Take me to Genesis chapter 2. We're going to be looking at verse 15. We're going to be kind of going through a lot of the Bible today. We're going to start at the beginning, or begin at the beginning, and we're going to end somewhere toward the ending. So we're going to cover a lot of ground today, but it all has one theme. The theme is Jesus. So, if you're in my Sunday school class, I think I got Mikey. Some of this we've already covered, Mikey, so you get to be. You know what's going on here, but there's going to be some things toward the end where we have not covered yet. So this is our sixth or seventh week lesson that I'm doing in our Sunday school class condensed down to one sermon. So hopefully we get through it in time and that we're not pushing too much time. I'll try to get us out of here early like I always try to do. Alright, so before we get to Genesis chapter 2 verse 15, I kind of want to give us some background, which there's not much background up to this point because it's the beginning, it's creation, right? But what we've got going on here, it says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So right there, there's a huge statement that says that God was already there in the beginning. And we know this because He's always been and always was and always will be, right? In the beginning, God. Huge, bold statement. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. So I'm going to go ahead and move forward and add a little bit of this for sake of time. So we see in the beginning, in the six days that God created the earth, he created everything. He created all of creation. In day one, he said, let there be light, and there was light, and God saw that there was light, and it was good. In day two, he said, let there be a firmament and the waters, and let the firmament divide the waters from the waters. In day three, God said, let the waters of their heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear, and let the earth bring forth grass and herb yielding seed. In day four, God said, let there be lights in the firmament, of the heavens and divide the day from the night and let there be signs for seasons and for days and let them be for lights of the firmament of heaven and give it upon to the earth. God made two lights, one to rule the day and one to rule the night. So I'm going to throw something out here real quick. This looks a little side note, has nothing to do with our lesson, but it makes for an interesting study. It's this. On day one, God said, let there be light. But yet on day four, he created the moon, the stars, and the sun. Pretty interesting, huh? Be a good study for somebody to have in a Sunday school class, or even on your own. All right, let's move forward. Day five, God created the creatures and the creepy things and the wells, and also on day six. Day six, okay, God created man. He created them, he said right there in verse 26 of chapter 1, he said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. So here's another key factor in our doctrine, the things that we believe. Definitely doesn't do anything with our lesson today, but I cannot go over this and say that without saying this. When he said, let us make man in our image, this is the basis of our trinity. Believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, okay? Let us make man in our image. In the beginning, God created this, and there was another being and deity there with him, and that was Jesus. We see that over there in John 1.1. In John 1.1, it says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In John 1.14, it says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we begot Him as the only begotten of the Father. Right? That's Jesus. So we see Jesus in the beginning. But not only do we see Jesus in the beginning and God in the beginning, but we also see in verse 1, we see the Spirit hovering over the face of the earth. So we see God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in the beginning. This is the principle of where we get the Trinity. All right, let's move forward from that. So God created everything that we know and that we see. And He created man and He gave man dominion over everything. Fish of the sea, birds of the air, everything that creepeth, the cattle of the field. Man is in control of all things at this point. But here's the thing, everything is perfect. Everything is so perfect. There is no wrong in creation at this point. He created this place called the Garden of Eden and he put man in there to nurture it and to work it and to do whatever it is that God has him to do in it. And this place is perfect. Man was made perfect. There was no sin in the world at this time. There was no death in the world at this time. Nothing was to die at this time. There had been no blood shed at this time. Even with the animals, there was no blood shed at this time. There was no aggression, there was no anger, there was nothing of that, because everything was perfect. As it will be again one day, it will be like this. Then God created woman, so he could have a helpmate. And this is where we kind of get in the beginning of our lesson. I'm not... Hang on, hang on. Easy. I'm not trying to say anything wrong here. I'm just saying that God created everything perfect, and then He created a woman, and then sin came into... I'm going to stop right there. I'm not doing any good whatsoever. I'm sorry. That was not supposed to come out that way. All right. Genesis chapter 2, verse 15. Okay, verse 15. And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou must freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, it is not good for a man to be alone, I will make him a helpmeet for him. So right there, rule number one, do not eat of this tree, the tree of knowledge, good and evil. But what do we see? What happens over there in chapter three? Let's go over to chapter three, verse one. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then the eyes shall be open, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and... I think I skipped a whole bunch, didn't I? No? and desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." So I want you to look at this right here, because this is us right here. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, lust of the flesh. Lust of the flesh, that's what that is. Lust of the flesh. That's pleasant to the eyes, lust of the eyes. and to be desired to make one wise, the pride of life. There is nothing else in this world that we could be tempted by that's outside this room right here. Everything that we are tempted by falls within this right here. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride of life. Outside of this, there is nothing else. So if we was to study our sins and know our triggers, and we actually focused on what is the lust of my flesh, what is the lust of my eyes, and what is the lust of my pride of life, if we could focus on those three things, we don't have to focus on every evil of the world. We could categorize it. Well, this is lust of the flesh. Well, this is lust of the eye. Well, this is my pride right here, my arrogance. Just throwin' that out there. It's the same thing that Jesus was tested in the desert. When Jesus was tested in the desert, he was tempted by the exact same thing. Blessed are the flesh, blessed are the eyes, and the bride of life. There is nothin' else. So, and they did eat. Verse seven, right here. And the eyes of them were both open, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and they made themselves aprons. key note right here. At the moment that they disobeyed God, they knew it. They knew it without a doubt. They have now, their eyes have been opened to the knowledge of good and evil, and they were shameful of it. How do I know that they were shameful of it? Because they tried to cover their nakedness themselves by sowing fig leaves together in the hide from God. We know when we do wrong. We know when we disobey God. It's a choice of the heart, and we're shameful for it. We know this. And they try to cover their own sins. But that wasn't enough, was it? And, of course, we know what happens. God says, you know, who told you you were naked? And, of course, Adam tries to blame everyone else but him, says, you know, it was a woman. Yada, yada, yada. She done this, she done that. It was her fault. Typical man, right? It's always the wife's fault. I heard nobody on that one. Nobody. Very wise. So, God gives this curse to everyone. Now remember, because of Ada, that now they must die. There is a separation between perfect and non-perfect. There's a separation between them and God. They now have sin in their lives, and there's nothing that God cannot have that. So there is that separation. We can no longer go to God in perfectness. We have now the sin nature in us. So he hands out these curses. And I'm not going to go into the curses. What I'm going to get into is a specific curse. Verse 15, chapter 3. This is a curse specifically for the serpent. And he says, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Right there is a foretelling of Jesus Christ. The first time we ever see it. The seed between the seed of sin and the seed of woman has to happen. If it did not happen, then Jesus wouldn't be a perfect sacrifice. You had to have that seed, that separation between the woman and sin, in order for Jesus to come on the premises 2,000 years ago and be that perfect sacrifice. It had to happen that way. The seed of sin is actually passed from the father, because the men don't have that separation, right? So sin is passed on from generation to generation to generation, from father to child, from father to child. Does that mean women don't get sin? They have a father. That means they're just as sinful as we are. But God made a way, and his name was Jesus. And this is the foretelling of it, that it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. He is talking about the day when Christ is crucified on the cross. Now I want us to scroll on down, and I want us to look at Genesis 3 verse 21. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them." Right here is the first shedding of blood. This is the first time blood was ever shed for the coverings of sin. This is the first time blood was ever shed, period. but specifically to cover their sins is right here. God killed some animal, some innocent animal, to cover the nakedness and the wrong that they had done. Now Adam and Eve tried to do it themselves. They tried sewing fig leaves together to hide their own nakedness, but that's not enough. You cannot save yourself. You cannot hide or cover your own sins. That has to be of God because that was an eternal When they ate the apple, that was an eternal disobedience. So it's got to take an eternal obedience to cover that, and that's through Jesus. All through the Old Testament, we see this. We're going to talk about a couple of them, but you can follow the bloodline of the sacrifice, all pointing to Jesus through the Old Testament. There's very few places where you cannot see it. It's there. That's kind of what our focus tonight is, is the blood. Because it's always been about the blood. It's always been about Jesus. It's about Jesus now and always will be about Jesus. So we see this is the first sacrifice made to cover the sins of man. Had to be the shedding of the blood. We see a sacrifice over there in Cain and Abel. I don't think I give you those scriptures. I'll tell it to you real quick. I'll ask you to go back and look at it eventually or on your own when you get home. Cain and Abel, they presented their sacrifice and what happened? Abel's was honored and Cain's was not. The Lord wasn't pleased with Cain's. I'll read that part. In Genesis chapter 4, verse 4, it says, And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fetter thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel to his offerings, but unto Cain and to his offerings he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. Verse 6, And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth, and why art thou countenance fell? If thou doest well, shouldst thou not be accepted? If I do this not well, sin lieth at the door." So seeing this, seeing how God responded to Cain, we see that there is an obedience to sacrifice, that it's got to be of the heart, it's got to be a true giving or sacrifice from us to him. And so of course Cain got upset, he felt like he wasn't good enough or whatever the case may be was going on through his head, killed his brother and was cursed. So let's move forward a little bit to another place I wanna talk about. Let's go to Genesis chapter 22. We're gonna start at verse two. And he said, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and he saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son. and they clave the wood for burnt offering and rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off, and Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son, and he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spoke unto Abraham his father, and said, My father, He said, here I am, my son. And he said, behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering. So they went both of them together. And they came to a place which God had told them, and Abraham had built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he says, Here I am. And he said, Lay not thy hand upon thy lad, neither do thou anything unto him. For now I know that thou, fierce God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, The only son and Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his thorns and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place Jehovah Jireh as it is said to this day in the mouth of the Lord it shall be seen. Here another perfect image of the foretelling of Jesus Christ. The Lord will provide. He asked Abraham to go up to the mountain and to sacrifice his son. Abraham knew one or two things. Either the Lord is going to provide or the Lord is going to bring him back from the dead. But Abraham had enough faith to trust God. Had enough faith to lean on Him, to be able to put his own son on the altar. And look on the flip side. Look at the son. Look at the son. Enough faith in his own father and the Heavenly Father to be laid upon the altar. This is no baby. This is a child that knows what's going on. He asks, here is the wood. Here is the stuff to make this burnt offering, but where is the sacrifice? The Son knows what's going on, and the Son allowed His Father to bound Him and put Him on the altar. What faith that is! What faith that is! That's a faith that we should strive to have. That's a faith that we should long for, a faith that we don't know what's going on, but all we know is God's in control, no matter what. I think that's a problem today is we want to know all things and everything. We act like kids. Are we there yet? What's going to happen here? What's the steps? What's step one? What's step ten? We don't have to know step one and step ten. All we have to know is that God is in control. follow his path. And that's what Abraham done here. But this, the whole image of this, what I want us to grasp is, this is a foretelling of Jesus. These animal sacrifices that we have, that they done in the Old Testament, were acts of obedience in faith. An actual animal cannot save you eternally. These were acts of obedience in faith that God has a plan and is looking toward the cross. I praise God, we're on this side of the cross looking back. We'll get into that here in just a little bit. So here we see, we see in Genesis 1, we see that God provided a covering for our sins. We see here in just this chapter 22 that God provided a sacrifice because of our sins. I want us to turn over and we're going to read the account of Moses in Exodus. Exodus chapter 11. We'll look at verse 4. Now just to kind of catch us up to speed, after Abraham and Isaac, Isaac was a promised son of many nations and that came true. He begot his son and his son begot twelve more sons and they made up the children of Israel. But as time goes on, they become slaves to Egypt. And for most of us in here, we know that story. If you get a little confused in that area, please come talk to me and we'll talk about it. So here we are. Moses is leading his people. God called Moses to lead the children of Israel out of captivity to the promised land again. So this is the final plague. He goes through several plagues on trying to get his people back. But this is one I want us to focus in on. And Moses said, Thus saith the Lord, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservants that is behind the mill, and all the firstborn of the beasts. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall there be any more. But against any of the children of Israel, there shall not a dog move his tongue against a man or beast, that they may know how the Lord doth put a difference between Egypt, the Egyptians, and Israel." I'm going to go ahead and scroll on down instead of reading it all, because I really want to get to the end part of this. Let's go on down. verse 7 of chapter 12, verse 7. So God instructs the children of Israel to make another sacrifice. And he says it to do in a specific order, to cut it up this way and cut it up that way. But here's an important part. In verse 7 it says, And then they shall take the blood and strike it on the two posts in the upper doorposts of the house wherein they shall eat. So that blood that they sacrificed, they gather that blood, they drain whatever it is, and they take that blood and they paint it over the entrance of their house. Another sacrifice, another covering to save the people. Another image of Jesus. If we keep on going and you read verse 13, or verse 12 of chapter 12, For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and I will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt, and I will execute judgment. I am the Lord, and the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. I like that part right here where it says, And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. To me that speaks volumes. It is the blood that protects us. It is the blood that covers us. It is the blood that has been laid, that has been our providence, that has been provided for you and I. It is the blood that saves us. and nothing else is that blood and the blood only of Jesus Christ. Everything from leading up to the cross was faith in God, obedience and faith to God. Everything after the cross was you are covered by Jesus Christ. I praise God for that atonement. I really praise God that I'm not. Think about it for a moment. We're going to kind of go on a sidetrack here. Think about what it would be like to live on that side of the cross. How hard it would be to keep the law. I'm telling you, I would not have any cattle left. I would not have a flock left. I would be flockless and cattless and I wouldn't have anything else to offer for a sacrifice. on that side of the cross. Praise God for that. We're on this side of the cross and we don't have to live that way because of Jesus. We should be thankful for that. I know many times I'm like, oh, how awesome would it be to live in the days of Joshua? Or how awesome would it be to live in the days of Daniel? No, no, no, no, no, no. You start reading some of that stuff, you need to be thankful you're on this side of the cross looking back. See, all through the Old Testament we see these images of Jesus through the shedding of the blood. And it just makes it so, so... Perfect his timing the way he came in it was so perfect. There's another aspect I want to talk about it has not really nothing with a shading in blood But we start talking about the the veil the separation between man and God So after Moses done this and the children of Egypt left and they were wandering the wilderness for a long time God instructed them to build a tabernacle but in inside this tabernacle is this ark and I wish I had a marker board, I really do. So imagine a tent and inside this tent is an ark at that end of the tent. But at that end of the tent is what we call the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of the Testimony. also called the Mercy Seat. In God's Word, in the Scriptures, what you will read is, He said, this is where I will commune with you. This is where I will talk with you. If you want to meet with me, this is where I will be, above the Mercy Seat. The Mercy Seat is what's on top of the Ark. That Mercy Seat is, when you look at the images of the Ark and you see the two cherubs facing one another with their wings like this right here, and they're touching. Above that is the mercy seat, and that is where God is, and that's where God talks to his people now, in the desert. So, in front of that, God instructed them to put a veil. There is a separation between man and God. You can't cross that. There's that separation there. This place over here is called the holy place. This place over here is called the most holy place. This is where God is. So keep that in mind. We're going to get to that just in a little bit when we start getting further along in time. So time goes on. You see Joshua. Joshua goes over into the promised land, and he fights this battle in Jericho. And man, I love this part, and I'm just going to go through it real quick. Yeah, yeah, real quick. So Joshua fought this battle of Jericho, but in this town of Jericho, there's a woman by the name of Rahab. She is a harlot, and she's instructed, there's some communication going on, and she's instructed to put a scarlet thread, a scarlet ribbon, hanging out her window so the way the spies of the children of Israel could hide in Jericho for a time being. It's that color, it's that crimson color that symbolizes Jesus. So again, you see an image of Jesus there, the children of Israel being protected by that crimson color. And here's what's so awesome about this is Rahab, over time, gets with this guy named Solomon. Solomon and Rahab has this son named Boaz. Boaz marries Ruth. Ruth and Boaz has this guy named Obed, or O-head, And then he has this wife. I could not find her name. It's in there somewhere, I'm sure, or not. He has this son named Jesse. Jesse has this son named... Y'all know it. David. Jesus is from the lineage of Rahab the harlot in Jericho, that's say the children of Israel. How awesome is that? Now tell me that's not perfect. Tell me that's not the plan of God. For things just intertwine so perfectly. That is God orchestrating every bit of it, because God is in control. And that was, excuse me, 1,200 years before Christ walked this earth. So now let's fast forward to that time when Christ walked this earth. I'm not gonna get into his birth a little bit, but we're gonna get into his death. Let's turn over to Matthew chapter 27. We're going to look at verse 45, start at verse 45. Now, Jesus is on the cross at this time. He's already done with His ministry and now He is at sacrifice. He is that perfect lamb slain. This is the foretelling of everything that we just talked about. The foreshadowing of Jesus through Genesis and that account and through Abraham and Isaac and through Moses and through Joshua and so on and so forth. It all comes down to this moment right here. Now from the sixth hour, there was darkness all over the land until the ninth hour. In about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, that is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there when they heard that said, this man calleth for Elias. And straight away, one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him a drink. The rest said, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. And Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent and twain from top to bottom. That veil that was made that separated God from man, that veil that was made that was before, that was between the mercy seat and man, is the same veil that we read here. And it was torn in half, signifying that there is no separation between man and God no more. That Jesus paid that price. We can commune with Jesus any time we want, if we choose to believe in Him, accept Him as our Savior. That's when we don't have to go through anybody. We don't have to go to the priest. We don't have to go to the Levites. We can have Jesus in our everyday life. We can talk to Him personally. We can talk to Him when we get to know Him intimately. When Jesus died on that cross, He made that possible. He made that possible where there is no more sacrifice. He was the one true sacrifice for all sin, if we choose to believe in Him. How perfect is that? Jesus made it possible. He was the ultimate sacrifice. And then that's the end, right? No. No, as good as it sounds, that is not the end, because we're still here. That is not the end. For what we're waiting on, and this is what I really want to hone in on right now at this moment, is this. Let's turn over to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. We're going to look at verse 10. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he has done, whether it be good or bad. This is what they call the behemoth seat of Christ or the judgment seat of Christ. This is where we stand and we take account of our life before Jesus. We heard a little bit about that this morning. If you're here this morning, you heard Brother Russell talk about this. This day is not, it may happen. This day will happen. It will happen, and the things that you have done in your life, if you are saved, will be held accountable that day. And that's when the Scripture talks over there in 1 Corinthians about being tried by fire. Is your life wood, stubble, and hay? Or is it gold, silver, and precious jewels? So when we take account of that, and I look at my life, is it all gonna be burned up like it's nothing? Or is it gonna stand for something? I'm gonna be real honest with y'all here. This April, I turned 40 years old. I know for some of y'all, that's like, oh man, that's been a long time ago. And for some of y'all, you're like, oh man, that's a long time away. But I look at that, and it kinda somewhat bothers me a little bit. Because I roughly have 30 to 35 years left in this life. And then I'm going to see this day. So by another 30 years, I'm going to be at this day here. Unless the Lord comes back and it's going to come a lot sooner, right? Very well possible. So in 30 years, the rest of my life, what am I going to do with it? I look back at my first 30 years, my first 40 years. Did it bring honor and glory to God? If I was to stand in front of that judgment seat now, how much of that brought honor and glory to Jesus? That's what we're going to be judged by. It's not going to be how good you've done for yourself. You're going to be, how good did you do for Jesus? Does your life honor Jesus? If it doesn't, it's going to be burned up. The things that do honor Jesus will be there, and that's what you'll be judged by. Because it's all about Jesus. We just read it. In the beginning was Jesus. Right now is Jesus. In the end times is Jesus. So it just makes sense when we are judged at this judgment seat, the being of the seat of Christ, it's going to be about how we honor Jesus, not how we honor ourselves or the things that we think is good. So for myself, it's time to quit playing Christian. It's time to quit playing church. It's time to quit being, looking like the image of a church and start being the church. It's time to start being the follower of Christ for me. Because my time now, I've come to that place in my life where I now acknowledge there's more, there's less than what I had. and I'm going to stand here sooner than I did yesterday. So my prayer is this. When we take a look at these scriptures and we realize that it's always been about Jesus, it's always been about Him, His sacrifice, and it's about His relationship with us, that we reflect and we look at our lives. Where can I make my changes? Am I just playing church? Am I just going through the motions? Am I just coming to church and reading God's word only on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, or Wednesday night if you're lucky? Or am I truly wanting to live for Jesus? Time is running out. Time is running out. I've always heard that as a young man. I stand here today and tell you, time is running out. And I've got to get on board and start living for Jesus better than what I once have. Questions, comments? I know we kind of went through a lot of that really, really quick, but I wanted to get to the end. I wanted us to make sure that we realize how important it is to live for Jesus, because we will be there this day, all of us, if you're saved. If you're not saved, you can go to the Great White Throne of Judgment, and then you and I need to talk before that happens, all right? Any questions, comments? None? Okay. Well, Alan Mack, will you pray and dismiss us?