Let's get started. Father, we do thank you for this day that you have given to us and a day that you have made. We can thank you for the rain that reminds us, Lord, in Isaiah 55, that the Word of God is like the rain that replenishes the earth and accomplishes a purpose for which you sent it. We pray that your Word would have its way with us today and not only with us but all those who gather in your name. We pray, Lord, that your particular hand of blessing and comfort might be upon Matthew this day, Matthew Wright, that you would give him grace to breathe and pain would recede, and you'd give him grace. Pray for David, you'd give him rest, and Elizabeth as well. Lord, we come to you as the one who does all things well, and we ask, Lord, for your blessing on our gathering today and all those who gather together in your name. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, we have really camped out in these first three chapters of Genesis and that was for a purpose that was very much purposeful because these three chapters, if we understand what's going on in these three chapters, it's gonna help us understand life. I really don't think you can understand life. and how to live in the world, unless you have the understanding of these three passages, or these three chapters, that you're created in the image of God, that you are God's handiwork, and that you were created for communion with God. You were created to know God. I'm coming to see more and more of the purpose of the garden And God walking among them in the cool of the day, that speaks to communion. And what sin does, and what sin did, is it interrupted that. Sin always separates man from God. And the whole of the Bible really is God's initiating this plan of redemption, of bringing people back to himself. And not just that they live orderly, moral lives, but that they have communion with him, that they know him, which is the really the whole purpose of God creating people was that they know him and they know his glory. And so the whole Bible really is the outworking of God's gracious promise to redeem a people for himself, okay? And so these first three chapters are very, very important in understanding that. And we'll tend to proceed quickly from here on and not gonna spend a lot of sort of verse by verse as we go. We'll pause at some important places, I think. What I wanted to do today is really just kind of finish up what we had started in looking at the fall. And today, we want to consider the grace, grace that is so apparent in God's dealings with Adam and Eve, and particularly after the fall, the grace that showed to them after the fall. And we're going to remember again but labor this point of the original audience for these first five books of the Bible, Moses giving them to the children of Israel before entering into the promised land, okay? And very important for them to realize, and us as well, who we are, who are we? And I'm gonna make this point today, but probably, We can assume this, that the material of Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy would have been known to these people because they were given these instructions. Mount Sinai had happened, the wilderness wanderings. the tabernacle had been built, the sacrifices and so forth. So in a real sense that part of the history at least was oral to them. They had been told, we read that, all through the rest of the of the Pentateuch, but Genesis was probably somewhat new to them. I suspect it had an oral history of that, but having it written down and given to them in this form would have been very helpful to them to realize who they were. So we have to keep that in mind as we're reading. through Genesis. And I don't think it was absolutely new. You know how it is when you hear stories from your grandfather and you know those things, but they are not written down so you can study them. That was probably the situation when Moses gave the these first five books to the children of Israel there on the cusp of the Promised Land. So, much of it that they knew, or at least had a sort of oral memory of. But Genesis probably more new we might say to them, particularly these first few chapters. But I'm going to make this point today. There are certain things that happen that probably the original hearers are going, oh, I'd heard that before. It's something that clicked in that sort of collective memory of the people. So we have to keep that in mind. I think that's important as we understand. How many years from Egypt to the Promised Land? No, no, not the going, but the coming out. And then 40 years, thereabouts. And 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, Sinai, we don't, you know, it's not exact, but that's about a generation. Because you've got a generation and a lot of material and insight given to them in those 40 years. But then what Moses is going to give them is all of their history, going back to the to the very beginning, and then the patriarchs and so forth, and then the going into... He's doing a lot of back-filling for these folks to understand just who they are. So Genesis does that. It gives them their whole story. Once we begin in Exodus, it's going to be things that are closer in their minds and in their memories, okay, within the generation. They would have lived through what Moses is going to give them in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Does that make sense? Okay. All right. Now, we talked about the fall and made a comment about the similarity between Eve's, particularly Eve's, the sort of anatomy of her sin. And I wasn't there intending to make necessarily a theological comment about innocence verses, but what I was really thinking about is a passage in James. If you and the similarity there between the sort of progress in temptation and then what we read in James. In James chapter one, and mainly for kind of an application to us, a warning really to us. James one says, blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life. which God has promised to those who love him. 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. But then look at verse 14. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. In my mind, that's kind of describing what we saw there in Genesis chapter three, but mainly just as a kind of application warning to us. Sin begins much, will begin before perhaps an actual sin occurs. The desire, the lust of the eyes, the sinful pride of life, so forth that John talks about. So I just wanted to make that comment. Grace in the garden. Grace in the garden. When Adam and Eve sinned, God went after them. God went after them. He entered into the garden looking for them. It was, we can say obviously he knew what had happened. It wasn't news to him. He knew what had happened. He knew what was going to happen before it happened, and he went after them. He went after them in the garden. He called after them. Where are you? Where are you? And that's grace, that's mercy. He could have said, you know, it didn't happen, but he could have said, okay, that's it. I told him, I told him, I told him that the day they ate of it, they would die. I told him that would be it. And in a sense, they did die. He wasn't making it up. He didn't break a promise. But he showed grace to them. He showed mercy to them. He came after them. If you're a Christian, that's what's happened to you. God has come after you. You think of the prodigal who goes into the far country. That's us. And God came after us in the far country. He's the initiator. He speaks to them. He questions them. And in that questioning, I think begins to be conviction of sin, which is a part of God's mercy and grace, is to convict us of sin. And he's the initiator, and he's always the initiator of grace. And you remember that in chapter two, we had this description of this beautiful garden where the Lord was gonna plant Adam and Eve, And we heard in Genesis 3 verse 8, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. They recognized that. They recognized that sound of him walking in the garden. in the cool of the day, that's a very pleasant picture of the Lord communing with Adam and Eve, that that was, we could assume, a regular kind of thing for them to know, and it seems to me that's really the whole purpose of the garden, and putting Adam and Eve there, not that, okay, this is gonna be a nice place for them to live, and they're going to be independent of me. No, it's a place where God communes with them. He comes alongside of them. And it seems to me, what is maybe the grand purpose of the Christian life? What? it's to commune with God, it's to know God, it's to walk with God. Union with Christ is in order to communion with the Lord. The whole of the Bible story, it seems to me, is Is God initiating this plan to bring us back, in a sense, to the garden, to bring back this communion with himself? That's how we need to think of the Christian life, it seems to me. Not in terms of, okay, I'm keeping this standard, I'm doing these right things, or this and that. Okay, that's good, but that is in order to communion with God. I'm going to make the point today that in the sermon that sanctification is not an end in and of itself. It is in order that we walk with God, you see. How can two walk together unless they be agreed, right? So the Lord is going to bring us to this agreement, you know, with Him in our lives. That's what He's doing, to restore communion with Himself, right? And so that's the whole purpose, right, of this redemptive flow. So that's the first thing. God is the initiator. That's point one. There's seven of these. God the initiator, restoring communion with himself, and he's the first mover. in reestablishing that communion. It will involve conviction of sin. It will involve a recognition of sin. It always does. It always does. There's no real coming to God apart from a sense that I'm wrong. But God initiates that. One of our hymns says, what does it say, when it talks about, "'Tis the Spirit's rising beam, help me." But conviction of sin is the spirit's rising beam, okay? The sense of my need of God. So God the initiator. Second thing is the sort of proto-gospel that we see in verse 15. The first gospel, right? Verse 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring, There's going to be this battle. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. That's the Messiah. That's the one who's going to come. It's going to be a person. It's going to be a person who is going to come and who's gonna crush the head of the serpent. The serpent crusher, if you think about Easter, is the celebration of the serpent crusher. He's the one who came to crush the serpent's head. And so, you know, the whole rest of the Bible, is the working out of that plan and of the keeping of that promise, of the Lord sending a Redeemer, ages long looking for this Redeemer. And we don't know how old is the world. Millions and millions, or thousands and thousands, we don't know. I have my own views about that. It's a young earth, according to the Bible. But it's a long time before the Redeemer comes. It's a long time. That's what the whole story of the Genesis and the patriarchs and all of that, and he's bringing it forth. And you remember in Luke chapter three, I guess it is, when Simeon and Anna appear on the scene, what had they been doing? They'd been looking for the Messiah. They'd been looking for the Redeemer. And when he comes, they know it, they see it. And going back, it seems to me, to this first promise of the Lord sending a Redeemer. That's grace, okay? That's grace, this Redeemer that's gonna come. Number three is even in the curses, there is grace. There's grace in the curses. Let me explain that. One of the things that happens in the curses, even, is that God is reestablishing an order in his world. In other words, he's the one who brings the curse, so that puts him in his rightful place. He is speaking to these people. Even in the curse, he's speaking, he's establishing his place over the world. even in what's going to happen between the man and the woman, there's going to be disagreement, there's going to be the sort of battle there. It's not going to be as it was before, where there was peace and harmony. But even in that curse, notice he says... Where is it? Oh, your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. Okay, that's a reestablishing of the order in the garden. Now, that's not always going to be a sweet rule. It's not going to be a loving rule. It's going to be a rule that has sin in it, right? But still, it's a reestablishing of order, God, man, woman. nature and man is going to be able to plow the ground and work the ground and so forth. In other words, he's going to be over it. He's going to be establishing his dominion over it. Right, Seth? That's what you do, your dominion over the earth, right? And so that's a reestablishing of the order. The earth will not always respond well. There's gonna be dissatisfaction, turmoil, it doesn't always go right, but it's still, he's establishing an order that we see even today. So even in the curses, God is reestablishing his order. Four, the race, the human race, will continue. Okay, that's grace. You and I are here, okay? The race continued. It didn't have to, we might say, because God could have ended it, but it was grace that the race will continue with the possibility of births, right? Even in the curse, I will multiply your pain and childbearing. Okay, childbearing, human childbearing is painful, right? But it works. It works. It brings forth children, okay? And that, you know, supposes that, okay, those children, they will bring forth children, and those children will bring forth, in other words, the race will continue, okay, until the Messiah comes And until he comes again, the race continues, right? Even in pain, even in turmoil, even in sin, you see, there's grace. There's grace. That's, what is that, four? This is five. The ground will produce. The ground will produce. It was meant to produce from the very beginning seed, bearing seed, and all that, and the continuation of vegetable plant life and so forth, and that's going to continue. That's going to continue. It's going to get harder, but the ground will produce, even with toil. We can make our way in the world because of that. Sin has just thrown a wrench into everything. But because God is merciful and gracious, it still produces. The ground still produces. I think I included this in another one, but number six is that there is this kind of order reestablished between the man and the woman, though with pain and sorrow, okay? And so, yeah, I don't remember where I said that before, but reestablishing the created order, yeah. Okay, and then the last one is, look at verse 20. Look at verse 20. It says, the man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. There's grace in that. Even in the naming of her, she's gonna be the mother of all living. In other words, Adam has an optimistic view of life going forward, okay? And that optimism is even in her name. She's the mother. of all living, okay? She will produce, so forth. And the race will go on and continue. And then verse 21, just stuck this in here, it seems like. And the Lord God Okay, remember, not Elohim here, but Jehovah Elohim, the covenant personal name of God. The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Okay, now, what's going on there? Somebody had to die, an animal had to die. To be clothed with these animal skins, an animal had to die. This is actually very, very important, that Adam and Eve remember when they sinned, they saw themselves naked. and they were ashamed. Okay, that's what sin does. Sin brings shame. And so God's clothing them was a grace to them in their sinful state to clothe them. Clothes are a good thing. God has instituted it, so it's a good thing that we wear clothes. And he covered them. Okay, that's one thing. But then what had to happen in order for them to be clothed was that an animal had to die. Remember Jesus said, or the Lord said, that sin brings death, right? Well, this is the first death in the Bible as the animal skinned. Now, some might say, well, I think you're reading too much into that, the whole idea of the sacrifices and everything. But remember, remember, that who the audience was to whom this was written. These were folks who had gone through 40 years in the wilderness. They'd been to Sinai. They knew the Ten Commandments. They'd gone through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. I'm not saying in a written sense, but orally, if you read those books, it's time and time and time again, God told Moses and Moses told the people. Okay, so he was the intermediary, and he's giving all of these instructions to the people all the way through. They were very familiar with sacrifice. They were very familiar with animals having to die and to be sort of put forward in their place, right? They would have been very familiar with that. And I suspect when they read this, they got it, And the first sacrifice, we might say, the first animal sacrifice. They would have been very familiar with, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. No remission of sin without the shedding of blood. And beginning to make the connection between this shedding of blood of an animal and the promise already given to them of the one who would come, right, of the one who would come. And so, you know, and of course, believing Israelites in the Old Testament, they got that, they understood that, that these sacrifices, these animal sacrifices were, and since temporary, and that they were looking forward, you know, because of the promise that of the offspring of the woman who would crush the serpent's head. They would, I'd say, have immediately made the connection between sin and blood, animal sacrifice. Okay? Questions? There could also be a connection just with verse 20 and 21 together. Eve, mother of all living, including the seed, who would be bruised, and now we have remission of sins, possibly. I mean, there could be a secondary living It's obviously not expressed. You can only speculate. Mother of all living, and why is there going to be living? Because of the sacrifice and the covering. Just think, there's a sense where not only is the covering for them on a horizontal level, but spiritually a covering. We need a covering for our sin to approach the Lord and to be in his presence. And then he sends them out. He sends them out of the garden. Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life." I've only recognized this in the last few weeks as I've been sort of doing some preparation for the class on the Pentateuch and reading through things and thinking through things a little bit. It's significant that it seems to me he drove out the man at the east of the garden. The east is evidently the entrance to the garden was on the east. Okay, now what else had an eastern entrance? The temple? The entrance is on the east. Also the tabernacle. When the tabernacle was constructed, it had these sides and so forth, but the entrance was on the east. That's where it was. And then where the temple, when the temple was constructed, the eastern wall or the eastern part was the entrance to the temple was on the east as well. You know, I think, you think of, Sorrow may be for the night, but joy comes in the morning, you know, the sunrise in the east, I don't know. But there is a sense, again, where I think the folks would have, they were familiar with the tabernacle, they were familiar that the tabernacle was the place where God met with them, where God had communion with them. And Moses would go in, entering from the east, and there's a sense in which it's kind of like the new garden. It's temporary, it's a tent, right? It's not a permanent structure. And then when the temple was constructed, that's a more permanent, but remember God destroyed it, had to be rebuilt again. So there was always a temporary nature, even to the temple. And the Jews would always say, the temple, the temple, the temple. You know, the unbelieving Jews, they put their hope in the temple. But in the book of Revelation, what do we see? We see the new Jerusalem coming down, and there is no temple. Why? Because the Lord himself is the temple, right? So there are these sort of memories in a sense of, okay, what is the way of communion with God? And the way to the garden has been barred, but the snake crusher is going to come. and enable entrance once again. And there was a kind of temporary entrance into the tabernacle and the temple and so forth. I think of the church of Jesus Christ. We don't build our buildings to have entrances on the east, but perhaps we ought to think about that. It reminds us of God communing with his people. That's where God meets with his people. And we ought to think that way. It seems to me that when we do come together as God's people, yeah, we enjoy being around one another. But we want to meet with God. We want to enjoy His presence and meet with Him. And we do that, of course, individually because the Spirit is inside of us. He dwells with us. So it's communion with Him by His Spirit really every day. Every day, every moment of every day. And then we get to do this together, the gathering of God's people together. So, just thoughts that are, I think, attached to these first few chapters here. Well, I'm done. Any questions or thoughts? Well, think of it this way. They were now sinners, okay? The fall meant that Adam and Eve would produce sinners, you know. And what if sinners could live forever? if Hitler could live forever. There is something about grace, even in death, that bad people die. And if they had had entrance back into the garden to eat the tree of life, what would that have meant? They would have lived forever. Their offspring would have lived forever. But in a sinful state, So the tree of life, we're looking forward to it. We're looking forward to that tree of life. It's going to be there for us. But now it is barred to us. And we die. We die. And of course for believers, we go to be with Him. For me to live is Christ, to die is gain because of the gospel. But to live forever on this planet, that would be, That would be hellacious. That's my own thought about that. Why is the tree of life barred? It's barred now. But one day, one day, we will know that the tree of life will be in the midst of result of man living longer and becoming more and more evil to the point where shedding blood all the time and the violence of man, God regretted making man. Yeah, because when we get there, the increasing nature of ungodliness somebody like a Lamech, you know, who killed a whole bunch of people in that long life, you know, so. I mean, some of them lived almost 900 years. Right, right. That's amazing. Yep. That's good. Brian? Can you talk a little bit about the grace the Lord gave to Adam and Eve? When you look at Verse 2, 23, Eve's created and Adam's all excited. He gives her the name of Orphan. Fall occurs and then in 3, 20 he gives her the name Eve. Well, I think, yeah, I guess, yeah, it's there, isn't it? That even though, you know, the curse to them is going to be real, your desire shall be contrary to your husband, he shall rule over you. But because of the grace of Christ, And we know this, even in our relationships, our Christian marriages, they're not always smooth. But there's grace, and there's joy, and there's fulfillment, and satisfaction, and that's because of grace. And I see that, and even in the mother, you know, Regardless of what happens in our marriages, I doubt there's a sin equal to what happened with Adam and Eve. And God restored the marriage of Adam and Eve. So that Adam calls her the mother of all living. So there was grace enough to restore that relationship. And that he could restore it. relationships now because, not because of the bull, but because of his grace and the crusher of the serpent. Right. Amen. Amen. God is able to. It's funny you should say that. I've been reading lately a book called Red Like Blood that David Vaughan recommended to me. It's a story of Bob Beddington. Bob Beddington is the co-author with many of Jerry Bridges' books, but Bob Bevington has a real story of sin and grace, and the Lord's restoring mercies to him. It's really quite an amazing story. Yeah, what else? Sam? I wanted to tag along to Sean's question. I actually asked my wife this question a few weeks ago when we were first reading it. And I went so far as to say, not only is it a grace that sinners don't live forever, and that there is death, Christ came as a man to be everything that man was, and he took on the curse. If there was no death, then there would have been no salvation. If Christ hadn't died, we would all have been lost. So, not only is it a grace for us as sinners to not live forever in our sin, but that because there is now death in this world from that point on, that that seed of the woman would come and be crushed. He would die. And that death would give all of us life. Those who believe in him. Yep. Yep. Very good. Very good. Yep. Rebecca? Hebrews 10, 19. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through His flesh. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. With our hearts sprinkled clean from evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For He who promised is faithful. Amen. Amen. the entrance to the tabernacle faced east, then the entrance to the Holy of Holies also faced east, because it went straight back. So that curtain faced east. And the ward entered in behind the veil, shed his own blood on our behalf. So there are lots of here to the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for your word. We do pray, O Lord, that you would remind us again and again of the great grace that is in your gospel. Help us to understand and lay to heart who we are and created in the image of God and knowledge of God. but sinners carrying with us the sin of Adam and our great need of a Savior, a serpent crusher for our own lives. And we pray, O Lord, that we'd see that more and more and that Your grace would be evident to us. Lord, we desire to not only celebrate communion today, but to enjoy and real communion with you through our Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Would you come among us, Lord, for Jesus' sake. Amen.