I hope you brought your Bible with you. You will need it to look at a couple of principle texts, Genesis 2 and 3 and Romans 5. Today in this, our third session, the Bible may appear at first reading to be just a collection of random stories. Hopefully you're seeing very quickly a storyline appears. What God is trying to say through all of the recorded events and stories, that's what we're trying to get at, to establish a metanarrative. The word metanarrative, as we've been saying, simply means the big story. And so for several sessions, we're telling that story. Last night, our first session, we looked at God's decree, God's love before time. And then this morning, we looked at, in our second session, our doctrine of creation, those building blocks that form our doctrine of creation, that creation was out of no preexisting materials, that creation was by a word, that creation occurred on six 24-hour days, that creation was all good, seamlessly interrelated, no disharmony. that creation began with the first two humans who were made in the image of God. Not two males, not two females, but Adam and Eve. And Adam and Eve are going to come up very importantly now in our session. But this shows the volumes about God's intentionality, and woven into the very fabric of creation were several ordinances, creation mandates. To work, to marry, to keep the Sabbath, to procreate, and to take dominion over the creation. And so now, in session three, we've come to the conflict in the story. You do know that every good piece of literature imitating the Bible introduces conflict at the earliest possible element, whether it's a short story or a movie. There's no such thing as a movie or a book or a song that you want to partake of that just everything is beautiful for four minutes if it's a song or for two hours if it's a movie. You have to have conflict. we'll see the ultimate in terms of conflict with the introduction of the fall. The Bible only takes two and a half chapters before we have the element of conflict brought into the mega narrative. Now, what I want to think about before we even introduce this element, So I want to tell you several things about this element of the metanarrative. First of all, this is a solemn element. We should be awed. Nothing is worse than a preacher who speaks glibly about sin as though he were not a sinner deeply in need of a savior. And I'm talking to a room full of people who are sinners deeply in need of a savior. And so I will forgo any jokes, any glibness whatsoever. This subject also, is a humbling one because we'll quickly see that you and I don't just need propping up or instructing, that everyone in this room, me at the head of the list, came out of the womb spiritually dead in our sins and without strength due to sin and we desperately need divine intervention. Another thing that can be said about our subject today is this is an indicative one. Tell me what your view of the fall is and I can tell you most of your theology. It's a very simple issue. Tell me if you think men were only harmed in the fall or if they were killed in the fall, and I can tell you most of the rest of your theology. It's also a very practical issue because the foundation of all true piety resides in a correct view of ourselves and our fallenness. There can be no genuine repentance if you don't see yourself as a sinner, no real appreciations of the grace of God without understanding you're a sinner in need of God's kindness and favor. There is nothing though like a right understanding of the fall to humble a man. Show me an arrogant person, show me a cocky guy, show me a headstrong young lady, and I can show you somebody who doesn't understand the fall. Because the fall will tell you much in terms of your practical view of the world. So we're going to need, and I will tell you, each time we gather, we ask for the Holy Spirit's guidance, and we certainly will now. But if there's a time we need the Holy Spirit's ministry, it is here. You and I have all kinds of amazingly complex built-in defense mechanisms against hearing what we're about to say. Your flesh and our mind likes to hear what we're about to say. Because what I'm going to say about you and about me are very humbling, even humiliating things. And so we need the help of the Spirit to hear them rightly. Let's pray. Oh God, our helper, now we ask that you would send your Holy Spirit. To open our minds that as the Scriptures are examined and Your Word is proclaimed, we may be led into Your truth and taught Your will for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen. The first thing that has to be said about the fall, which is our third element of our metanarrative, the first thing that has to be said about the fall is we are talking about a historical event. I want to stress the historicity of the fall. When the Bible presents the beginnings of human history, it does so by identifying our first two parents, the fountainhead of the whole human race. It even tells us the names of that first couple, of Adam and Eve. Now, it's fascinating how many people the Bible doesn't name. About 10 or 12 years ago, I began studying the issue of wolves in scripture and really changed my philosophy of ministry. At that point, I'd already been in the ministry for over 20 years, but we had a horrible problem with wolves. If you don't know what a wolf is, it's a New Testament description of somebody who comes in sneakily to divide the people of God, to lead them astray, to devour them. all those sort of things, and it shocked me on about my 40th or 50th reading of the pastoral epistles of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus that Paul actually names the wolves. Their names are there forever. And Paul gives six or seven names of men who he says to Timothy, young Timothy who's pastoring in Ephesus and Titus who's pastoring on the Isle of Crete. Watch these guys, here's their name." And he tells the congregation that, so the congregation won't get cozy with them or take them for granted. The important people in Scripture are all named. And nobody, save the Lord Jesus Christ, could be more important than Adam and Eve. You'll notice as you open Genesis 1, 2, and 3, that the Bible doesn't begin, once upon a time there was a man and a woman. Oh no, much more specific. Now the contemporary view, you need to know this because at every point I want to tell you that in our metanarrative the world has a completely different metanarrative, a different big story. The contemporary view of the worlds of Adam and Eve is much like your view of Zeus or Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox. So how should we view them? I want you to notice what the New Testament does with Adam and Eve. For example, in Luke 3.38, this is the testimony of a historian. Luke was not only a physician but a historian. But Luke is giving the genealogical listing of all the people in our Lord's genealogy. And in Luke 3.38, just as He treats every other name, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, And so in a real live historical genealogy, there is a historian putting Adam at the head. Or in 1 Timothy 2, you have the testimony of a theologian and a scholar, Paul, who Paul says this about Adam. He says, Adam was formed first, then Adam and Eve were then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived He fell into transgression. You notice that Paul doesn't have any mythical tone to his discussion about Adam and Eve. He treats them as historical personages because they were. Why does this matter? The Bible gives the only explanation for man's character and plight and how he got that way. If the first three chapters of Genesis are not real history, then we have no explanation for our situation. By the way, this is why when after there's a school shooting or a mass murder or something like that, the newsman will just very, in the most pious sounding terms, they'll stare into the camera and say, why did this happen? Why did they do that? Why did they shoot up a room full of people? And if you know the metanarrative, you'll say, I know why my wife and I are television talk backers. And so when somebody on the news says something dopey like that, like, you're not asking. You don't really want to know, because if you really want to know, the answer is clear and easy to discern. The reason why people have done this is because Adam ate of the forbidden fruit. And all other problems descend from that. And by the way, just as a footnote, if our understanding of the fall is not true history, then the dominant writer of the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, is deceived and fooled in Romans 5.12 when he says, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin and death spread to all men because all sin. And if he's wrong on that, you think, wrong on the fall. Maybe he's wrong on justification by faith alone. Maybe he's wrong on a lot of other things. And so there's a lot hanging in the balance of this being a historical document. By the way, one of the things I'm on a little bit of a mission to clear up and correct, if the account of Genesis 2 and 3 in the fall is historical and factual, and we did all descend from one pair then there is one race. I can't stand the discussion that says, you're racist because you're opposed to this race or that race. And it's just like my opposition to homophobia. When people say, you're homophobic. No, homophobia means I'm afraid of homosexuals. I'm not afraid of homosexuals. I disagree with their lifestyle. I think they need to repent. but I'm not afraid of them. And just so, when somebody says, well, you're a racist, you mean I'm opposed to the human race? Because there's only one race. And if I were to show you my 23 and me, you'd say, you're the most confused DNA ever. I'm proof that there's just one race, a conglomeration. When my daughter got this for me for Christmas a few years ago, we found out sub-Saharan African, Danish, Scottish, Irish, American Indian, and about 12 other races, actually ethnicities, because all of them are the human race. And so one of the things that I would tell you, any attempt to demean other ethnicities is foolish, all the same race. Well, let's look at the details of the fall. Look carefully at Genesis 2. I hope you'll really roll up your sleeves now. Again, I apologize for always meeting you right after you just got your stomach filled, which means you really, especially in the afternoon, you're really ready for a nap right now. So I'll try to not be soporific. We have at Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, we have a huge service every year for Thanksgiving and we have a Thanksgiving meal. It's massive, several hundred people. And the pastor on our staff who draws the short straw has to preach at that service afterwards. And I've drawn the short straw, I think, the last three years in a row. And man, is it hard, because when you get a congregation whose bellies are full of tryptophan, also known as turkey, and pumpkin pie, man, I have to really be on top of my game just to keep the people in the first three rows awake. So I'm aware if you're in the back third, you're really struggling right now, especially it's a little warm in this room. Y'all can make it colder in here if you want, that would be helpful. So, look very, very carefully, roll up your sleeves and let's do some work here in the text of Scripture. Look at the command in Genesis chapter 2. And what I want us to see is I want to really dig into the details of the fault. Let's look at the command and ask this question, is it clear? Now, the reason why I ask this is years ago, my children, I had children who are just like you, they were sinners and two years apart. There was a time when they were five, three, and one, and I walked past their bedroom, and I said, y'all need to clean your room up. We have some company coming over, some kids. You need to clean your room up. And I kept on walking. I thought that would suffice. I thought that was a clear command. An hour went by, and our friends were pulling up in the driveway, and I walked back by, and I looked in my kids' room, and they were still on the floor playing together. I said, Was I not clear? And my son, oldest son, the attorney, of course, he said, Oh, did you mean to clean our room today? You weren't really clear about that. And so I kids I know you would never do that to your parents, right? If you do, you're a budding attorney already, I think. But I want you to look at the command very clearly. Look at Genesis 2, verse 16 and 17, the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. And so what we see there, notice as well, God has a mandatory sentencing statute. Look what the penalty is for violating this command. It's death. In the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. So then let's look at the actual sin. Look down to Genesis 3, beginning in verse 1, now, the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, now, at that point, Eve should have immediately said, a talking serpent? What's going on here? Her antenna should have been up. Has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, and the serpent, by the way, knows he has the hook in Eve in this second when she answers. Look at verse 2, the woman said, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of that fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it, and here's when the evil one knows he has it, nor shall you touch it. Did God say that? No, He didn't say that. He only prohibited one thing, the eating. But look what Eve does, she adds to the Word of God. You always get in trouble if you subtract from the Word of God or add to the Word of God, and she adds to the Word of God. You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. The serpent knows he has her. The serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate." Now notice the sin itself. The sin is unabashed, high-handed offense against the one clear command that God had given them. He hadn't given them any other commands that we are aware of to this point. This is it. Don't eat of the fruit of this one tree. as high-handed a disobedience as you can give, deserving of whatever punishment the offended judge pronounces. So I want you to see the immediate impact, and by immediate, I mean that day impact. Look at Genesis 3, beginning in verse 7, and let me point out seven impacts that you can immediately see from Adam and Eve eating. The first is you see in verse 24. Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise. So he drove out the man and he placed cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. And so the most beautiful, astounding, fulfilling location ever goes away. Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise and there's no way back. That's the first impact of their sin. Second, look at verse 7 of chapter 3. They immediately now have the knowledge of sin. We read then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. They're sin aware now. The third impact of the fall, look at verse 8, and this is going to get to a point about the mental effects of the fall. In verse 8, the third effect, they are alienated from God. Look what they do, and this is one of the dumbest moments of the Bible. We read that, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves. from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden." How fast can you get stupid? That's the question for Adam and Eve. Because as soon as they sin and they want to hide from God, do you know what they'd known 10 minutes before? They'd known that God was omnipresent. They knew that you can't hide from an omnipresent God. Do you know what happens mentally when sin is transmitted to them? He's a dope. He suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, Paul tells us in Romans. And so what we see is this leads to alienation from God. Just before they wanted nothing else than to have fellowship with God, now they want to be alienated from Him. But there's so many more impacts from the fall. A fourth one, we see the abdication of their God-ordained roles. Notice what we see Adam doing in verse 12. Adam begins to blame the woman in Genesis 3 verse 12, he says, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate. And he's putting all the blame on her. Now, ladies, I'm going to try to make application of this later, but one of the things we're going to see with the fall is you can… it is Adam's fault. That's why the Puritan primer in early New England, when they taught their letters, the first letter they learned was A, and they had a small rhyming poem with each letter. And the poem for A was, in Adam's fall, we sinned all. And you see Adam here not willing to take the blame. He wants to point, as we said earlier today, he wants to point at Eve, he wants to point at God, anybody but himself. And what we see here is that's the first, but it's certainly not the last, abdication of God-ordained roles. And if you're interested in a guy who's here this week, I don't care if he has great hair. And I say that with no jealousy whatsoever. But if he has great hair and he's tall, dark, and handsome, All of the things that make up the list, but he's an abdicator, run quickly in the opposite direction. By the way, young men, if there's a young woman here who's here this week, you think, she's a sweetie, she's from South Carolina, she's got it all. And she's in a good church, she's in a PCA church. But if she starts pursuing you, if she starts initiating, you need to run from her. Because the relationships will never work if either one of you abdicate your roles. Guys, if you're not the initiator and pursuer, it's not going to work either. But what we see here is Adam abdicates his role as the God-given covenant head. A fifth impact of the fall is we see in Genesis 2.17 that Adam is going to die. We see that in in Ephesians 2.1 where we're told that all of us are dead in trespasses and sin. A sixth aspect of the impact, we see the curse on the woman. Look at Genesis 2.16 where the Lord says to the woman, I will greatly multiply your sorrows and your conception, in pain you shall bring forth children. When my wife and I got married and she was pregnant with our oldest son, John, and we had some friends in our church who said, Sandy, you ought to take this childbirth class before you have your child. You and Carl both, because you can go through this and the nurse says it can guarantee a pain-free delivery. And Sandy said, I'm all about that. So we signed up at Mercy Hospital. You would think the Roman Catholics would know something about sin. We sign up, and we take the class, and we're sitting in a room with about 10 other couples, and the nurse comes in. She says, if you'll do these breathing techniques, it will guarantee you'll have a pain-free delivery. So I'm already smirking. My wife's smirking a little bit. She's like, oh, I'm willing to try. So we go through the breathing techniques. All these different breathing. No, you're breathing too fast, Mr. Robbins. Slow down. Now, all of this stuff, so the great thing was they had a reunion for all 10 couples after all of our kids were born. And we went back, and all the couples were, and I said, before the nurse came back in, I said, did this keep any of y'all from pain? And all of the women said, liars, all lies, because there's no such thing as a pain-free childbirth. of pain-free delivery. Why? Because this is part of the curse on the woman. Look at Genesis 2.16 very carefully. It's one of the many effects of the fall, pain and childbirth. But then notice what the curse is on the man in verse 17 and 19. Cursed is the ground for your sake, and toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, you shall eat of the herb of the field. Sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, dust you are, and to dust you'll return. Now the curse isn't work. As we saw this morning, work is a creation mandate. There's nothing sinful about work. It's just that now our work has become hard. It's become agonizing, that it doesn't come easy. Well, I mentioned several things and I hope you're picking up on. I want to talk for a second about the gender dynamic at the fall. And the issue is God's original design. Ladies, listen to me very carefully, perhaps even more carefully than the young men here. Masculinity means initiating, period. God assigned Adam the role of initiator and leader. Adam yielded instead of leading, and he's cursed because of that. When you think of what is the Bible's stated reason why Adam and the race are cursed, look at Genesis 3.17 and believe the words of Scripture. Genesis 3.17, then to Adam the Lord said, because, that's an explanation word, because, that's causation, because you have heeded the voice of your wife. and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it." And so the first issue that the Lord brings up with Adam is, you denied your manhood, you denied your role And you tried to pass the buck to the woman. Instead of taking responsibility for all he represented, he abdicated and attempted to shift the responsibility. But God would have none of that. God calls him out on it in Genesis 3.17. He says, this is the reason for the curse. Look at the words in 3.17, because you have heeded the voice of your wife and them took the fruit and ate. Adam should have been. The covenant head like Joshua. I'm preaching through the book of Joshua right now, delighting in this. And one of the things that's so marvelous about Joshua is he is a man's man. And he's not only a warrior, but he's a leader even in his own home. And you'll remember as an old man, he's well past 100, one of the last things he wants to say to Israel is he gathers his family in front of the nation and he says, and this is a man who's not trying to abdicate anything, but it's leading. As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord." That's our covenant head that you want to follow. Ladies, that's what you're looking for as a young man who says that. Now, fascinatingly, when God specifically states the curses to three parties, look at Genesis 3 here. First of all, the serpent, the woman, and the man. Look at verse 14, he is specifically cursed for his deed. The Lord said to the serpent in verse 14, because, there's that causation word, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle. On your belly you shall go, eat dust all the days of your life. your head will be crushed by the seed of the woman. And then Adam is specifically cursed for his deed. Look at verse 17, because you did this. But the woman is not told that her curse, pain in childbirth, flows from her deed. because the Lord holds the man responsible for his household. Adam was the covenant head. Even though Eve ate, her eating had no consequence for the race. But when Adam ate, we're told in Romans 5, all mankind fell in him. Now wrap your head around that with me at the fall. There's a profound gender dynamic happening at the fall. Again, when Eve ate, it had no consequence for the race. But when Adam ate, Genesis 5.12, and we'll look at this in some depth momentarily, when Adam ate, all mankind fell in him because he was the appointed decision-maker. The whole exchange between God and the couple after they sinned assumes that the man is the one who's held responsible for the decision-making and is the spokesman. Paul in the New Testament picks up on this idea of men as covenant heads and leaders in 1 Timothy 2. It says, because of that creation order, Adam made first, then Eve. Men are to be the spiritual authorities in the church and the home. In Paul's teaching, his point is that pre-fall relations should be normative for the rest of the people of God today. This, of course, is setting the stage for the portrayal of gender roles in the New Testament. In Ephesians 5, God calls the Lord Jesus Christ the groom. the bridegroom, and he calls the church the bride. Now let's just ask, this is a simple question, a softball, even for people who are still kind of half asleep after that really great lunch. Let's ask the question, who initiates the relationship between that groom, Christ, and that bride the church. Well, it's always Jesus. Remember what he says in John 15? He says, you did not choose me, but I chose you. He's the one who initiated the relationship, who leads, who pursues, who always initiates reconciliation and restoration. It's our heavenly groom, the Lord Jesus Christ. And this serves as a role model for men today, a picture of Christ. Let's look at the immediate effects of the fall. How far and how quickly did man fall? Our Westminster Confession of Faith, that public theology that all elders and deacons and pastors, at least in the PCA, have to subscribe to. I don't really speak OPC, so I can't speak for them. How far did man fall? Our confession of faith answers. And so we became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body. Now, that's a massive statement about the effects of sin. Let me say it again, because there's some of you right now who still want to think, Carl, I was barely dinged by the fall. I haven't been crushed and broken and killed by the fall. Listen to what our confession says. We've become dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body. So let's work through that. Before the fall, Adam's body worked perfectly. No aches, no pains, no death. After the fall, everyone dies. The death rate is 99.99999%. I'm leaving out two people, Enoch and Elijah, who skipped death. Don't count on being an Enoch or an Elijah. And so after the fall, everyone dies. The most important thing you can say about the human race is mortality. And then we see the first human death actually take place in Genesis 4. It's a murder. Cain killing Abel. All deaths emanate from Adam's one sin. Every single death. I've been in lots of hospitals, seen lots of death certificates. And it's really interesting, especially during COVID, to read what was written on death certificates as cause of death. But you know what should be written on death certificates every single time? Cause of death, the fall. That's the real cause of death. We create euphemisms to speak of death. We say things like, he passed away. One hospital very near me lists the deaths in their hospital not as deaths but as negative patient care outcomes. But for all of our euphemisms, we cannot avoid death. It comes to all of us and it will come to you. Adam and Eve, up until this moment, had known a deathless world. There had been no animal death, no plant death, no human death, no death, period, until that moment. Then for 900 years, they had to watch the effects of their sin. They had to see the death of their kids and their grandkids. Can't you imagine the conversations between them? It was your fault. No, it's your fault. And they had to live with that for hundreds of years. But that's just the first immediate effect of the fall. Because we're saying that before the fall, Adam's body worked perfectly. After the fall, everyone dies. I'm just getting warmed up. Before the fall, Adam's mind worked perfectly. He thought God's thoughts after him, and he held no false premises. Now, let's be real clear about what Adam knew and what he didn't know. Before the fall, Adam was not omniscient. He didn't know everything, then he'd be God. Adam held no false premises. That's what we have to assert about him. He thought God's thoughts after him. But after the fall, Adam's mind always works error. According to Romans 1, the human mind naturally comes out of the womb suppressing truth in unrighteousness. And we see this from the fact that as soon as Adam and Eve see him, they foolishly thought they could hide from an omnipresent God. It's not just his body and his mind. Before the fall, Adam's will worked perfectly. He always chose correctly, always made the right choice. But after the fall, man in Adam always chooses incorrectly. He'll become addicted to bad choices and choose self-destructive behaviors, whether it's drunkenness and drugs or pornography and sexual immorality. Man in Adam is a bad chooser. His will has been flawed and ruined. But there's more. Before the fall, Adam's emotions worked perfectly. He loved what God loved, and he hated what God hated. Now, after the fall, man emotes in all the wrong ways. He hates what God loves, and he loves what God hates. But there's so much more in terms of the immediate effect of the fall. There's the alienation, man who before had the most intimate of fellowship with God now wants to hide from God. Then you have alienation of man from man. You have the breakdown in relationships, the blame shifting. All relational problems are a direct result of the fall, whether it's gossip or divorce, it all stems from the fall. And there's more, the cosmic effects of the fall. As soon as Adam and Eve sin, then you not only have thorns and thistles, you have storms and floods, hurricanes and tornadoes and drought. Paul says it this way in Romans 8, all these are our creation groaning. That's the creation groaning under the effects of the fall. And then you have war and crime, random violence, all of these come directly from the fall. Now, at this point, somebody, again, I always think of that person who's playing mental chess with me. I have a couple of these in my congregation. People say, Carl, I'm always two moves ahead of you. I'm trying to see where you're going, and I'm mentally arguing with you. And these are guys who will come up, and they don't put their questions in a question box. They come up, and they say, but what about this? So there are folks like that in this room. There always are. And these are people who say, well, Adam sinned, bummer for him, but I don't really think that it should have consequences for me. It was his problem. His sin shouldn't affect me. That's because you and I live in an individualistic age and we don't think covenantally. We don't think by households. We don't think about the transmission from generation to generation. And what the Bible everywhere says is, When Adam acted in the fall, he was acting as your representative, as your federal head. Right now, whether you like it or hate it, you have somebody in the governor's mansion in your state and somebody in the White House who they can make decisions for you, sometimes with a stroke of a pen. They might be foolish decisions, they often are, or they might be wise decisions, but they can make them because they are, this is the term, your covenant head, your federal head in the civil realm. Well, that's exactly what Adam did. And by the way, when our federal head, as the governor or the president, when they make those decisions, they're binding on you. They have immediate impact upon you. Well, when Adam sinned and died according to God's promise of Genesis 2.17, you, because of his choice, were plunged into death. Perhaps you'll protest, it's not fair that descendants should be punished for their parents' actions. And so you're going to have a massive problem just reading the Bible. For example, in Joshua 7, one man sins, Achan, and his whole household is executed. In 1 Samuel 15, a whole tribe, a whole people, the Amalekites, are punished for the sins of their fathers 400 years before. Adam was the super federal head. Is this really taught in the Bible? I want you to look carefully with me at Romans 5. I asked you a moment ago to turn there and be at the ready with that. But Romans 5, Paul teaches the most important truth about covenant theology, federal theology. And what I want you to notice is… is Paul goes to great trouble to say, Adam was your and my representative, like it or not. But then, that's the bad news. Then the good news is the second Adam. The Lord Jesus is now our new covenant representative, our federal head now. So notice how Paul weaves this together, because while he's doing this, he's saying, I know, I know you're predisposed to hate this idea of Adam acting for you. You just bristles it. Oh, I wish I would have had a different federal head, Paul says. Here's the good news of the gospel. You can have a different federal head, the Lord Jesus Christ. He can clean up everything that Adam marred. He can mend. So pick up the narrative in Romans five, verse 12. Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men." That's the federal idea of Adam acting and death pouring down upon every succeeding generation because all sin. Until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there's no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type. of him who is to come. But the free gift is not like the offense, for if by the one man's offense many died." There it is again, covenant headship. By the one man's offense, many died. And Paul keeps going on in this. Look at verse 16. He talks about the one offense that resulted in condemnation. In verse 17, if by the one man's offense, death reigned. Then he says, giving you the gospel in verse 19, he says, As by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience," meaning that of Jesus, the second Adam, by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. You and I being typical individualistic Americans may object, Carl, I'm just not buying it yet. I don't think it's fair for me to have to have the act of another person placed to my account. Then you won't like it when Christ acts for you and imputes His righteousness to you which you didn't earn for your salvation. You who object to Adam being your federal head, who else would you want to represent you? Adam was a man with an unfallen mind and held no false proposition. You're going to find somebody smarter? You who don't like Adam being your representative, Adam is a man with no track record of sin. Can you find somebody who has? Oh, you can't, can you? Or Adam is a man with an unbroken relationship with God. Can you find somebody like that? No. Adam was the best you and I could have hoped for. Now I want you to notice some of the parallels that Paul is teaching in Romans 5 between Adam and Christ. Adam is a federal head acting for others. Christ is a federal head also. Adam acted and all his posterity died. Jesus acts and his posterity live. Adam makes us liable for his condemnation. Jesus makes us liable for his blessing. I want to delve into what the fall has produced and what it produces in you and I, as Paul writes in Romans 5, we have all become sinners. I have so many pet peeves, so many quirky language things. One of them is that guy, maybe you're that guy. That guy who in his prayer always dangles it onto the end sort of like a safeguard that he's after he prays and then at the end and people's voice even sort of trails off, and forgive us for our many sins, amen. You know this guy. I've had elders before they would lead in prayer and it's almost like, oh, as I almost forgot, forgive us for our many sins, amen. And that's their confession of sin. I'm always wary of people like that. I'm thinking, I'm not sure they've grappled much with sin, and I'm taking this serious. Our confession says that men should confess their particular sins particularly. Well, what I want to point out to you is Adam's sin, because at this point, you say it's all theoretical. Adam, he transmitted to me a status, a status of someone in need of a savior, and Jesus transfers to me a status, status of redeem. But what I want to commit to you is Adam transmitted to you a lifestyle. a character, a heart, and actions. I want to show you how Adam's sin shows up in your life. Our confession talks about sins of word, thought, and deed, but there are so many other types of sin. For example, your sins of word. How often do you take inventory of your speech? By the way, Jesus tells us in Matthew 12, 36, that you and I will give an account for every single word we say, every idle word. How often do you sin with your tongue? The most common sins of word are lying lips, the writer of Proverbs says in Proverbs 6, gossip in 1 Timothy 5. The sinful tongue, Jesus says, is an evidence of a wicked heart. I'm always amazed when people will say something, whether it's profane or foolish, and they'll say, where did that come from? I don't know where that came from. It came from your heart. Jesus said that the heart speaks out of the overflow of the tongue. And so whatever somebody says, that's their heart. That's a perfect, 100% clear picture of what's in their heart and your heart. If what comes out is suggestive and profane, that's your heart. And so when we think about what Adam has wrought for us, first of all, sins of word, but then there are sins of thought. Which by the way, I want to remind you about sins of thought because there are some people who are really, really hidden and dark and devious. And they think, nobody knows what I'm thinking. Look at Psalm 139 with me, and let me show you what the scripture says about sins of thought. The psalmist writes in Psalm 139, verse 1 and 2, O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my thoughts afar off. Wicked thoughts are sin, we're told in Deuteronomy 15. This would include fantasizing about sin. That's why Jesus in Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount tells men that if they've looked at a woman to lust, in other words, to fantasize about her, they have violated God's law. Another aspect of sins of thought are planning sin. Proverbs says much about the person who plots and plans sin. Is this you? Do you think, I'm going to get back at him? And I'm going to think about how I can do this, and I'm going to do it in such a way that he's humiliated, and it's in front of the maximum number of people, and he looks like a fool, and I look like a hero. I couldn't be talking to you, could I? Sinful thoughts include worry, fear, lust, hatred. But again, it's not just sins of word and thought. These sins break out into deeds. Then there are the generational sins. There are parents in the room, and I want to speak to you for just a moment, because your kids are probably tired of me speaking to them for just a moment. I want to speak to moms and dads. One of the most frightening things that you can understand about sin and its nature is that sin gets passed on covenantally, generational sins. Mom and dad, the sins that are your pet sins, your children will learn them like that. And I want to prove that to you. Sin has a frightening capacity, that is to move down through the generations unless it is repented of sharply and cut off. Let me give you an example. Look at Exodus chapter 34, and I want to trace with you a couple of sin patterns. In Exodus 34, God has given the law to Moses and the Lord is speaking to Moses, and the Lord tells him about his own character. This is a remarkable text, by the way, because Moses is revealing his character, or the Lord is revealing his character to Moses. And he says in Exodus 34.6, the Lord, the Lord God, gracious and merciful. longsuffering, abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sins, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation." One of the ways God deals with sin, left unrepentant of, is He keeps passing it on to the next generation, and it gets stronger and stronger in each generation. Let me give you an example. In Deuteronomy chapter 7, the Lord tells Israel to not intermarry with foreign women because they would turn their heart away. Very clear statement. No room for misinterpretation. God says don't intermarry with the Canaanite women, period. Guess who intermarries with the Canaanite women? Look at 1 Chronicles 3 and show you an example. Again, we're dealing with generational sin, learned sin. 1 Chronicles 3, and we read of David's children and his wives, plural. It's not just enough that he has a plurality of wives, but we read of him in 1 Chronicles 3, these were the sons of David who were born to him in Hebron. The firstborn was Amnon by Ahinoam the Jezreelitist. Daniel by Abigail the Carmelitess, the third Absalom, the son of Maccah, the daughter of Talmi, king of Geshur. Do you know who he just married? He married a Canaanite. That's who Maccah is, and that's who Absalom's mother is. And he already knows that this marriage to an unbelieving woman will turn his heart away. So let's think about the generational aspect of this. This culminates one generation later in the sad spectacle of his son, Solomon, who has hundreds of unbelieving wives, according to 1 Kings 11, and we're told, they turned his heart away from serving the Lord. Now, where did Solomon learn to do that? Watching dad at home. We see the same thing. We could trace...so the sin that is generated and passed on in David's life is the sin of marriage to a foreign woman, an unlawful marriage. We see the same thing in the case of Abraham. You remember how he lies in Genesis 12 and Genesis 20. He calls Sarah his sister because he's a coward. And then we see his son Isaac perfectly imitating this in Genesis 26, the exact same thing. And by generation three, Rebekah is teaching the children to lie in Genesis 27 and to deceive. And by the next generation, Jacob's children will sell their brother into Egyptian slavery and go right home. lie to dad, because their default setting has become lying. From Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to Jacob's sons, we see lying hardening, spreading, and it becoming something they're very gifted at. And so one of the things we rarely think about, all we think about, we're so wooden, we think, well, okay, if I picked up that piece of gum and stuck it in my pocket and walked out of the store, that's a sin. Or if I told somebody it was Thursday when it was really Friday, then that's a sin, I'm lying. But other than that, we don't think at all about the character traits we've inherited and refused to repent of but only bettered from our parents. Another type of sin is religious sin. The prophet Malachi speaks to Israel about this in Malachi 1. Giving God the leftovers, half-hearted worship. We see that in the New Testament as well from Ananias and Sapphira, who want to be thought of as really zealous worshipers and really generous givers. They love to deceive. Then you have blatant sin. such as Achan's sin in the book of Joshua in Joshua 7. Clear understandings, clear transgressions of God's understood commands, they are most like Adam's transgressions. But then there's that one you're thinking, Carl, you know, most of my sin, I don't mean to, it's just unconscious. Let me show you what the Lord's provision is for unconscious sin. Look at Leviticus 5. after giving all sorts of laws for the offering, guilt offering, sin offering, trespass offering. Leviticus 5 verse 17, by the way, this principle does away with the insanity defense for the person who says, I didn't even know what I was doing, yet you're still guilty. Look at what Leviticus 5.17 says, if a person sins and commits any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord, Though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity." Classic case of unconscious sin is sinful and misplaced emotions. As a young man, Augustine loved the Greek plays. He would go and he would weep at the tragic scenes that were unfolding before him. But he wrote in his diary, there was no weeping over his lost state before a holy God. But he said he could weep with the best of them at the Greek plays. Later, Augustine remembered those times and he writes of them in his work, his retractions. He remembered those times with sheer disdain. He was repulsed by how much his affections were fixated on entertainment instead of eternal things in Christ. And so let me ask you. Do you weep over a movie when two lovers are separated and yet remain unmoved by the millions of real people separated from God? It's not wrong to weep, but we should weep when the Bible commands it. Otherwise, is it so deeply felt, is it actually a simple emotion? Well, let's talk about living in a fallen world. Because you and I live in a world that has been broken and crushed by sin. Everyone you meet is a sinner. Everything you see has been marred by sin. And so let's think about how do you live in a sinful world? First of all, never be surprised at brokenness. Things fall apart. Diseases come. Relationships end. We would like to live in a Thomas Kinkade painting. I'd rather live in a Rembrandt painting, but you know what I mean when I speak of Thomas Kinkade. If that's your taste in art, by the way, we need to have an art history class here next year. We'd like to live in that kind of painting where everything is sweet and light, but that's not reality. Scripture presents reality and brokenness in all its ugliness. And what you're going to find is if you commit yourself to deeply studying the Bible, you're going to say there are sin and the effects of sin on every page of Scripture. I would as well say, not only never be surprised by brokenness, but never be surprised by sin. Knowing the fall and its effects are real. The media always wants to psychoanalyze these sort of things. Why would that school shooter do that? Because Adam transmitted his rebellious heart to you and I, and we inherited his nature. Postmodernism says, no, there has to be a different reason, anything but what the Bible teaches. Never be surprised by sin and how it breaks out into the culture. And never be surprised by death. Your mom will die. Your children will die. You will die. It may be peaceful, it may be violent, it may be young, it may be old. I have buried children as young as four months old, and I've buried people over 100 years old, and everything in between. But every time you stand at a graveside, remember, this is the result of that one sin. And let me appeal to you, especially 15, 16, 17, 18-year-olds. One of the things that will keep your moral sense sharp and your reminder of the effects of sin or death is go to funerals. It's vital for you to do that. First of all, just so that you can be a vital part of the body and mourn with those who are mourning. You should do that. But I've dealt with several young people, had the occasion over the last few years who have said, I don't go to funerals. I don't want to think about it. I'm hopeful that by the time I get old that science will come up with a cure for that. Well, I said, you need to go because the great thing about a funeral in our congregation, we have about an average of 10 to 12 funerals a year. It's almost monthly. It's a great reminder. It's just like the beat of a drum reminding me every month, you're immortal. You will die. And there's something particularly sobering to stand at the graveside as the dirt is thrown on the casket. And I say, and the family shovels the dirt on, and I say, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And be reminded, this is the effect of Adam's sin. How do we apply this? Let me make two or three applications. This chapter in the metanarrative is exceedingly humiliating. is tragic, but it throws a floodlight upon what would otherwise be mysterious. It supplies the key to the course of human history and shows why so much of it's been written in blood and tears. It reveals why your child is prone to evil and has to be taught and disciplined into anything that's good. It shows why every improvement in man's environment, every attempt to educate him, all the effects of social reformers and government programs are unavailing to affect any betterment in character and nature. The sin of the fall has been devastating and universal in its effects. I would say to you by way of application, beware of rationalizing your sins as little sins. This is one of the best tricks of both the flesh and the evil one, of telling you, whispering in your ear, it's just a white lie. It's just $10. It's just a small thing. My friend, we should know by reading Genesis 2 and 3, it only takes one little sin to damn you and render you eternally liable to the wrath of a holy sin-hating God. Doesn't James say in James 2, whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. He who overlooks little sins will learn quickly to excuse great sins. Finally, you and I desperately need a Savior who is untainted by sin to be your substitute. I have intentionally not said a word up until this point about the sinlessness of Christ. You and I desperately need a Savior who's untainted by sin to be our substitute. Someone who's lived a perfect life, never sinned in word, thought, or deed. But where could you find such a person? And if you could find such a person, would they ever be your substitute taking your punishment that you were owed? That's the glory of the gospel, and we'll look into it more tonight and tomorrow, especially tomorrow. But it's so vital for you and I to hold deeply to this principle that our Jesus, the second Adam, never sinned in word, thought, or deed. Latest Gallup polling or Barna polling on this is well over 55% of people in America who state that they are evangelicals believe that Jesus sinned, well over 50%. And what that means is they don't have a Savior. because they're trusting in a Jesus who's a sinner. They're not trusting in the Jesus of the Bible. Let me remind you of Jesus' rap sheet in the scriptures. In 1 John 3, his closest friends, the people who walked with him and spent every minute with him for three and a half years, John says, in him is no sin. When you line up every single person who has any dealings with Jesus, they may lay all kinds of accusations against him, but they all have to agree In Him there is no sin." My favorite witness to this is the witness of the demons in Luke chapter 4 when Jesus is about to cast them out of a man and they say, the demons, they say, we know who you are. You are the Holy One of God. Even the demons have to confess that Jesus is sinless. And this is why we look to Him alone. Only He, to use the language of Hebrews 7, only He can save us to the uttermost. Put no trust in your wicked, corrupt, dying self. Jesus alone is sinless and offers His sinless righteousness, His earned righteousness to all who will come to Him in faith and repentance, and He will freely save you. Let's pray together. Our Father, we're reminded again, and we need frequent reminders of what our Father Adam has done for us and to us, that he has plunged us and the entire race into sin and death. And so, Lord, give us clear eyes to see that our only hope is a second Adam. one who succeeded everywhere Adam failed. And so, Lord, instead of excusing our sin or rationalizing our sin or psychoanalyzing our sin, oh, Lord, help us to do what is the only appropriate thing to do with our sin, to repent of it and flee to Jesus. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.