copy, that's right. So, right. So Adam, you're right. You have an NAS? ESV? He was with her is right. That's right. The language could go either way. The language could go either way. It could set up a scenario that Adam's there watching, hearing the serpent, not. It also could be that she went and took it to him, look what I found. I was told this. And he said, oh, and he took it and ate. I don't know. Not until he ate were their eyes opened. She ate and then he ate, but their eyes were opened after he took the forbidden fruit. Right. So the serpent cursed and redeemed the promise is our next point under section two. And the scripture reads, and the Lord God said to the serpent, first of all, the punishment towards the serpent, because you have done this. Cursed are you more than all the cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel." The serpent who contributed in the fall of man received the first curse as a sign of God's disgust towards sin. It was not in God's plan to execute immediate judgment upon Satan, but the curse to the serpent was precursory to what eventually would fall upon the devil. Verse 15 has been called the proto-evangel, that is the first proclamation of the gospel ever made. There would be enmity between the serpent and the woman because of the serpent's seed. And the serpent seed represented all those who would belong to the fallen world. And the woman seed is all those who would be rescued from the world from that moment on. God had established their enmity. He created this tension between good and evil. We also see here that the first redemptive promise in which Christ, the head of the woman's redeemed seed, would be wounded in the heel, which happened when he died on the cross. But at that time, the serpent's head was crushed as well. It is likely that Adam and Eve understood very little of this redemption promise at the time, and we can understand it more clearly under the complete revelation of Scripture. But the curse to the woman is the next thing in verse 16. To the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you shall bring forth children. Yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." The multiplication of birth pangs does not mean that it doesn't need to be proven to anybody here, especially for those who are mothers. But this curse includes the dangers of pregnancy, which may also risk a woman's life. The phrase, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you, has been the object of diverse explanations from commentators. Some take it as a woman feeling a strong desire towards her husband. But this strong desire, some relate to the woman's sexual desire, but it could be a wider concept which includes the necessity a woman has for more love, attention, appreciation, time, etc., but that her husband would act in an authoritative but insensible way towards her. Somebody has written that the consequences of sin in the woman is directly tied to her role as mother and wife. The development and realization of maternity will take place with pain and suffering. As a woman, she will desire a husband who will have control over her." And the quote is unknown. Others understand this phrase to mean that the woman will have her will governed to the will of her husband, who will not act with wisdom, tenderness, and kindness, but in a rigorous and strict way. Whatever these desires are, it's clear that the authoritarian, rough, and insensible will of a man will be imposed over the woman in a very general way. Jose. Not that I'm very knowledgeable of anything, but for me, I've always understood that verse to infer Just speaking, you know, because of how sin has affected women and that they would have a desire to operate outside of the role that God has designed for them, meaning as a wife being submissive to her husband, that there is now a natural, simple vent against what would have come naturally before the fall of submitting to her husband. Having that natural inclination, now she wants to rebel in that respect, and I always understood God saying, look, your desire is going to be what I made your husband to be over you, but no, but you need to submit to him. And God kind of, you know, pointing that out at that point was, at least for me, that's what I always understood that to mean. Well, we'll see that later on as we go in systematic theology. We'll see the answer to that in when we get into the husband and wife's roles. But right here, we're talking primarily about because sin has entered with Adam. Everything was perfect, and he was a perfect husband. But now sin's entered the world, and he's not going to treat her the way he ought to treat her, even though she has to submit to his authority and to his will, as God ordained it to be. You understand where we're at right now? It's because of sin, is what we're trying to point out, that this insensibility was going to happen to the woman. Yes? I think another very common explanation for that desire being for her husband would be the same way when God spoke to Cain and told him that sin's desire is for him, basically against him. And you see a switch in the roles that a husband and a wife plays where the wife, her desire, basically she goes against her husband, trying to put him in this authoritative role, but he shall rule over her. Preparing it to be what God said about sin being the king's kingdom. Or if sin's desire is for him. That's right. Yeah, it does. Thank you. So we have this understanding that sin brought about discontent in the male-female relationship of the family. And the family was the man and the woman. Children are a blessing that are added to a family. But in this particular case, it's the way that the man responds to the woman because she has to fulfill this duty, this God-given desire to submit to her husband. So, before the fall, as I said, she gladly submitted to her husband, who exercised his leadership and love and wisdom, but now that she acted behind his back, so to speak, and independently from him, her submission now is tied to a curse because of sin. There would be a role distortion in society because of her sin. We've seen that confirmed through a history in the way women have been treated by men. And the gospel calls for us to change that warped image though. With that new light switch, we have this progressive renewal, this transformation, this renewing of our mind that helps us to change that attitude that happened when the light switch of darkness came into the world. And now we are to make that progressive change, to restore it to the way it was intended to be in the beginning when everything was perfect. So voluntary submission and wise leadership in the context of a concerted work given that both men and women share the same honor in creation, and their difference is only related to their positional relationship and roles in marriage. They're both creating God's image. Man's curse, verses 17 through 19, then to Adam he said, now it's Adam's turn, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you shall eat of it. All the days of your life, both thorns and thistles, it'll grow for you. And you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. God didn't say here that he told Eve about not eating the fruit, all right? So we have to admit that Adam must have been the one that told her what God's decree was concerning this tree. For man, work was delightful at the beginning, but it would become a very heavy burden because of the curse brought upon the earth. as a result of this sin. Even though this particular curse was primarily addressed to the man, it also applies to the woman in her work. God's going to still bless the ground. He's still going to bless our labor. He's always promised that because of your hard labor that you're going to get the return of your labor. But now it's not a joy to do it. It's a curse because now you have to do it. You know the difference? When you have to do something, it's the same as if you want to do something. But in this particular case, because of this curse, this is going to happen, that now it's going to have a different attitude from falling to the ground. For man, we have a quote from Hokema, who comments regarding this, does not mean that Of course, if the work in itself is a curse, work is a blessing in and of itself, as it was given to a man in the garden before the fall. But because of sin, work will become laborious and tedious. And we have a note reference there in I believe that's Gruden's reference here, created in God's image. MacArthur commented in his commentary that this curse of work and death was because man turned his back on the voice of God to follow his wife in eating that which God had ordained him to abstain from. The woman sinned and she acted independently of her husband, disdaining his leadership, his counsel, and protection. The man sinned because he abandoned his leadership and followed the wishes of his wife. In both cases, as you mentioned a minute ago, God's intended roles for the man and the woman were reversed. Carl? Yeah, the curse put him on his belly so That's right. You could visualize the serpent, whatever that was, being upright. I don't know. It didn't call it a snake, did it? It called it a serpent. So who knows? So this sin brought about the spiritual and physical death, as well as the decay of our bodies. So even though the passage of scripture does not affirm this very plainly, it can be said, as corroborated with other texts in the Bible, that another result of the curse to the earth is the fact that we have earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural so-called calamities. Calvin articulates that in a commentary that says, every order within nature was thwarted because of man's sin. And that's from his Genesis commentary. Whoops. What did I do? What did I do? I did something. Okay. Okay. The earth was disastrous. And so we have the exit of man from the garden through after the fall in section three. Was there any more comments about section two? Okay. The exit of man from the garden after the fall in Genesis 21 through 24 reads, and the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us. Is that the first or second reference to the Godhead? Anybody know? That's the second. Right. So he's going to become like one of us, knowing good and evil. And now, lest he stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the God Lord, Lord God, send him out of the garden, from the garden of Eden. to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So he drove the man out, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he stationed the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the Tree of Life. So we have the exit from the garden after the fall, and we find that, first of all, the Lord had covered the man's body with better quality, quantity and quality, by dressing them with animal skins. It's more likely that within the counsel of the Trinity of God, it's been said that, behold, now man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. But when the text says that man has become like God, it is implied in a sense, the text describes it, knowing good and evil. The difference is that the knowledge of evil in men came by experiential acquaintance. as they committed evil. Psalm 51.5 reads, being brought forth in iniquity, children grow and gain about good and evil. It is experiential. We are not like the Godhead in that we are not omniscient. We are the created. We are the clay. He is the potter. We have a beginning and we have an end. And we are dependent upon God for everything that's good. So this text relates to being like us in a very different but a limited way and knowing good and evil. So God intends for us to know good and evil, but not by experience with this evil, but by doing what is right and forsaking what he calls evil. In other words, knowing evil theoretically and not experientially as God does as well. It is one thing to know that it is good to be free from drugs than being a drug addict. It's better to know this by an abstraction or by observation rather than to know it by experience. When we read in the text the dangers under which the man lied, If he continued eating from the Tree of Life, having sinned, he would live forever in a state of misery and separation from God, and God wanted to prevent him from doing such a thing. That's why the commentators say that he was run out of the Garden of Eden. Can you imagine being a sinner and having all those good things and living forever? It would be just a heavy burden. Finally, Adam and Eve were permanently cast away. They were thrown out of the Garden of Eden, and this is more likely the result of their having lost their privilege and enjoying a garden that God had prepared for them in their state of innocence. From this point on, man would have to interact with an earth that was cursed by this sin. At the same time, It's probable that this was more convenient to prevent man from reaching the tree of life if this tree was going to remain in Eden. We're not told when the Garden of Eden was removed from Earth, so it's not important to speculate about if it still exists today. But this act is viewed by some commentators as being an act of mercy by God, by removing them from this garden. He had pity on them, not wanting them to have the possibility of living forever with sin. So our conclusion, any question on that section? Yes. That's true. The garden would have been wiped out probably during the flood. Well, for certain, it would have been wiped out. But knowing where it is is not an important issue anymore. It's an interesting issue, but it's not an important issue. So in conclusion, in the last few minutes that we have here, because we didn't sing, we finished early today, but next time when we meet, then we'll consider Adam's sin and how it was transmitted to the entire human race. But there are three things that we can learn from the lesson today. Satan's ploy to tempt our first parents what he did so that we may avoid similar pitfalls. The ever-present consequences of sin that we have and how in spite of the curse of sin, God showed mercy by hindering man from living in that condition forever if he had access to the tree of life. He promised a Savior in order to restore man to that blessing of fellowship that they have with Him, with God. So through Christ Jesus, we are restoring that fellowship in Jesus Christ. Yes, Carl. I'm thinking about the live forever in sin. Before they end up, before they disobey God, Well, the tree was put there as a test. We have to look at it as a test of God towards man's will, knowing that since before the beginning of our creation, he had a plan in place. He knew what man was going to do, but it was put there as a test. And so the tree was called the Tree of Knowledge or the Tree of Life. And so man was designed, created to live forever, a perfect body and a perfect environment. Before the flood, we can imagine that the ozone layer was covered with a heavy moisture barrier, that the sun's rays weren't touching our skin and causing us to get cancer and such like that. And then after the flood, all that went away because of sin. But the man's life dramatically decreased in a number of years. But the garden was intended Adam and Eve were created with the intent that they would multiply and live forever, but sin and the curse, as a result of that sin, caused them to decay and die, both spiritually and physically. So the tree of life, was in the garden, and if they ate of it, it was a gift, it was a promise, it was a real thing, that if they ate from that, that they would live. So, it's a strange dichotomy. It's like putting candy in front of a baby and say, don't eat that, don't touch. The desire is if that baby has a taste for sugar, they're gonna want to do that. But if they eat it, they're gonna be pleased with it, but yet there's a consequence, because they disobeyed. Does that make sense? Any other questions that Jason can answer? Was the tree of life and the tree of knowledge a good and evil, two separate trees? Right? Okay, that makes sense. Did anybody hear that question? Were the tree of life and the tree of good and evil two separate trees? And the answer is yes. Satan was the one that introduced it, but man made the choice. Satan sinned first, but man made a free will choice. God created us with the ability to make decisions. And the tree was there as a test, and Satan used that tree to test man through Eve first, and Satan had his way. That was always Satan's intent, to separate us from God. The next thing I'm thinking about is, do you think maybe Satan knows the plan of God, the plan of redemption? It seemed like he was trying to stop what God was going to do for mankind, you know, after man sinned. Because after that, all Satan is trying to do is get rid of Christ, because there's no Christ, there's no Jesus. I don't know if I can answer that right this minute, but I can tell you this, that it was always Satan's plan to separate man from God. And so this was part of his plan to separate us from that love and that relationship that we have with God. Now, whether he foreknew, I don't think so. But I can't speak factually without looking into it a little more deeply. What do you think? Well, he obviously only knows what's revealed to him. The angels marvel at salvation. We know that in the New Testament, they marveled at God's grace, even to this day, unbelievers coming to know Christ. So they do seem to have a lack of understanding. And even at my New Testament time, that the angels still have a lack of understanding of these things. You would think at the beginning here, certainly they would see. just logically putting those pieces together, it would seem that Satan had a lack of knowledge. He certainly seems to be executing on a plan. His goal, according to scripture, is not to elevate God's grace and focus on the Lord. So the fact that what he did led to those things, it would seem to indicate he doesn't know. Obviously, he only knows what's revealed to him. Even today, the angels rejoice when a new child of God is revealed. They don't know who they are, but the reality here is that it was Satan's intent to separate man from God in that perfect relationship. And so that was his, that's always been his evil motive, to separate men from God. Yes. Right. Right. Yes, sir. next five minutes. I'm asking some people, I don't know, is there a scriptural reference that we could point to to clearly say that Adam and Eve were redeemed? I can't think of somewhere that says by faith Adam was restored to the fellowship of God. I don't know where I could point to that. Yeah. But the implication, we're not talking that it's not even 11, let's go back, it adds a day for anything. But the implication, Genesis 3.15, this is God promising restoration. The implication could be, I'm not dogmatically coming down, but you certainly could look at the implication there. It doesn't seem that God is saying, you're being destined to hell in your seed. is going to provide a way to salvation and those who suffer from it would be saved. That would be about the best part, right? I have a question. Well, in regards to the conversation that was happening, I want to make sure I understand. The question he asked was whether or not Adam scripture that you can point to that would say that Adam and Eve were restored by faith, by grace and faith? And this is again a question kind of, I was under the impression from scripture that they were based on the fact that the Lord did the first animal sacrifice and covered them. The Bible says that basically our sins are covered by blood and if you look at what he did to clothe them, he killed animals And that's something I read from MacArthur, where he did the first blood sacrifice and obviously clothed them in that. And later on you see how Eve remains with the faith, even after her son Cain does what he does, she remains with the faith of the promise the Lord has given her, which would not be a fruit of someone There was the initial promise made concerning, even in the curse, about the enmity between the woman and her seed, you know, about being bruised on the heel. That was all pointing towards Christ, because that was part of God's plan. But whether or not they understood it, I don't know. But I don't think we have a specific reference that I can recall, even in Hebrews about the fathers of faith, that Adam and Eve were specifically said that they would be saved. you know, those things belong to God and He's going to do what He wants to do. Those were His first children and they were, while they were His children, His created beings, and they fell into sin just like we do today, even as Christians, we have sin, that we have to believe that He did, He had did and will always do the right thing regarding this question. The thing about Scripture is the fact that at any given point in time, Mankind is held accountable by the faith that's been drilled up to that point, and the knowledge available to them, and the world around them to believe in God. At that point, Adam and Eve, there was very little history going. And, you know, I can believe in the implication. I think that was quite fair and right. So, you know, I can accept that. But I'm just saying I can't find a passage that says Adam and Eve were restored by faith to a relationship with God. I can't. But their salvation would have been in the trust of Genesis 3. That's right. Yeah. I mean, it's not Christ's sacrifice. It's those who believe in that promise and that trust. Everyone hopes this time their salvation is based on their belief. in the Messiah, in Christ, looking forward to Christ, looking back at Christ, looking at Christ. On further thought, Genesis 5, which is the line of Seth. I don't know if you guys remember when Edwin went over Genesis 6 and he presented what I think is, in Genesis 6, you have the line of Seth versus the undaunted line, right? We have two different chains here. You almost see a chain of sin in one, and you see a chain of Righteousness, those who follow God, in the other one, in Genesis 5, is a line of Seth. Adam is mentioned there, and Seth coming directly from him. So, you know, in Genesis 5, you almost have to say, like, Adam's the only one. who are dating, and it seems to be, even in the way they, you know, if you even look at, like, Seth, and some of the way they meet their children, it seems to be that Adam and Eve did accept what God said in Genesis 3. They accepted the restoration of the Old Testament. Well, they accepted God's promise, and as long as they believe God's promise, they can say it. That is the restoration of the Old Testament. As we talk, going back to what you said about the line of Seth, what Seth was, you said, God has appointed an offspring in place of Abel. So it looked like she was placing her faith in that promise of God to have her offspring to restore. And the study of some of those names implied some of that, actually, as they named their children. And after that, men began to call upon the name of the Lord. And it just looked like God taught. I mean, Adam and Eve taught their children sex, right? In absence of scriptural confirmation, it's all conjecture. But we have to understand Deuteronomy 29, 29. Those things belong to God. He knows and He does the right thing. He's good. Yeah. If everyone's watching, I made an hour. Well, thank you for being attentive, and we need to pray now as we disperse and go have some coffee with one another and ask the Lord to bless the next hour. Mike, would you do that for us? Father, we are saved by grace and faith, and Father, we may not fully comprehend your ways, but Father, we know that we can trust in your ways. yield to your plan, yield to your purpose, learn from you, and trust you. I would like to thank the leaders of CK this morning and the contributions of those that shared their thoughts and opinions, other than maybe Godly thoughts and opinions, only seeking to know me better, and to serve you better, and to understand you better, so we can share those others. Thank you for your messages.