I invite you now to turn to our Old Testament reading, that's Genesis chapter 3. I'll read verses one through 15. If you remember last week, we spent time reflecting on just how Adam failed in his task and his test to rule and protect the garden temple of God from evil. He failed as God's prophet, priest, and king. We'll read verses one through 15. We'll focus on seven through 13. And as we do, we'll reflect on the consequences of Adam's failure and rebellion as he plunged himself and all of humanity into sin and misery. This is the Word of God, Genesis chapter 3, starting at verse 1. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 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. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. And the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made for themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves in the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me And I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. I invite you now to turn to the New Testament, to Ephesians chapter two. You can find this on page 976 of your Pew Bible. I'm gonna read verses one through 10, and in this passage, we see the results of Adam's sin, and we read of God's amazing saving grace to all those who belong to Christ. So Ephesians chapter two, starting at verse one, And you are dead in the trespass and sins in which you once walked, following in the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work, and the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. but gone, being rich in mercy, because of the great love which he has loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Praise God for his holy word and for the gospel, the hope of the gospel. Let's pray once more. Lord God, we do thank you for this gospel of grace, this message of hope, and that having heard it read, and now as we reflect on this, as we hear the word of God preached, we ask that as we learn more, that we would love you more. Send us your spirit to help us understand your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, as we continue to go through Genesis, we do want to keep the situation, the life situation, the redemptive situation of the first hearers in mind and before us. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Moses wrote this book. This first audience was for those who had been delivered from misery and slavery in Egypt by the Lord God's almighty power. And when the Lord brought Israel out of the land of Egypt, He didn't send them out empty-handed. He also sent them out rich with many blessings as they plundered the Egyptians. However, riches is not the only thing that Israel brought with them from Egypt. They also brought with them the sin and misery of Adam, and they brought with them their own indwelling sin. And in Genesis chapter three, we see this evil that enslaves all of humanity. See, the people in the wilderness needed to understand, as do we, that they needed deliverance and rescue from an even greater evil than Pharaoh. And as we see Adam sin and fall, it becomes clear to us that the Lord's victory over Pharaoh is a preview, it's a picture of a greater victory over a more powerful enemy, and that enemy is sin and death. This passage teaches the people of God that they still need a greater victory as all are sinners by birth and by choice in Adam, and as a result are subject to death, to wrath, and to condemnation. So this passage points God's people in the wilderness, pilgrims on the way, which also describes us, to look to the work of the Savior to deliver us from sin and death. And as New Testament believers, we see this clearly. We see this in the person and work of our Lord Jesus. And in order for us to fully appreciate the heights and depths of our Lord's almighty power to save, of His great love for us, we must also understand just how far we fell in Adam. We must understand just how guilty and polluted we are in Adam. We need to see what was lost that day. We need to clearly understand what we need saving from. And as we see the depths of our own sin, we see the depths of our sin and misery in Adam, then we will rejoice all the more for the work of Christ for us and His continued work in us. Christ, the second Adam, has removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west through His suffering and death. He's destroyed the works of the evil one and death itself through His resurrection, and He continues to remove the effects of the fall and the curse as far as the curse is found in our hearts and in our lives. So as we look at our passage this morning, focus on verses 7 through 13. We'll see the guilt, pollution, and consequence of Adam's sin that spreads to all humanity as all are born in Adam. And we'll see God's grace and mercy, even in the midst of terrible sin. Our three points. First point is guilt. Second point is pollution. Third point is gospel, grace, and mercy. So in point one we see a shame and guilt in paradise. Eve has eaten the fruit and given some to Adam. He ate and immediately we see that their relationship with each other and their relationship with the Lord has changed. And first they experience bitter shame. We see that in verse seven. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. So Satan did promise to them that their eyes would be opened, and they were opened, and for the first time they saw something new, but at the same time it wasn't new. Before the fall, Adam and Eve were naked, but they were not ashamed. They didn't even think about the fact that they didn't have clothing. But now, their eyes are opened as they have actually become evil. They are embarrassed and ashamed of their bodies, and they feel the need to cover themselves and to hide parts of themselves from one another. And they take the beautiful plants of the garden and make this feeble attempt to try to use God's good gifts which were for their benefit, and they try to use these good gifts to cover their shame. From the beginning we see, and now we understand why all of humanity tries to hide their sin and shame. We see it in the garden. Think about it. In general, when you sin, or when anyone sins, Is your first thought to say, oh boy, I better get this out in the open and confess it. I don't want to hide this. I want to seek forgiveness. Oh, we want to, we're embarrassed. We're ashamed. We want sin to stay hidden. We want it to stay a secret. We're embarrassed. We don't want other people to find out. Well, all of humanity, except for those with the most evil and calloused hearts, experience shame and do not want others to find out their sin. And sometimes the leaves, so to speak, that we use to hide our sin look different. There are things more like secrets. Lies, using various excuses, blaming someone else, or even trying to cover our own sin and shame by just, well, I'm gonna do more good works, I'm gonna start going to church to just make up for what I did. None of these things work. None of these things can cover our shame. You might be able to hide your sin for a little while from the world or perhaps from someone you've sinned against, but we can hide nothing from the Lord. So if you're hiding a sin right now, you'll see. It's far better to confess and come clean now and experience God's forgiveness than to try to hide it until it can't be hidden anymore and will be revealed on the day of judgment. So the first thing that Adam and Eve experience, and now we understand why we experience this, is shame. The second thing Adam and Eve experience is guilt and fear in the presence of God. In verse eight, we read, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. So they heard the Lord God coming, whether that was His footsteps or His voice or perhaps He's whistling a song, I don't know. But they hear the Lord God coming and now instead of being filled with anticipation, here comes the Lord. We get to spend time with Him instead of being filled with joy and looking forward to that time of fellowship. Now they're afraid. and they need to hide. They try to flee from the presence of God. Why? Because they know that they are guilty of breaking God's commandment. God said, you shall not eat and in that day you shall surely die. They know that they ate. They are guilty. And now instead of enjoying fellowship with God in the paradise of Eden, the garden has now become a courtroom. and the fear of a sentence of death is what is coming. The sound of joy had been replaced with the sound of judgment. They were guilty and they knew it. Their relationship with one another was changed and now their relationship with God is changed. And in the next few verses, we're going to see how quickly sin takes hold and what this change looks like in Adam and Eve's relationship with God and one another. Because after eating the fruit, they're not only guilty, but they're instantly polluted and evil. It's not even a gradual ramp up. It's instant as they have aligned themselves with their new father, the devil. They have aligned themselves with the serpent and now they are liars and murderers just like him. In verse 9, the Lord seeks out Adam first as the one who's responsible as God's prophet, priest, and king of the garden. Adam had some explaining to do. Verse 9, but the Lord God called to man and said to him, where are you? Well, we know very well that God is omniscient, that he knows all things. He knows what has happened and he knows exactly where Adam is hiding. This is like a toddler playing that game of hide and seek. They cover their own eyes and they think that you can't see them because they can't see you. It's a fun game with lots of giggles. But a fun game is not what we have here. The Lord engages Adam, but he does this, he knows all things, he does this for Adam's benefit. Because even now, by speaking to Adam, by looking for him, God is demonstrating amazing patience and grace. And he seeks to engage Adam because he is not done with him. The Lord God will still accomplish his purpose of making a people for himself, even in spite of Adam's sin. And can't we praise God that He does not let our own sin and our own weaknesses stop Him from His good work and His purposes for us? For the Word of God tells us, when we are faithless, God is faithful. When verses 10 through 12, we read more of God's conversation with the man he has made and entrusted with the task of guarding the garden temple from evil. And we can only imagine how Adam's words came out, or how much stuttering there was, or how quiet he was, or how he quaked in fear as he replied. But he replies in verse 10. I heard the sound of you in the garden, And I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself." Well, it seems that after answering God's question there, he stops talking. He could have said more. He could have immediately followed this confession, so to speak, by asking the Lord to forgive him his sins, to have mercy. He could have come clean, admitting that he failed. but instead we know that he tries to hide his sin and blame Eve and even the Lord for his sin. The Lord responds to Adam in verse 11. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat? Again, God knows what he's done. He knows that he's eaten of the tree, but he's requiring Adam to give an account So we can all see where Adam's heart is, and so even Adam, when he hears it out loud, can hear where his heart is. And then in verse 12, we read some of the saddest and most wicked things that man has ever uttered in the entire Bible. Verse 12, this is what Adam said. The woman whom you gave to be with me She gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. It was only a few verses ago that Adam uttered his first love poem when he saw Eve and it was love at first sight. And he said, this is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. But now instead, Adam says something like this. That woman, Lord, that you gave me to be with, she gave me the fruit and I ate. You gave her to me. This is your fault, Lord. You are the author of evil. You are the author of sin. You are the reason that I am unfaithful and gave in to temptation. This is not my fault. This is your fault. And while I'm talking about who's responsible here, this is also her fault. If anyone should pay for the sin, it should be her. If anyone should surely die, it should be this woman. Adam is already so far polluted. He's so far gone. He's so evil. He blames the Lord for his sin. And he says, punish her, not me. Think about what he's saying, whether he realized it or not. And I think he realized it. Let that penalty of death be on her. Kill her, not me. One writer comments on this evil and pollution saying, here we see the roots of masculine domestic abuse when men try to avoid their own shame and guilt by verbally or physically attacking their wives. Now in a few more verses, we're gonna talk about what the fall has done to the marriage relationship. But here we see the roots of abuse and that the roots of abuse, I'm just going to say this now, I'll come back to it. The roots of abuse, for those of you that understand what I'm laying down here, are not a product of a biblical complementarianism when it comes to the roles of man and woman. Those are not the roots of abuse. The roots of abuse are Adam's sin. And we'll see what this looks like even more when we get to the consequences in a week or two. But for now, we see the man seeks to shift blame and accuses his beloved bride of evil. There's no signs of godly grief and repentance here. The honeymoon is over and horror has taken over in the garden. And in verse 13, it's Eve's turn to give account of her actions. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate." Eve is quick to blame the serpent. She doesn't take responsibility for her own sin. She also doesn't seem to blame Adam. And partially she's correct to blame the serpent and she certainly could have brought charges against Adam. But both Adam and Eve see themselves as victims, blaming and attacking God, a spouse, and the devil. And the result of this evil is sin, misery, and death for Adam and for all of his children. The Westminster Shorter Catechism summarizes this in questions 16 through 19. I'm going to read those. If you want to read along, you can find these in the back of the Maroon Hymnal. on page 969. So we get a summary of the consequences. Here's the evil. Here's what happened as a result of Adam's sin in the garden. Question 16, did all mankind fall in Adam's transgression? Answer, the covenant being made with Adam not only for himself but for his posterity. All mankind descending from him by ordinary generation sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression. 17, into what a state did the fall bring mankind? The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery. 18, wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell? Answer, the sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want, which means lack, of original righteousness and the corruption of his whole nature which is commonly called original sin, together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. Question 19, what is the misery of that estate wherein to man fell? Answer, all mankind, by their fall, lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever. So as a result of Adam's sin, Adam and his posterity, that's all his children, all the people that came after him, sinned and fell with him. Adam brought sin and misery to man and now man's nature is totally depraved. It's corrupted by birth and by choice. And communion with God has been broken and it's been lost as man is now under the wrath and curse of God. And now instead of a blessed new creation as Adam's future home, his future home is hell. So where does this leave us? Well, every single human being is descended from Adam and shares Adam's DNA. As a result, all are born under the curse and wrath of God. And before someone says, that's not fair. I wasn't there. I would have done better than Adam. No, you wouldn't have. And now what you do is you just make it worse. You're a sinner in Adam by birth and by choice. Now what you do is make your condemnation more sure as you're adding your own sins to the sin of Adam. See, every human being is a sinner by birth and by choice, and as a result, all are spiritually dead and prone to all kinds of evil in thought and word and deed. This is the consequence of Adam's fall. Paul explains this in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 3, we hear of the consequences of Adam's fall. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Now this, for Christians, this is who you were. But if Jesus is not your Savior and your Lord, this is who you still are, in Adam. This means that you're dead, spiritually dead, you're dead in your sins, and that you walk in sin, that you follow the lead of the evil one. You're in Adam, you're a son of disobedience, you're a child of wrath. I pray that all of us here see this is what we need to be saved from. And it's only by seeing our great need then, that will look to a Savior. So if you see this, if you see that you're a sinner by birth and choice, there is good news. God did not leave Adam in his sin and misery, and if you trust in the Savior, He doesn't leave you there either. The very first promise of rescue and victory comes to us in just a few short verses. First promise of salvation in the Bible. When I ask you that where that is, everyone, I would like you to be able to say Genesis 3.15, first promise of God's grace. As God pronounces judgment on the serpent. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. This promise points us to God's mercy and grace made known to us through the work of Jesus Christ. Paul's talking about this mercy and grace and the fulfillment of this promise in Ephesians 2.4, when he says, but God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. See, God makes a way of rescue and escape for those who are dead in Adam. He sent his son, Jesus Christ, to pay for our sins, not because we deserved saving, but because God is full of mercy and grace. He loves those who are his, and he will not let any of his children see ultimate corruption. This free gift of saving grace is offered to all who see their need of rescue. If you're still trying to hide from the Lord, if you're still trying to pay for your own sin, you cannot. Instead, call out for Christ. Seek his forgiveness and today you will have it. And now for all of us who have already done this, we praise God for the forgiveness of sins that Christ has secured for us. And because we see just how evil we were in Adam, we see that we were dead, a liar, a murderer, and worse in Adam. And then we think of all of our own piles and piles of sin. And we think of Adam's corruption. And then we take our sin and we put them together. And then we think of everyone else's sin and all the wrath deserved for these sins. And all of this is put upon Jesus Christ as he suffered and died on the cross, shedding his blood. What a putrid and wretched mess that this is, a pile of sins. It's hard for us to imagine any illustrations that we have are going to fall far short of just the great evil and pollution that our Lord Jesus took upon himself. One biblical illustration I think of is in Joshua. before Israel can enter the land. It's been a generation and none of them have been circumcised. They have not received the sign of the covenant, so they must be circumcised before they can begin the conquest. So an entire nation of, you can count it up, I don't know, a million soldiers, more, I don't know, a lot, are circumcised and they take their foreskins and put them in a pile. And what it really says there is that there's a mountain of foreskins. It's one of the few times that my sermon notes and asking the kids to draw a picture backfired a little bit. I mean, I liked those pictures. But we think, and I don't wanna dwell on it too long, but that's a symbol of just not a sign of the covenant, but a removal of sin and filth. And we can imagine how Just disgusting, that pile of human skin. And I won't go into more details, we know what that is. Well, that's just a small picture of the filth that Christ took upon himself. Some of us like Les Mis, they like Jean Valjean, I love that character. Think of him carrying Marius through the sewers under the streets. That's another picture of what Christ waded through for us. When we see this passage and we see the depths of Adam's sin, we see Christ's almighty power and we see the depths of his love for us. And as we see this, our hearts are filled with unspeakable joy and gratitude for the work of our Savior. We deserve death. We were dead. Christ took our sins upon himself and gives us the gift of life because of his great love for us. Hallelujah, what a Savior we have. And as we think of God's grace for us in Christ, what can we do? We love him, we praise him, and we want to serve him in thought, word, and deed. Many of you have probably picked this up in our sermon and our service this morning. You've seen this pattern of guilt, grace, and gratitude. The Heidelberg Catechism question number two summarizes this biblical pattern for us, what we're seeing here. After summarizing our only comfort in life and in death in question one, question two asks, how many things must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort? Answer, three things. First, how great my sin and misery are. Second, how I am delivered from all my sins and misery. Third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance. Again, we see this. This is what Paul's talking about, what he's getting at. Ephesians 2, verse 8, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And it is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before him that we should walk in them. By grace our eyes are opened, and we see our sin. We look to Christ the Savior for forgiveness, and then in gratitude we seek to serve our God by doing those good works he has prepared for us to do before the foundation of the world. And we don't seek to do these good works to cover our sin, but we seek to do these good works because our sin has been covered by the work of Christ. Praise our Lord Jesus for the gospel of grace and mercy. As we bring our time this morning to a close, I want to do a little review. As we've looked at Adam's sin, we see what it was. It wasn't just eating the fruit. Adam failed as prophet, priest, and king. Adam made himself supreme judge. He bowed down to the serpent and made him king. Rather than own up to his own sin, he tried to hide it. He even blamed God for his sin. He tried to blame his wife saying, punish her Lord. This is truly wicked. And this is the guilt of Adam and the pollution of Adam that we inherit from him. And then we pile on all our own sins that we commit over our whole lifetime. The amount of our sins and stench should be enough to fill the Grand Canyon and then some. And that stench fill the air of the entire earth. But God, who is rich in mercy, through Christ the Son, while we were still sinners, died for us, paying for all of our sin. He not only suffered and died for our sin, but he lived a perfect life and was declared righteous. And he takes that righteousness which is incorruptible and never-ending and He gives it to us. This is our justification. Our sins are imputed to Christ and His righteousness is imputed to us. So when we look at Adam's sin and we think of our own sin, this is what we want to be reminded of. We are sinners by birth and by choice and in desperate need of rescue. We cannot cover our own sin. We cannot hide it. We cannot make up for it. We need a Savior. Christ demonstrated His mighty love for us and His power to save us through His suffering, death, and resurrection. Seeing this then, this causes us to praise our Savior for the depths of His love and the heights of His great and mighty power. And finally, as those who are no longer in Adam, but are now united to Christ. The Lord Jesus continues to work in us, giving us His Holy Spirit, enabling us to serve Him, to do good work so that we can say thank you for all that He's done for us, for our benefit and for His glory. Let's pray. Our Lord and our God, as we read of Adam's sin, we ask that we would be humbled, that we know that we think too well of ourselves, and let us increasingly see the depths of how we fell in Adam, the depths of our own depravity, so that we might see the heights of your love and power given to us in Jesus Christ. We praise you for Jesus. Make us faithful servants. In his name we pray, amen.