There is a story that's told where a little boy was at church, and he was asking his mother, what does it mean, Mom, when the pastor folds his hands? And she said, well, son, that means it's time to pray. And then he said, well, Mom, what does it mean when he looks at his watch? And she said, son, that means absolutely nothing at all. But I am mindful of the hour. I won't do a typical sermon in a black church that could go for an hour plus. I will limit it and be respectful of the time, because I want you to come back tomorrow morning. But what I want to do with the remaining time I have is I want to finish our discussion in Genesis chapters 1 through 3, and I'm going to be a little bit more academic. I was invited by the school. Thank you for inviting me. perhaps be a little more exegetical and give you a few more details. And if you're interested in what I'm going to share tonight, it is on my blog, and it's on a blog called Covenant Eyes. It went viral, and it's how nakedness affected the fall. In the outline that I'm preaching right now, my first point was I wanted to arm you with two truths, and the first truth was that God created sex for marriage, and this one is how Satan slash the serpent perverts sex to destroy marriage. And I want to try to argue that from the latter part of Genesis chapter 2 through Genesis chapter 3. Let me read you that text. In Genesis chapter 2 verse 18 and following, Then the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper who corresponds, who is suitable, who fits him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever the man called the living creature, that was its name. And the man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. And then he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. And the Lord God fashioned it into a woman. And the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man. And the man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. And I'm going to translate it pretty literally. This is a woman and she shall be called, she was taken out of man. And this says, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother. and be joined together, or joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were naked and were not ashamed. And now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God hath made." When you finish Genesis chapter 2, and God goes into more detail and gives you the creation narrative on the sixth day between man and woman, and it tells us how God put Adam to sleep And it doesn't say everything else God made or He spoke into existence, but He fashioned the woman. And I love that. He built her. He shaped her. And He fashioned this woman, and He performed the first marriage ceremony. He brought her to Adam, and then He woke Adam up, and there she was. Now, brothers, maybe you remember your first wedding night, but it's something, ain't it? Here, on this day, when God brought Eve to Adam, this literally is a Hebrew poem. It just spills over with his emotion. In the beginning of the poem, it says, this one, if you have a footnote in your Bible, And the Miller says, and this one, and the Ennis says, this one, because he had seen the pairs of animals, Mr. and Mrs. Hippo, and how happy they were, and Chip, Chat, Pansy, and all that. And there was no one for him. And then when God brought Eve, he just about fell out. He's like, this is it! And that's how it is the first wedding night. It's just a wonderful gift of God. And if you're single, keep yourself for that. It is a prize worth saving for. When I was a kid, I was just overly curious, and I wasn't a Christian either. So I didn't like surprises at all. So around Christmas time, I'd always find all of my Christmas presents. My parents would hide them, and I would look all over the house and find them. And then Christmas morning, I had to act like I was surprised. Oh, that's great! No, don't do that on your wedding day. Just wait. Wait on the Lord. Marriage is a gift of God. It's good. And here it is, God brings Eve to Adam, and it just spills over with excitement. And then Moses gives us this commentary on marriage, and he's not speaking to Adam and Eve, obviously, because they didn't have father and mother. He's speaking to us, when he says, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one, some would almost say one person, some theologians say, that they will be glued together. such that to separate them, you'd have to tear them apart from that point forward. They would be glued together in every, in the fullest sense. And then it says, and the man and his wife were naked and were not ashamed. They were in bliss and innocent holiness. But recall that in the state of innocence, God had left the test for them. God had given them everything. He had given them the perfect mate, the perfect place, made them kings and queens over the whole earth. There have been no one richer than Adam and Eve. They had everything, and they had full intimacy with God. And God required just one thing. He wanted them to have a real love for Him, which means they had to obey Him. As God made them in His image and likeness, they would forever be like Him, but they would not be Him. They would be created beings who could only fulfill their calling and be satisfied in living a life in full dependence upon Him. And so God gave them a task they had to obey. He gave them a prohibition, a command. And it was an unequal command. He said that from any tree of the garden, any tree of the garden, you may eat freely. They could eat as much as they wanted from any tree, but from one tree, that's it, one single tree, they had to stay away from. They could not, literally, they could not eat from one tree. And that was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God gave that charge to Adam. And he said that if you disobey, The day that you eat from it, you will certainly surely die. God warned him. So while everything is good, the pristine, holy, pure garden, the opportunity for evil was there if Adam and Eve did not obey, specifically if Adam did not obey God, because God gave this charge and command to Adam. And then it says in chapter 3, And now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field. And this marriage narrative at the end of chapter two is connected to the fall narrative. It's connected in an interesting way. It's connected with a homonym, a wordplay. That the word for naked in chapter two is arum, and the word for crafty is aram. So you have aram and arum, this wordplay. So aram, I should say it this way, aram in chapter 2 verse 25 for naked, and a room is the Hebrew word for crafted. So this wordplay connects these two narratives, especially for someone who have heard this narrative as Moses wrote it. They didn't all have Bibles, they would have heard it. And they would have heard this wordplay connecting these two narratives. So when you read chapters 2, 3, they're all connected. Moses has the way he outlines the book of Genesis, and he has this word on the count of, or generations of, or genealogy of. You have that in chapter 2, verse 4, it doesn't appear again, to 5, verse 1, the book of the generations of Adam. So this whole section needs to be stuck together, and specifically, this marriage narrative and this fall narrative are stuck together with this Hebrew wordplay. And let's listen to what happens. It says that the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said... Now, we have a problem right there, up front. that the serpent spoke. Adam had named all the animals. None of them spoke back to him. Only Adam and Eve were made in the image and likeness of God with these communicable attributes. So, something is going on here. That animal speak was spoken through, especially for Moses. Moses gives us the narrative where Balaam's donkey speaks to him, and it was spoken through by God. So, there's some spiritual agent who we can't see here speaking through this animal, which is called from the beast of the field. It is a real animal. It's from the beast of the field. It's of the class of the animals. It got its name from Adam, and which meant that it was underneath Adam and Eve's authority. They had full authority over this, but this animal is speaking here. And I found something like, it's just a silly little mind game I have. Sometimes I think that, you know, if my mom had been in the garden, it would have been a little different, because in that circumstance, she would have been like, I'm out of here. But here Eve stays and she has this dialogue with this serpent and he says, listen, indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? Did you catch that? You mean you can't, all these trees, you can't eat from any tree of the garden? What kind of God is that? Harsh, repressive. It just makes up rules on the fly. Has no concern for you. Wants to keep you down. Can you trust a God like that? Who doesn't have your best interests at heart? Just makes up these rules. Out of all these trees, you can't eat from any of these trees. And he twisted the very words of God. The generosity of God. When God said you can eat freely from any tree. But she doesn't catch, nor does she correct. She doesn't correct all of his his attack against God, where he tries to create doubt in her mind about the goodness of God. And it says, the woman, and that's specific. It doesn't say Eve, or it doesn't say, it just says the woman specifically here, because it wants, I think, the reader to see, and Moses is writing this for Israel, it wants the reader to see, this is the prototypical woman. This is how women respond. This is how a man would respond. A man would respond like Adam. Stick any woman, she'll respond this way, even my mom. And stick any man in here, this is how we will respond. This is us. This is how we respond to the temptation of the fall. And it says, the woman, when she corrected him, said, from the fruit trees of the garden, not from any tree, freely, but from the fruit trees we may eat. And from the tree, from the fruit tree which is in the middle of the garden, look how she describes that. She says the fruit tree which is in the middle of the garden. Which I'm going to suggest, so she's not standing, Underneath it, she describes the tree as if it's some distance away from her. She says to the tree, way over in the middle of the garden, God said that you shall not eat from it, or touch it, or you will die. And she leaves an important word out. She doesn't say certainly, surely, die. And she is a sharp gal. She is intrigued, and she wants to hear what the serpent has to say. And so she hears it suddenly move, and she doesn't make the penalty as absolute as God had made it. And so the serpent jumps on that. and calls God a bold-faced liar, moves from doubt to direct deception by calling God a liar. Verse 4, the serpent said to the woman, you will not die, or you surely will not die. Now this is amazing to me because he takes the exact same Hebrew phrase that God did it when God said, and before he was even made, When God said that in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die, he says, take this, surely die, and he negates it. So he was there. The spirit speaking through the serpent was there. He is an intelligent being because he could comprehend everything that God said. And he is an evil being because he's calling God a liar. Bone-faced liar. And you would think out of all that God had given to Eve, all that he had blessed her with, she would have been outraged. When I was a kid growing up, if you talked about my mama, you were in trouble. I'm a little teeny guy, but I mean, you could be six foot nine, a fight was going to happen. Here it is. He blasphemes God and Eve does nothing. She's intrigued. She wants to hear more that this shrewd, this spiritually shrewd and crafty attack is being tailor-made specifically towards her femininity, and he knows how to exploit a vulnerability that is within Eve. And so, he tempts her with this idea, gives a motive. God didn't just lie for any old reason. Believe me when I say he lied, because I'm going to give you the reason why. Verse 5, For God knows something that you don't know, Eve, that in the day that you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God. How? You'll know good and evil for yourself. You'll be free. You won't be under Adam as his helper and him the head. You won't be under God. You'll be free to decide for yourself. You won't be able to choose right and wrong for yourself. You won't have to live a submissive role. You won't have to. You can be the head. You can do whatever you want to do. You can decide for yourself what you want to do. And so he attacked her with lies. And the New Testament tells us in 1 Timothy chapter 2 that she was thoroughly deceived. And so it tells us in verse 6 that having heard all these blasphemous things and the lies from the serpent, she was intrigued by this opportunity to be free from her role of being a submissive wife and a subordinate role. And let me say again, that is, there is nothing at all derogatory, inferior about being in a supportive role. Christ lived in a subordinate role to the Father. that he, it says in John chapter 14, 31 that to show that he loved the Father, it says he did exactly what the Father told him. He obeyed even to the point of death. Why? Because he showed his love for the Father's love. And the Bible says that he is everything that God is, all the deity, Christ first, and so that to be in a supporting role allows a woman to reflect her trust and faith in God, her love for her husband, and it is to do something very much like what Christ does to the Father. It is an honor to be able to show the design of God and that it is good and trust God. But here's the one thing that God said wasn't good. She now goes to see if it is good. She's going to put God on the witness, on the test, on trial and see if she can trust God or not. And so she goes and says, and verse 6, and at this time she's not alone. She has her husband. So apparently after the serpent left, and we may disagree on this detail and I'm not going to fall on the sword, but I think she was alone. He attacked the woman, the serpent did, and now the serpent is gone. She gives Eve, she gives Adam, they walk over to the tree together, and she tells them what the serpent has said. How do I suggest that? Verse 17 says, then to Adam, God speaking, he said, because you have listened to the voice of the serpent, doesn't say that, because you listened to the voice of your wife. I think the serpent went to Eve while she was alone. He deceived her. She goes and gets Adam, tells Adam everything the serpent had told her. They go to the tree together, and then she looks at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she says that it looks good for food. The one thing God said was bad and wrong, she says it's good. She says it is a delight for her eyes, and the tree was desirable to make one wise. That means she would have this wisdom to choose for herself. The first feminist. that here she is going to reject her feminine distinctive role and she is going to lead. She takes the fruit. She eats the fruit and gives it to Adam and he ate. So the serpent attacked the woman. He attacked her with lies. Does he do anything different today? That in my community we have a lot of women pastors and it's becoming much, much more matriarchal and not patriarchal. Male head shift is a dying species, just like marriage is. And partly because Satan doesn't have to come up with new tricks. It worked pretty well for Eve, and it works pretty well today, that he will seduce women and say somehow that God has robbed you and deprived you because you're not the head. That he's keeping something from you. You should be free to do whatever you want to do. Step out. Don't stand under this repressed, harsh, predicament just decide for yourself what you want to be and do and so Eve does that she takes the fruit listen but when she takes the fruit eats it nothing happens she gives it to Adam and he eats and then it says verse 7 then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. So once they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, sin became, listen, internal to them. At that point, it had to be introduced to them from an external source. They would have never come up with this idea of rebelling against God. It had to be introduced to them. But now that Adam ate, sin became a part of our fabric and our makeup, so no one has to tell a little three-year-old how to lie. That you tell him, don't eat the cookie, you leave the room and he comes back, crumbs all over his mouth, that you eat the cookie. Uh-uh mama, uh-uh mama. And it's all over his face. When did he come back? Did they have to take a class on how to lie? It's just a part of our DNA. It's a part of who we are as sinners. We have this knowledge of evil and having a knowledge of evil, but being dead spiritually to God, we will do the sin that now we know internally and become slaves to it. So Adam and Eve now are awake and separated from God spiritually. with an internal awareness of sin. And that's what they do. That's what they are. And so God comes and he seeks out Adam, specifically Adam. It says in verse 9, Then the Lord God called the man. He didn't call the serpent. He didn't call Adam and Eve. He called the man. And it says the man because here Adam is representative of men when it says the man. And it says the man. Where are you masculine singular pronoun? Where are you Adam? In verse 10, and he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was frightened because I was naked. There goes our word again. And so I hid myself. And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you, masculine singular pronoun, not to eat from? And then verse 10, the man said, the woman you gave to be with me. She gave me from the tree and I ate. And he blames God. You gave her to me, Adam. I was kicking it. I was finding my single bachelor pad, playing my Xbox, looking at football all day. I was cool. And then you gave her to me. And she gave it to me. It's your fault and it's her fault. He blames both of them. He doesn't repent. God comes to him. Walking in the cool of the garb would suggest that's the intimacy they share. God comes to him. He doesn't repent. He rebels. He doesn't confess his sin. He has a scapegoat. And then it says, as God is judging them, it says in verse 17, and then to Adam, God said, He gave everybody the consequences that fit their sin. And to Adam, He gives this consequence. And to Adam, He said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife. And again, I just want to stress that It means that Adam listened to Eve and he didn't hear the serpent. Same verse, Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you, saying you shall not eat from it. And Adam did, he sinned, he rebelled, and all of our eyes were opened. And sin came into creation through the one-man sin, and sin brought death, and sin and death spread to all because of the one-man sin. If you read Romans chapter 5, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Adam is in death. Everybody who is an Adam is in death. In order to get out of death, you've got to repent to be in Christ and trust Christ. But everyone in Adam is in death. Adam sinned. He didn't repent. He didn't confess. He rebelled against God, and he brought death into creation. And the question I want you to think through, Eve was deceived. It tells us that in the New Testament. So that's why she did this. She believed the lie that she would be free, her own little god, to do whatever she wanted to do. But why did Adam sin? Why did Adam rebel against God? Why did Adam do this? And the most we get out of commentaries is to say that he just rebelled with his eyes wide open. That's almost all it says. I think we can get a little bit more out of the context. I think the two things we can see, the text telling us about Adam's sin that I want to apply to our discussion tonight. Verse 17, the fact that it says you have listened to the voice of your wife is just a big deal in the Old Testament. Look with me at Deuteronomy. chapter 8, Deuteronomy 8. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so you shall perish because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God. Do you hear the similarity? that Israel would perish because they would not listen to the voice of the Lord their God. Same idea in Deuteronomy 9, verse 23, speaking of Israel while God was judging them. And when the Lord sent you to Cadiz, Barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you, then you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You neither believed him nor listened to his voice. Same idea, that they rebelled against God, did not listen, and then other connotations would tell you as you go through the rest of Deuteronomy, is that when they would not listen to God, they would listen to other voices. This is stock language, theological language for idolatry, that here it is, they're putting something over and above God, and men listen to me. It is perfectly right to listen to your wife. The Bible tells Abraham, God tells him, to listen to the voice of your wife. Listen to Sarah. It tells him to do that. Wisdom is personified as a woman in the book of Proverbs and Solomon tells his son, embrace wisdom, listen to lady wisdom, love lady wisdom, follow lady wisdom, but you do not listen to anybody at any time when they tell you to contradict or disobey God. Yet Adam did. He didn't listen to God. He rebelled against God with his eyes wide open. This is treacherous. That God had loved him, given him everything. God wanted his real love. That's what God wants from us. He wants your whole heart. He wants to know, do you love me? Tearing the Bible, that's not enough. Showing up to church, that's not enough. Obey me when it's easy, that's not enough. Will you obey me and love me? Will I be first in your life? God wants our whole heart. He has blessed us with his Son. He could not have given us more. He sent His Son down to prosper us. Now we love Him back. He wants us to love Him. And the way we show we love Him is by listening to Him. That's tantamount to obeying Him. And so Adam didn't listen. He listened to the voice of his wife when she was telling him something that contradicted God. I want to add a little more to that, and here you need to be a Berean, and if you want to read more about this, you can read my little blog, How Nakedness Affected the Fallen. You can Google Truth in the City, and it's there. There's like four of them. But here's my point. What do we know about Eve? Why did the serpent go to Eve and deceive Eve and not go directly to Adam? He knew that Adam was given the charge. The serpent has figured all this out. He's very shrewd. He knew that Adam had the charge, and Adam was the one who, when he was sinned, death would come into creation. So he attacks Adam indirectly through Eve. Why did he go through Eve? Why didn't he just go straight to Adam and say, Adam, why don't you eat the fruit? He went to Eve, and I want to suggest the text tells us the marriage narrative is linked to the fall narrative with these two words. You know, about a room and a romp. I don't know a lot about Eve. I don't know if she liked to sing. I don't know if she liked to dance. I don't know what Eve liked to do. And when you're reading a narrative, it's very important what it does say. It could say a whole lot of things, but because it's selective, what it says is very important. And you know what we know about Eve? Somebody want to help me? What do we know about Eve? that she was naked, God bless you. That's all we know about Eve, that she was naked. And we know this too, that the serpent was there in the garden. He saw and he heard what God told to Adam, did he not? He took all those words and twisted it when he tried to deceive, when he deceived Eve, and he saw Adam's response. when Eve came walking up on their marriage night with not as much as a sock on. So she comes up completely naked, and Adam about had a heart attack. He's like, God, thank you! And he saw how excited he was, and his servant saw that, and he said, I know how I can get a man! If I can seduce a man with naked women, I may not be able to get him directly, But if I can seduce a woman and get a woman to take off her clothes and go perform, I'm able to get him to rebel and reject God. And there's nothing new under the sun. You know, the prototypical false prophet in the Bible is Balaam. And Balaam tried with all of his might to make some money from King Balak, it says in Numbers 23, 24, 25. And God would not allow him to curse Israel. But he got the money somehow. And he did get Israel cursed. You know how he got Israel cursed? Look with me at Numbers chapter 25. After his attempts to prophesy against Israel fell, it says in Numbers chapter 25 that judgment fell upon the Israelites. It says, while Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. And for they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods, and a big old pagan, orgiastic worship, pagan worship service took place. And if you want to know where that idea came from, look with me at Numbers chapter 31. When God raised up Israel to bring judgment against the Midianites, it says in verse 7, Numbers chapter 31 verse 7, And so they made war against Midian, just as the Lord had commanded Moses, and they killed every male. They killed the kings of Midian, along with the rest of their slain, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, and the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam, the son of Beor, with a sword. And then it says in verse 16, Moses, why haven't you judged the women? In verse 15, behold, these caused the sons of Israel through the counsel of Balaam to trespass against the Lord. Balaam was the king. Balaam said, I can't curse them, but I can tell you what will work. And here, if you get your women to go over, then your women can seduce them, and then God will judge them. Satan does not have to come up with new tricks. It tells us very directly, and I read you the verse already, in 1 Corinthians 7.5, 1 Corinthians 7.5, that Satan tempts people through sexual temptation. He does that. He's the god of the squirrel. He has swaying influence over unbelievers. And why are there a million prostitutes on the internet? Why is all the advertising trying to sell with sex? Why is it everywhere that we have to know the schemes of the devil, and he tries to mankind and mankind to get in the fall through the leadership by stepping outside the bounds of monogamous marriage, the bliss of the marriage bed, which is undefiled, and tries to commit fornication, premarital sex, adultery, extramarital sex, homosexuality, same-sex, and he tries to do all those things. And Satan, I'm not saying Satan can do a lot of things. He can't make you click a mouse, can't make you take off your clothes, but he certainly can tempt us. And we're culpable when we sin. A bird can land on your head, but you have to let it build a nest. But he tempts us all day long, and he uses vessels and means to do that. Look with me at the book of Proverbs. It tells us over and over and over again, when Solomon is warning his son, he tells him to look out for the seductress. And you can change these genders, but I think it's important that it does say a seductress, that she has her prey. Let me just give you one specific example in chapter 6. In chapter 6 of Proverbs it says, in verse 25, speaking of the adulteress, the immoral woman, it says, do not desire her beauty in your heart, nor let her capture you with her eyelids. That she wants to take you, prey, and capture you. That she is on the hunt, the prowl. The same thing happens in Proverbs chapter 7. Look there with me. And here at Solomon, I believe this is a true story. What wisdom literature is, it takes a lot of life's experiences and presses it down into these 50 little statements that we can remember. But it has a lot of wisdom in it because it draws from real life. And Solomon's looking out of his window. He sees a young man. In verse 7, it says, of chapter 7, I saw among the naïve. He calls him naïve. He doesn't know this young man. He just sees him and calls him naïve. And discerned among the youth, the young man lacking sense. How did he know he liked this? He just watched what he did. This is passing through the street near her corner, and he takes the way to her house in the twilight in the evening, in the middle of the night, and in darkness. Nothing good happens at midnight. Why are we out? Who are you looking for at midnight? And here he is out at midnight, and he's out there, and she comes. Verse 10. Behold, the woman comes to meet him. She's not a harlot, but she's dressed as a harlot, cunning, of heart. And then she seizes him, she kisses him, she seduces him, and it says in verse 22, suddenly he follows. It's almost like he had to go. As an ox goes to the slaughter, as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool, until an arrow pierces through his liver, As a bird hastens to the snare, so he does not know, it will cost him his life. Verse 26. For many are the victims she has cast down. Satan has used a lot of Delilahs. He has used a lot of Jezebels. He has used a lot of temple prostitutes. There is a godly woman that she personifies wisdom, men are called to embrace her, but then there is a woman that can be a tool in Satan's hands, and Satan can seduce her to use her physical beauty to seduce a man to do exactly what God says not to do. You know what the serpent does here is, I think, in fact, the text is saying, the man, the woman, it really looks at our vulnerabilities. That, you know, thousands and thousands of years later, there's still a vulnerability within women, to step outside the submissive role and say that, and disbelieve the lies, is derogatory, is demeaning, and I don't have to be here. I'm smarter than my husband. And by the way, ladies, that can be very true. My wife is 10 times smarter than I am. When we play board games, she gives me hints and she still beats me. She's like, honey, just try this and try that. And it's kind of embarrassing. She's helped me and then beats me by like 50 points. So she's just very smart. And so it speaks to nothing. You know the reason why this role reversal failed? Not because she was not as smart or anything else. This is why. Because God said that it was very good for the man to be the head and the woman to be the helper. That was His design. He blessed it. And so when she inverted the role, God didn't empower her in this new design to stand against Satan. He didn't bless her. And none of us can win any spiritual warfare without God's help and empowerment. She stepped outside the will of God. It's just a monstrosity of the design that God ordered. That they put animals first, the serpent, and then it was Eve, and then it was man, and they put God on the bottom. And God blessed none of that. And so it fell. It collapsed on top of itself. God didn't ordain it to be that way. And how does God seduce men? I know so many men have fallen this way. Why is the porn industry a $13.3 billion industry? And I can tell you with tears how many pastors have fallen through this. We've had two elders in our church who've fallen through adultery and sexual sin, and we had to dismiss them, too. Don't you know of some? Doesn't it happen? The point I want to make, listen, why is it such a hard battle to be pure? Listen, listen, it is spiritual war. Satan wants to destroy your marriage. He wants to destroy your church. He wants to destroy your children. And this is one of his means and one of his tools. He is not playing with us. This is war and we have to stop fighting back. That we have armor, we have a sword, we have prayer, and we have to stop acting like this is just a game. There are people in your church and your school who are being destroyed by this and we have to help each other. This has to be a refuge where we can come and help and say, I need help. I'm on a battlefield and I am being wounded. We have to be able to come and say, I'm being attacked and I need help. I have a pastor friend of mine. And he called me one day and said, Bobby, pray for me. I've got to get away from my computer. And he left the house. Now, when he hung up, I said, that pervert. I'll never be able to talk to that guy again. I didn't do that. I said, that's a godly man. He wanted accountability, transparency. In my house, we don't have cable TV. And I always tell people, that's not for my kids' sake. That's for my sake. I don't want to be attacked in this area where I'm vulnerable. that we have to know this is war, and getting shot a little bit in war isn't the strategy. You can get shot in your femoral artery, in your leg, and die within seconds and minutes. The goal is not to get shot at all, and we need to fight back. Satan is after us. He has weapons. He has means. He has tools. And if I haven't convinced you from Genesis chapter 3 that this is part of Satan's scheme and strategy to use nakedness to attack men, and to try to seduce women by making them step outside their gender roles, then please just believe 1 Corinthians 7.5 is very direct there, that Satan uses sexual temptation to try to get us to fall. He perverts sex to destroy marriage. God created sex. for the good of marriage, and we have to guard ourselves from the lie, the lie of Satan. There's a lot I want to say about web application, but the hour is late, and I know you may have questions for me, so please keep your questions. I want to look at those, and we'll look at those the last hour, but listen to me. There is a deceitfulness to sin. It says that in Hebrews chapter 3, verse 13, and it's a deceitfulness to lust. It says that in Ephesians 4, verse 22, that sin deceives us. And we think that we're getting more, but sin will cost you more than you ever wanted to pay. And it will take you a lot further than you ever wanted to go. And we just have to know that. that we just have to guard ourselves from the lies of Satan, and he wants to tell us the grass is always green on the other side, and it might be artificial turf. And so, I mean, I'm clicking, and you're clicking, and you're tempted to click, and you're looking there, but, you know, I mean, the actresses, they get the most beautiful people to do the most immoral things, just, you know, just public voyeurism, shameful display of themselves, and they get the most attractive bodies to do that. Satan knows that men are very visual. He just saw how Adam almost fainted when Eve came, and so he tries to get attractive women to seduce us. He knows that, but men that, you know, when you look at some of this stuff, this airbrush, this Photoshop, and everything is an implant and fake half the time, and the grass is greener. God wants to use sex, and sex is good. He blessed it, but in a relationship that allows us to be so close that He can call us one person to reflect His glory. And Satan wants to use sexual temptation to give us a thrill for a moment, and that's all it does. And then comes the consequences. But God wants to forgive. It says that in Psalm 130, verse 4, that there is forgiveness with God. I hope we believe that. There's forgiveness with God, and the grace of God can teach us how to deny ungodliness. God's grace is good. I can't fix what happened yesterday in anybody's life. But when people come to us, and we need to come to each other when we struggle, we can help what happens tomorrow. I want to close with this, and I want this to be our battle cry for the remainder of this weekend. In 2 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 22, in a real broad sense of the word, Paul charges his young protege, his disciple, to flee youthful lust. But then it adds something I think we don't often catch in 2 Timothy 2 verse 22. It says this, Now flee from youthful lust, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart. Did you catch how it goes from the single to the plural? He's commanding Timothy to flee from youthful lusts and to pursue righteousness, faith, and love and peace. But don't do it alone. That we need to do this collectively. That we need to, as those who call on the Lord from a pure heart, we need to flee youthful lusts and pursue righteousness and faith. That we need to do it as couples that make a pledge as husband and wife that, Make a pledge for purity together. Well, let's do it as families and be transparent. Let your kids tell you what their struggles are. I talk to my kids about everything. I want them to know that the Bible says God created sex. It's good. Or else they're going to learn from the internet. They're going to learn from TV. They're going to learn from their friends. These kids know so much more than some of us ever knew it when we were married. They know a lot of stuff. We've got to have a pledge for purity in your family. Talk to your kids. It gets squeamish sometimes. We get embarrassed. Go through the embarrassment. Pray for bonus. Talk to the man. God creates sex. It is great. Don't just say it's bad, bad. No, no, no. It's great, but wait for marriage. And then we need to call our young people just to purity. They are just being attacked everywhere. All their mobile devices, even their so-called games, have just laced with immorality. The lyrics to their songs, when they go to school, the way people dress, it is just unbelievable. I'm just so glad I'm not in high school right now. It is just unbelievable. And we've got to raise up some Daniels who can stand against the tide and know that the grace of God is sufficient. So we have to stand together. We have to fight together and leave nobody on the battlefield. We have to help each other. Don't kill our wounded. We have to help them. Don't make someone struggling with pornography the one black play you can never talk about in the church. Or they won't come and ask for help. We need help. And we need to be transparent. From leaders to lay people, from women to men, from old to young, we need to be transparent with each other and have real help. And I think if we do that, I'm convinced of the power of God's grace and what God can do. And let me close with this, and let's pray together. And now to Him, who was able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy. I say, the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, I will be glory and majesty and dominion and power forever and ever. And all God's people said, Amen. God bless you.