Well hello church, if you would open to Genesis 3. Genesis 3, we're in a series working our way through the Old Testament. We're in Genesis 3 this morning. Let me read the chapter for us. This is the Word of God. It says, 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 to you, you should 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 should 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, and 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. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. When they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from 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? He said, I heard the sound of you in the garden. 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 to eat and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And 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, and 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, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman He said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing, and in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. And to Adam He said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. and you shall eat of the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return." The man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the garden to work the ground from which he was taken. And he drove out the man. And at the east of the garden of Eden, he placed chair of him and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Father, this is a pivotal moment in history of what happened in this garden. We really can't make sense of anything without it. And so, Lord, we pray for understanding. And Lord, we also pray that what we just sang, Lord, I need you every hour. I need you, Lord, that these words would ring so true. The deepest part of our souls, Lord, we would we would feel our need. We would realize our need of you. Especially the work that your son came to perform on our behalf. And so God, work these things through Your Word right now. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, every culture and civilization has been asking, in some form or fashion, four basic questions. Who am I? Why am I here? What went wrong with the world? And how can it be made right again? And just a few pages into the Bible, we already see answers to these questions coming. So last week, we looked in Genesis 1 and 2 and got the answer to the question, who are we? Why are we here? And then this week, we're going to look at Genesis 3 and see what went wrong with the world and how can it be made right again? All that is in Genesis 3. Something I believe that every Christian, I think all of us who are believers, we need to be able to do this. We need to be able to give an answer. If someone says, what is the Bible about? You know, what is the storyline of scripture? We should be able to give some sort of answer to that. You know, there needs to be some some solid answer to that, which I don't think is as hard as we might think it is. If we can remember four words, creation, fall, redemption and restoration. You can overview the Bible, the Bible's storyline with those four words. Creation, fall, redemption, restoration. So last week we looked at creation. And this week, the fall. And I mean, think about that term fall, right? The fall. What have we fallen from? We're not going to understand what the fall is unless we can remember what we have fallen from. And so by way of reminder, you know, we started this series talking about The God, the only God, the God who is independent and not dependent on anyone, that He does not need anything, that He is eternally satisfied in Himself as Father, Son, and Spirit, and that out of, just because He wanted to, no need outside of Himself, but for the desire to glorify Himself, and because it pleased Him, He made all things And really out of the happiness in which he always felt in himself, in his triune nature, he created. And his happiness overflowed with words like, let there be light. And there was light. And let there be sun and moon and seasons. And let there be animals. And let there be plants for food. And he starts creating. And then, the pinnacle of his creation is when he reaches down, takes a handful of dust, and fashions a man. And it says He breathed into him the breath of life. And then He soon put that man to sleep, performed the first surgery, takes the rib out of the man, makes a woman, a beautiful woman, and gives her to the man to be his wife. God performs the first marriage for Adam and Eve in the garden, and they just enjoy Him in this garden paradise with God, unhindered in fellowship. We just can't imagine the pleasures and enjoyments that they had with God in that garden. It's really hard to fathom it. I mean, we can't. We don't know that world. We don't know the world of Genesis 1 and 2, not experientially. It is not what we have experienced on this earth. Blaise Pascal, the great philosopher, he said this. He said there's something nostalgic and reminiscent in us when we come to places like Genesis 2 because we see the perfection from which we came. And we see we were made for perfection. And then we look at the world and we see the suffering and the evil and we say it shouldn't be like that. And we see death and we say it shouldn't happen. And there's something in us that longs for where we came from and knows what we're experiencing now isn't how it should be. So what went wrong? Well, that's Genesis 3. It will tell us. So if you would turn to Genesis 3, we'll just kind of walk through this passage. Actually, maybe before we read Genesis and unpack this. We should remember Genesis 2. Before we get to Genesis 3, there was Genesis 2, and there was a command given to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. It was in chapter 2, verse 16. God said this, you may eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. It's a double death, physical and spiritual. So this is not complex. God didn't give Adam a complex moral system to get confused by. One command. One prohibition. Right? One, think about this, one no in a garden full of yeses. That's the context for Genesis 3. All right. So Genesis 3, we're going to look, we'll look first at the garden temptation, which is verses 1 through 8. So right off the bat, we see the serpent. And it's probably worth making mention that he's not an anti-God. He's not on par with God. It's not like the serpent's the bad God and God's the good God and they're equal or something. That is not how this is set up. He was a created being. Other places in the Bible say that he was created an angel and that he fell out of pride and rebellion. He rebelled against God and he fell from heaven to the earth as the tempter. As this serpent who shows up in the garden. And so all temptation comes from Him, not God. That's really important that we remember that. James 1.13 says, Let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one. So temptation always comes from Satan, not from God. And so he, this serpent, Satan embodied in this serpent at this point, he comes to Eve and he tempts her. And the same way he tempts us. And here's how he comes. This is what he does to you, what he did to her. Questioning God's word. That's how it starts. Did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? So he takes a command and then he just turns it into a question. Did God actually say that it's wrong to sleep with the boyfriend or girlfriend that's not your spouse? I mean, did God actually say that this or that behavior is wrong? Did God actually say it's wrong to get angry at your kids and yell at them? Did God actually say that you shouldn't lie, right? Just questions, you know, the harmless questions, but they come with a purpose. There's a purpose behind the questions, and that's to undermine the character of God. So that it sounds harsh, so that God sounds harsh and his commandments sound restrictive, and it sounds like God's a killjoy. That's what the questions do, they undermine the character of God. Because what's the reality? God has given them everything they could have ever desired in this garden. God had held nothing back from them, but Satan picks the one prohibition and says, look at that. God doesn't want you to be happy. He's holding something back from you. He doesn't want you to enjoy life. He wants to hold some happiness back. Guys, this is so deceptive. We know it. We've heard it. questions that God actually say, and then he follows the questions with lies. God doesn't care what you look at. It doesn't hurt anyone. You should see the evils being committed in the world. What's the problem with looking at images? Right? What's the problem with doing something that you've done for years that hasn't hurt anyone? You won't die, it's interesting that the first lie is a denial of God's judgment. Because if you can deny the judgment of God, you can also eliminate the consequences for sin. And that's the first lie Satan gives. But I mean, think about the logic in this. You walk away from the author of life, and what else is left but death? You turn and rebel and walk away from the only one who gives life. What can you do but die? He's lying to them. And I just, I picture Eve at this point, so pure. I mean, like a child. The innocence. She's never been exposed to evil. You think about that? She's perfectly pure. Never been exposed to any evil or sin. And she's being preyed upon by this monstrous predator, seeking to steal her innocence. Satan says, you won't die. He lied to her. He's lying to her. Jesus says Satan's been a liar from the beginning. He lies. That's all he knows how to do is just lie. Undermine the Word of God. Lie. Twist. Pervert Scripture. Deceive us. That's His language. And then here's what happens to Eve. She begins to slowly take the bait. Because listen to what she says. She begins to join the serpent in his exaggeration. She says, yeah, you know what? That's true. We're not supposed to eat of the tree or touch it. But guess what? God didn't say not to touch it. Eve added that to make God seem really restrictive and harsh. He doesn't even want us to touch the tree. Right? God never said that. Eve said that. But this is what people do. They take a command of God that is for our good, and then they say, look at that straight jacket of religion that God wants me to just keep all these rules and make me miserable. Right? He won't even let me touch that thing. When God doesn't say that, she is allowing the serpent to distort the character of God. He says, you will not surely die, but God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Here's the principle to remember. Every time we sin it's because we believe the lie that something or someone is better than God. Every time we sin. Every time we sin it's because we believe that someone or something is better or more enjoyable than God and His Word. Every time. Augustine once said that all sin is birthed in pride. I think Adam and Eve fall here because of pride. The pride of thinking, if I was God, I wouldn't stop anybody from eating of this tree. You know, if I was God, I wouldn't have made that rule. If I was God, you know, maybe God is trying to hold something back from me. And so I'll just disobey God and do what I want to do. essentially be my own God. The tree represents that. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents autonomy and pride. I don't need God to know what's good for my life. I don't need God to tell me how to make myself happy. How to be me. How to express myself in ways I don't need God to tell me that. I'm autonomous. I'm independent. I can figure this out on my own. That's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that we're forbidden to eat. Here's the reality. We do need God to tell us how to live our lives. He made us to need Him to tell us what is good and what is bad, what will kill us and what will make us live. We need God to do that for us. We can just look at history of humanity. We've got a few thousand years now we can look back on people who decided, we won't listen to God's word, we'll figure this out on our own. And it's a trail of death and destruction and misery and suffering. We aren't good at doing this without God's word. We need Him. We need Him. Eve didn't think she needed God, so in verse 6, what does she do? It says, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And listen to this. She gave some to her husband. Where was he? Who was with her? Adam was right there. We act like Adam's off working, serving God faithfully, and then his wife came and deceived him. It says Adam was right there, watching his wife be deceived and essentially murdered. And then he joins in. These are not innocent people. Now I know the argument, here's one of the big ones that may even pop up in our minds right now. What's the big deal about eating fruit? I mean, is this really, you're saying this is how the world fell apart? This is why we have hurricanes? This is why people die? This is why there's murder? This is why there's all forms of sin? Is because of eating fruit that we're not supposed to eat? And I would say this, it has nothing to do with the fruit, really. It's not really about the fruit, it's about pride. It's about the attempt to de-God God. It's about God's creation saying, I don't need a creator. I'll be my own God. That level of pride is what ruined everything. And it happened here first. They're desiring this independence away from God and His Word. Desiring it. And Jonathan Edwards once said, we always do what we desire most. He's getting that from James. Or at least one of the places he gets that is James 1.14, which, listen to how desire works with sin. Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has been conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. I wonder how long it was when they eat the fruit, tastes sweet for a second, and then it begins to get bitter and rot in their gut, and they go, what did we just do? What did we just trade? That's what sin does, doesn't it? Who hasn't felt that? You think that sin is going to satisfy. It's going to give you something you need, but instead it turns into a rottenness in your gut. It turns into a guilt and a shame where you hate it. It promises pleasure and happiness. It brings guilt and sorrow. It promises to give you freedom and fulfillment. It brings enslavement and emptiness. Church, I know I'm not the only person who has thought sin would do something for me that it did not do. It promises to give you life and it brings death. It promises to make you like God and it separates you from God. It promises honor and wisdom and it brings you shame and foolishness. Listen to the foolishness in verse 7. It says, the eyes of both were opened. After they ate the fruit, their eyes are opened. And they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden on the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. That's irrational. Right? This is utterly stupid and foolish behavior to try to hide yourself from the presence of God. The one person who could help them, they're hiding from. And they know something's wrong. They know the relationship's broken. Something has been lost. It's like, you know, if you've had a really good marriage, let's say 15, 20 year marriage, it's been amazing. And then in a moment of weakness, one of them commits adultery. When they find out what's happened, they won't be able to look at each other in the eyes the same way, without the guilt and the shame. They won't be able to speak about certain things that they could once speak about. Something about that relationship has been forever lost. The guilt and the shame are so strong when there has been infidelity. And that's what happens here. And so this, this garden temptation turns into a garden trial is the second point. It's really, it turns into a courtroom. God becomes the judge. And verse nine says that the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? So he calls for Adam, it's not like he doesn't see Adam, he sees him, but God is fair, he's holding a fair trial. He calls him to the stand. And Adam says this in verse 10, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And God said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? So he's caught. Just call it. Evidence is there. And what does Adam do? Verse 12, the woman that you made God, and they gave her to me, that's the problem, right? She's the problem. And then God turns to her and says, Eve, what have you done? And she says, the serpent? I couldn't even hear him. He's a snake. He just comes up there. I didn't even, it's the serpent. It's amazing to me. I mean, this is psychology was basically created. Disagree with me if you want. Psychology was created to sophisticate that. Blame shifting. 10,000 sophisticated, nuanced ways to deny responsibility. Blame it on our circumstances. Blame it on our upbringing. Blame it on our biology. Blame it on our spouse. Blame it on whatever. That I don't have to take responsibility for my own sin. Why does God come to Adam? This is a massive question. He doesn't show up and ask Eve. She was the one who first took the bite. Why not talk to her? He goes to Adam. Why? And the answer is because Adam is the representative head of humanity. He was not only the first man, he was the first human. And he's not only the first human, but he's the first human to receive a command from God. Adam was responsible to set a pattern of obedience for all the descendants after him. He was created, listen, as humanity's prophet, priest, and king. That's who Adam was. As prophet, Adam received God's word and commands for himself and his wife. As priest, he served as a worshiping worker in God's garden temple. As king, he was to rule over God's creation. Adam was the world's prophet, priest, and king, appointed by God for that task, and he failed. He failed. He, look, he was our hope. He was our only hope. He was our hope. He was perfect. This man had never sinned. All he had to do was just keep not sinning. And he couldn't do it. And his failure is our failure. His taking that fruit and eating it is us taking the fruit and eating it. His guilt is our guilt. And it says that explicitly in Romans 5.12, sin came into the world through one man. That's Adam. And death through sin. So death spread to all men. Why? Because all sinned. Now, there's a Greek erist indicative here, that because all sin, that's actually important because it means the action was completed in the past. So, it's saying you sinned with Adam in the garden. That's what the verse says. And it's even clearer in Romans 5.19, by one man's, Adam's disobedience, many were made sinners, past tense. Do you hear that? By one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, were, past tense, made sinners. So we were made sinners, not when we just started sinning, but there is a sense in which we became sinners in the garden with Adam. The guilt and condemnation he received there, we received there. And the promise of death he received there, we received there. Romans 5, 12, sin came into the world through one man and death spread to all men because all sin. Here's the sobering reality. If you were in that garden instead of Adam, you would have done what Adam did. Probably quicker. And there's some curses that it then lists for the man and the woman. And man, we feel these. We feel this was not just for them. These certainly carry on to us. Listen to the one for the woman. Verse 16, it says, to the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. It's a lot of ladies in the church who've had babies recently. I haven't heard of any, y'all say it was painless. In pain, it says they will bring forth children. Then it says this, your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. Now, the first one is very clear, right? Everybody knows babies come out painfully because of the curse. But this one, a lot of people don't know necessarily where he's going with this. So what does this mean? I'll tell you what I think it means, and then I'll explain a simple way to remember and to understand. So I think it's meaning that men will, in their sin, abuse leadership and rule harshly over their wives. At least they'll be tempted toward, inclined toward that. And that women will, in their sin, be inclined to dominate and control their husbands and resist his leadership. Now here's why I think that's what this means. If you were to give someone, this is the, I mean, you can come at this more complex ways, I guess, but this is a very simple way, I think. If you were to give someone Genesis, like an Israelite, when it was originally written, Moses writes this and then gives it to Israel. And they start at Genesis 1, read Genesis 2, and then they get to Genesis 3, and they read this curse on the woman. And they say, in pain, you should bring forth children, your husband, you're going to desire your husband, but he's going to rule over you. I think they would probably think this. I don't really know what that means. Exactly right. It's it's it's not extremely clear. I mean, it's a very succinct, packed, packed in verse. But there's two verbs that are important. desire and rule. And so if they were just to read over one chapter into chapter four, Genesis 4, 7, it says this, and you see the same two verbs used together. It sends desire is against you and you must rule over it. Same two verbs in the Hebrew, desire and rule being used together just like in the curse of the woman. So I think someone reading that's gonna come across that and go, okay, those two same verbs are used. I think that's probably helps me understand what Genesis 3.16 means. And so after the fall, wives will be tempted to desire to control their husbands and husbands will be tempted to rule over their wives harshly. Now, let's say to the ladies here that are members of this church, if you're new, I don't know you, so just speak to the, the members here for a second. I don't think any of you women want to be guilty of this and knowing you at all. But there are subtle ways that this curse can affect you without you realizing it. Here's four. It could be possible that some of you have married intentionally a passive man so that you could control him. Ladies do that. And it could be remnants of this curse. Here's the second way. Some women will seek to rule over a husband by nagging. Nagging. Of course, it's not called that. It's called, I just want him to do what I want him to do, or what he's supposed to do. But it's just little, you know, come on, do this, do this, do this, do this, do this. Why don't you do this? You never do this. one after the other, and it's called nagging in Proverbs. And say, well, I wouldn't do that if he would do what I tell him to. If he would obey me, I wouldn't nag. But he won't obey you when you nag because Proverbs says that he'll probably go to the corner of the rooftop, or he'll go make a man cave, or he'll work excessive hours, There's ways to avoid a woman who wants to rule over her husband. And these are subtle. Here's another one. If that one doesn't work, the nagging, often the emotions can get involved, so you push, push, push, push, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag. That doesn't work, cry. Emotions. I mean, in all honesty, I'm not trying to be harsh here, but when emotions, I mean, you lose, sir. Right? You're done. You lose. She wins. And I'm not saying there can't be legitimate emotions, but it can be used as a power move. And if that doesn't work, here's a fourth. Deprive him in the bedroom. That's a power move. Now again, I'm not saying these are intentional things that a woman would do. I'm saying these are remnants of the curse that can subtly make themselves into our marriage. And it's wise to be aware. Now here, God gives a curse to the woman and to the man. Here's something interesting to notice as well. The woman's curse is related to her primary work in the home. I said primary, not only. Women can work outside the home. We have Proverbs 31. It's a different sermon completely. But a primary area of dominion is with her children and her husband. That's where the curse is related to. With the man, his curse is related to his primary place of work, which is his job. It has to do with the earth, him going out and trying to make a living and provide. And so here's what God says to Adam, verse 17. To the man he said, because you've listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you'll eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth 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 for out of it you were taken for you were dust and to dust you shall return. So again, remember, Adam before the fall, he loves his work. It's fulfilling, it's satisfying, it's good. God just makes him in the garden and he automatically works. God didn't even have to tell him, he just automatically starts doing this. And then after sin, work becomes futile and hard. It's not bringing forth the fruit and the enjoyment it once did. It's thorns and thistles, it says. By the sweat of your face, you're going to work. It's going to be hard to make a living. Any of you brothers experience that? It's hard to make a living. Not as hard in America as some places, but it's not easy to make a living. You've got to work a lot of hours. You've got to put a lot of effort. You're really tired after the end of the day. or after 40, 50 years of it. It's exhausting. And then on top of that, it's futile. It's like a man can spend his whole life doing some job and then he retires and like nobody even knows. My brother told me that at his job, one of my younger brothers. He works at Ralph Lauren as people put their whole life into their career and do all this amazing stuff. And then they throw a going away party for him. And two days later, nobody remembers their name. That's futile. That's a curse. You know, there's joys to work, but that element of it is part of the curse. And so work is not a curse. Work is good. It was there in the garden before the fall. What the curse is, it has to do with our attitudes toward work. You know, if brothers, you don't want to wake up tomorrow and go to work, you go, oh, Monday, another full work week. That attitude toward work is part of the curse. Adam would have been like, a work week? You know, like, this is amazing, we're in paradise here. Like, if you don't feel that, that's evidence that we're this side of Eden. So, Adam was to rule over the earth. After the fall, the earth is reversed. God turns the earth against Adam and it becomes very hard. It almost like resists him. It works against him. And then God tops that off with saying, and by the way, you're from the earth and you will return to the earth as dust. Guys, who is going to fix that? Who fixes that? I mean, to fall from God in Eden, cursed to return to the dust, we aren't equipped to fix that kind of problem. I mean, people certainly do. It's amazing. It's utterly amazing. People really do think you can fix this with politics or religions. It's amazing. Everybody's asking, what are we gonna do to take everything that's wrong and make it right again? When are we going to start loving each other again? When are we going to stop killing each other? When are we going to stop hating each other? Right? Everybody's asking these questions. And depending on if you're left wing or right wing, you have different solutions. But everybody's asking that question. What are the solutions? Here's the irony. The solutions are already revealed in Genesis 3. Which is amazing to me because God could have said, you know guys, you messed this up in the garden and I'm kicking you out and you're going to have to figure out how to fix this on your own. That's not what God did. I want us to end with looking at five glimpses of hope for this fallen world in Genesis 3. There's five gospel seeds here. I'm going to hit these fast. You can write them down. And then I'll do it in about 10 minutes. We'll talk over these in Citigroup more. This is where Genesis 3 gets good. There is good news in Genesis 3. There's a promise, a grace, a covenant, a sacrifice, and a tree. Number one, a promise to the serpent. This is often called the Protoevangelion, or the first gospel proclamation. Preach, which is crazy. The first gospel ever preached was preached to the devil. And it wasn't preached in hope that he would live if he believed it. It was preached as a promise, you will die. Genesis 3.15, to the serpent God says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring, and he shall bruise your head, Christ. And you shall bruise his heel. God is promising him, you will be destroyed. And 1 John 3 says the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. And so Jesus came to destroy like this. He crushed the head of the serpent by taking our guilt and our shame and our condemnation on Himself at the cross. Effectively crushing the head of the serpent. That's a promise. Here is number two, a grace. And it's a grace to Eve. It's really a grace to all humanity. What should God have done when Adam and Eve ate that fruit? I mean, they should have eaten the fruit and died dead under the tree. That would have been just and fair for God to just make them. He said, if you eat it, you're going to die. They could have just died right there. In His mercy, God not only did not kill them on the spot, but look at verse 20, what God says to Eve. He says, you will be called mother of all living. She has the ability to leave that garden and bear children, offspring, who down the line of that offspring would come the serpent crusher. What a grace! on her and us. I mean, there's no gospel if that isn't true. If Eve doesn't leave that garden and have babies, and then Jesus comes down the line, that's a massive, massive thing that God does, a mercy that He allows right there at the beginning. Now here's a third one, a covenant with Adam. Now I know the word covenant isn't in Genesis 1, 2 or 3. I'm aware of that. I know that there, I'm aware that there's some people that don't like to use the term covenant related to Adam because the word's not there. However, many have called this a covenant of works that God makes with Adam, gives him a standard of righteousness to maintain and says, don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And then he gives conditions to the covenant. Adam, if you obey, you will not only live righteous, but you will live forever. If you disobey, you will sin and you will die. The stipulations of the covenant, the covenant conditions are there. And then the test was the serpent, who God allowed to come and test Adam to see if he would hold to this covenant of works, if he would be the prophet, priest, and king that humanity needed. And he couldn't. And the covenant was broken and death came until, listen to this, another man came not to a garden, but a wilderness to be tested by that serpent. And that man stood toe-to-toe with that same enemy and rejected every single lie, proving himself to be the prophet, priest, and king that humanity needed, proving himself to be a greater Adam, a second and greater representative head of humanity. And then, this is awesome too, to notice that Adam, once he sins, he has to leave the garden and the angels actually block it off, it says. They block off the garden, so he has to leave the garden and can never come back to the tree of life. But Jesus, when He, in the wilderness, resists all the temptations of Satan, and then leaves the wilderness, it says the angels come and they minister to Him. They don't block Him out of anything. They come and they receive Him. He is the greater Adam. So there's a promise to the serpent. There's a grace to Eve. There's a covenant with Adam. And then fourthly, there's a sacrifice by God. You say, where's the sacrifice? I don't see a sacrifice in Genesis three. Well, it's not as built out as it will be later in the sacrificial system as we move on in scripture, but there is most definitely a sacrifice here. What did they do when they sinned against God? Remember, they hide themselves and they make for themselves loincloth and fig leaves. That's the clothes they come up with. Really ingenious outfits. And then what does God do? Look at verse 21. It says, the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife, Eve, garments of skins and clothed them. Where did God find garments of skins? He killed an animal. He killed an animal to clothe them. That is called typology. Typology that points us forward to God providing His own Son to be killed on behalf of His people so that we be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. It's a pointer. to what Christ would come and do for us. And then fifth and last, there's a tree of life. So if you'll go to the very end here, verse 22, it says, the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out of his hand and also take from the tree of life and eat and live forever. So if you eat of the tree of life, what are you going to do? You're going to live forever. God says he can't do that anymore. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken and he drove out the man at the east of the garden of Eden and he placed cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. So here's what we know about Eden. Trees are important there. I mean, if we don't know a lot about Eden, we know trees are significant because one of those trees was forbidden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat that one, you die. And there was another significant tree, the tree of life. And apparently if you ate from that one, you'd live forever. Obviously the story says that they ate of the forbidden tree and they were blocked off or hindered from ever eating of the tree of life again. and they're cast out of the garden, they can no longer eat from the tree of life and live forever, and they have to die. Now, here's what's interesting. You read on in Genesis 4, 5, 6, 7, you keep reading your Bible, and no trees seem to be important in the Bible. You're just reading and you're like, these trees, like, not important like in Genesis. Until you get to Golgotha. On that hill in Golgotha, there was another tree. And it was also a tree of death. And on that tree of death, eternal life could be given. Do you see the beauty of that? Pointers to this. And I'm not pulling this from nowhere. Listen to Galatians 3.13. Christ redeemed us from the curse. the curse by being hanged on a tree. Or 1 Peter 2, 24, He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds, you have been healed. Here's the only question I have for you this morning. Have you received life by that tree of death that Christ hung on? Have you received life at that tree of death? Jesus had no desire. You know, Adam and Eve were driven by desire to eat this forbidden tree of death. Jesus had no desire to go to the tree. He went to the tree to bear our sins. You could really say that Jesus, I mean, it would be right to say Jesus had to be kicked out of the garden. He had to be kicked out of Eden. Separated from God so that He could do what was necessary to bring us back to God. That's what it took. It took a tree of death. And here's an interesting thing. If we read all the way to the end of the Bible, The last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22, Jesus does everything to bring us back to the presence of God and to the tree of life. The one that gives us eternal life and we eat forever to live forever. We're with God, eating of the tree again. It's an amazing plot line to the Bible, isn't it? I mean, it's just one little stream we could take to see the plot line of Scripture. Brilliant how the Lord does this. May the Lord give us eyes to see, hearts to rejoice in what He's done. Let's pray. Father, oh God, I just have two prayers right now. One, Lord help us see how horrible Genesis 3 is. what this really meant, not only for Adam and Eve, but for us. Lord, help us to see this was the worst sin imaginable. This was the worst thing that could have ever happened. And then God, we also ask that you would also help us to see that in Genesis 3, some of the best news we could ever hear is already being given. And Lord, we pray that we would take these five pointers pointing to that tree where your son would die, where he would be the sacrifice for sins, where he would do what is necessary to bring us back to you. Lord, help us to see it and to treasure it and to trust it as our only hope. Thank you for giving your life We want to come to the table and celebrate it together. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.