Let's turn to Genesis chapter three this morning. Genesis chapter three, we've been going through this portion of God's word together verse by verse. I'm gonna go back to verse one to set the context. This morning our focus will be on verses six through eight. Genesis chapter three verse one. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then 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 and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. And now our text this morning. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of the fruit and ate. And she also gave to her husband with her and he ate. 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 coverings. And 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. Let's pray. Father, we have before us a most enlightening history. a portion of your word that explains the condition of our hearts and the condition of the world in which we live. Father, I pray that we won't pass over these verses with a lightness this morning, that we've heard these, we've studied these, we've read this, but Lord, that this history recorded in your word will sink down into the depths of our minds and hearts and help us, Father, to have a greater appreciation for our Lord Jesus Christ. and for the love that you've had for us as sinners, and for the work that you've done in grace in saving us. Help us this day, for it's in Christ's name we pray, amen. So 81 years ago, this past Wednesday, Japanese war planes bombed our naval base at Pearl Harbor. in Hawaii, thrusting us in a Second World War. The end result of that attack was the loss of 18 ships, 347 aircraft, and over 3,000 casualties. President Roosevelt declared that December 7th, 1941 would be a date that would live in infamy. And though declared to be a date that would be living in infamy, I wonder how many of you saw the calendar this week and paused to reflect on the events of that day. For you who are older, I would surmise that a large part of you did remember December 7th. But for you who are younger, it is very likely that Wednesday past is just another day on the calendar. yet gathered on Wednesday at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial annual commemoration. This past week were six survivors of that fateful day. All of them over 100 years of age. They could not forget because they had been there 81 years ago. They had lived with the memories and the effects of that fateful day. So what does that have to do with our text? The historical events chronicled in today's text records an event that was far more devastating than the events in Hawaii 81 years ago. In fact, the events of that fateful December morning are inextricably linked to our text and are the result of the events of our text. It could be rightly said that the horrors of every war, of every war and every death has its roots. in what took place in the Garden of Eden as recorded in our texts 6,000 years ago. An event that has impacted every individual here today and every person who has ever lived or who will live on this planet Earth. It is indeed mankind's World Day of Infamy. the day when mankind rebelled against God, his creator, an event that was so significant that mankind should never forget, as we who live with the effects of that each and every day of our lives. Yet, not only has mankind in general forgotten, but he has gone so far as to suppress the truth of God in his unrighteousness. But beloved, lest we forget, let us now turn to our text and let us consider what should be called, and this is what I titled my message, History's Saddest Day. history's saddest day." So that's not a very positive note to start off the Christmas season, to start off that time of year that's supposed to be full of happiness and cheer and joyful bliss, but beloved, here's the point. If we don't understand the significance of history's saddest day, we will not appreciate the way we should the glory of the incarnation of Jesus Christ and what He came to do to save us by His grace. Well, we're gonna look at this this morning, verses six through eight, Lord willing. We want to consider, first of all, sin's enticement. Then we're going to see Sin's implementation, and then we're just going to begin to open up some of Sin's effects. The reality is there is far much more than just these few verses and what follows. We'll see a lot of what is Sin's effects, but we're going to at least touch on that as we open the text this morning. So first of all, let us look together back at the text. Genesis 3, verse 6, the opening words, where we have before us sin's enticement. So the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and it was a tree desirable to make one wise. We've all heard far too often of a dog that sadly turns on its owner and mauls them, or even maybe brings death to a small child. It's a tragic situation. Sadly, we've heard of that over and over again at times in the news. And perhaps like me, you wonder to yourself, who would ever want to own a dog that would do such a thing like that? and yet they interview the owner and we hear them say things like, he was such a nice dog. I mean, he just was always so obedient and always friendly and he never gave a hint that he was really dangerous and destructive or deadly. Listen to me, young people, especially this morning. Sin is like that dog. Pleasant, good, desirable on the surface, but underneath, destruction and death. And even though God warns of its destructive and deadly power, the reality is, We don't believe God, do we? Because sin entices us. It offers us all kinds of pleasure and freedom. But in the end, sin will not only bite you, it will kill you. And this is the way sin has worked since its first entrance into humanity and into human history. This enticing power of sin is not to be underestimated as our text reveals. Notice, first of all, the setup for history's saddest day. Perhaps some of you haven't been with us along this journey of our study in Genesis, so let me just set the setting a little bit once again, just very briefly. We have here the first man ever created, Adam, and his wife, the first woman, Eve. They had been provided by their creator God with everything that was good and everything that was necessary for them to dwell eternally in God's created earth. They literally live in a paradise. And in the center of God's world was a region called Eden. And central in that region is a garden paradise, a garden temple, wherein God and man walked together and communed with one another. We see that referred to in verse eight, where God is walking. in the garden, in the cool of the day. The implication here is just as he normally did, and he's looking to have that fellowship and that communion once again with the man whom he had created. And in the center, though, of that garden paradise is a particular tree. There's several trees that are set forth, but there's a particular tree that's the setting of our verses this morning. And that tree is called by God the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a tree of which God had warned man that you shall not eat of it, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. So God had given man everything for his enjoyment, for his pleasure. God is a good God. He's a gracious and a kind and a benevolent God. And he had given man all kinds of fruits to enjoy as we saw last week. There's just one tree. Just one. Just one tree that God says, leave it alone. Don't eat from it. And it's by this tree that a serpent Satan engages Eve in a conversation. And that's what we looked at last week as we set the setting for Satan's snare in verses one through five. A snare in which to entice Eve to question God's goodness and to forsake God and to follow Him. And though there's no physical forcing of the woman to forsake God, as we saw last week, the seeds of doubt were placed in their minds by the twist, by the deceitful twisting of God's word and character. So Satan just alters the truth just enough, puts his own little spin on things to entice, to put into the mind of Eve. Is God really good? Is God one whom I can really trust with everything, or is He holding something back from me? Is He keeping something good from me? This knowledge of good and evil, this is something that's interesting sounding, is this something good that God's keeping from me? The seeds of doubt have now been set into the mind of Eve, and the stage is set for sin's enticement. And when you look at this in light of what we just saw, there are some ways in which it's quite clear that Eve and Adam could have avoided or could have resisted this enticement from Satan. And there's three things that come to mind. Number one, there was just simply avoidance. The tree had been off limits. God had said, leave it alone. God had said, don't eat from it. And they should have viewed that tree as a dangerous place to be avoided. It reminds me of the Proverbs in chapter four and verse 14. Do not enter the path of the wicked. Do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it and do not travel on it. Turn away from it and pass on. Wise man Solomon understood the danger of evil children. It'd be like if you had a neighbor that had one of these dogs that just snarled every time you went by the fence. You're not gonna walk real close to the fence and put your hand on the fence and touch the fence, you know. you know, teasing the dog to come get, no, you're gonna, if I know there's a dog and we take bike rides and there's some dogs that we take other streets to just avoid even the chance of the dog getting over the fence and running after us. But here in Curiosity, we find both Adam, or in particular, Eve, and I believe, as the text goes on, that Adam's very much there in the presence. But we find Eve standing next to this tree because she is engaging in conversation with the serpent about the tree. And so we see that sin begins by enticing us to get as close as possible to it without crossing the line. That's one of sin's enticements. How far can I get to the line before I, it's too far. How far can I get to the edge of this step before I actually step over it and then perhaps fall? So it's safe back here, but I get up here, now we're pressing it. And young people, you know exactly what I'm talking about. All of us know about this. It's the enticement of young people as they grow into puberty and all those hormones begin to race. Say, how far can I engage in touching the other sex without actual intercourse and falling into fornication and say, we know that's wrong, oh, we can't do that, but wait a minute, oh, what about... How close can, how comfortable can I cozy up to the danger of sin without falling? They should have just avoided it. Second of all, they could have resisted compromising. As soon as the serpent had spoken, they knew something was wrong. They knew something wasn't normal. Serpents don't speak. Only God communicates with man in that creative setting, not the animals whom they had been given charge to name. Then when he began to cast doubt on God's goodness and on God's words, they should have run. Yet to engage in a dialogue with the serpent was a compromise. God warns us to not compromise with sin, but to resist and to run from it. Listen to just a handful of texts found in the New Testament along this line. 1 Corinthians 6.18. Flee sexual immorality. Cozy up to it. Run from it. Don't compromise on any level. 1014, flee from idolatry. Run away from it. 2 Timothy 2.22, flee youthful lusts. James chapter 4 and verse 7 submit to God resist the devil and he will flee from you. Sin entices us step by step. He doesn't just come blatantly out most of the time and just say, hey God, he's a liar, don't believe him, he's not to be. No, it's just a subtle twisting of the word of God, a subtle twisting of truth, and then just this enticement to just take a little step, and then another step, and another step down this path of compromise. Why, it's seeing that little dog in the fence, and maybe he's barked in the past and seemed aggressive, but he's just sitting there in his little tail's wagging. Come on, just pat him on the head, kids. He won't hurt you. Just reach over the fence and pet little Fido. Mm-hmm. Yeah, go ahead, not me. You know, this entertained the lust just a little bit. Don't go all the way, but just feed your lust a little bit. Just entice yourself. Listen, the one who should be a model example of one who resisted and did not compromise was Joseph in Potiphar's household. When Potiphar's wife, and listen, I don't know what the scene you have of that setting is, but Potiphar's wife was a looker. I mean, she's good looking. And I imagine she dressed up, and she had nice perfume on, and she had sent the servants away, and she had this whole thing set up. Come here, Joseph. Nobody will ever know. And how did Joseph respond? He ran. He fleed out of the house. But what if he had say, well, let's talk about this a moment. Can we have a little dialogue here? You know, let me talk to you about God and morality and your husband and you know, can we discuss these things? I dare say, I believe had he sat on the edge of her bed to discuss these things, he would have been laying in her bed. Sin cannot be compromised with. And then thirdly, there is dependence. They could have resisted by dependence. You say, what do you mean by that? Neither Adam nor Eve looked to God nor to each other for counsel or help. God had made them as dependent creatures upon him and upon each other. But they are seeking here to be independent. Free thinkers. I'll figure this one out on my own. And yet the word of God tells us to trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do what? Lean not unto your own understanding. Thinking themselves strong and wise enough to handle this situation, In reality, they forsook God, their true help, in time of need. They should have been dependent upon God. So this is the way sin begins to entice, and these are some of the ways in which they could have avoided it. Now, notice, second of all, the seducement of history's saddest day. We looked at the setup, now let's look at the seducement. While words are a powerful and an external force, It was what took place inside of Eve and Adam that was at the heart of their rebellion. Nobody took their hands and forced them to take the fruit. The tree had not changed. It wasn't that this tree had been there, and they really didn't notice the tree, and then all of a sudden one day, ooh, you know, this glow on the tree, and all of a sudden, you know, you've been in Orange Grove, maybe some of you haven't had that privilege, but you go in Orange Grove, just a bunch of green trees, but then there's those days when the orange blossoms are blossoming. And the smell and the aroma is so, so delightful. And you just walk and you're just overcome with the beauty of that, the pretty flowers, the smell. So it wasn't like this tree all of a sudden on this day popped into bloom, put out a new aroma. Everything's different today. The tree changed. The tree didn't change at all. What had changed was Eve's perception of the tree. Instead of seeing the tree as danger instead of seeing the tree as that which to be avoided Eve began to believe in the benefit of the tree. to her own desires. She had cast off her faith at that moment and trust in God, and she had believed in the lie of Satan. Beaky, in his theology book, observes that sin develops through corrupt desires based on false perceptions. Think about that for a moment. Sin develops when through a corrupt or sinful desire and that desire is based on a false perception because sin dresses itself up. Sin doesn't come to you as sin. Sin comes to you all robed and pretty smelling and kind looking and as something desirable and good and beneficial to you. It doesn't come to you as the wicked, destructive, killing force it is. So note the three seducements that lead her down this path of sin. First of all, there was the lust of the flesh. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, This is any desire, the lust of the flesh, is any desire that leads us to feed the sensual nature of our flesh. God has given us natural desires. God has given us wholesome desires, desires for food, desires for rest, Desires for sex, those are good in their lane desires. Those are not evil things. But God, who has given us those native desires, has also set the boundaries of how those desires are to be satisfied. And when we seek to satisfy those natural desires, contrary to God's revealed will, that is when sin occurs. Hence, Desire for food is good, but we overeat, it's called gluttony. We overdrink, it's called drunkenness. The desire for rest is a good thing, but there's a lot of warnings in the Bible about sloth and laziness. The desire for sex among married couples is commanded and expected, but outside of the boundaries of marriage, it is adultery, it is fornication, it is sin. The lust of the flesh, brethren, is any temptation that leads us to find gratification in anything or in any way but Christ and His ways. So we want to do, our flesh wants to go in a path contrary to God's path, there's a lust of the flesh. When we want to gratify some natural desire, but in a way contrary to how God has ordained that we should find satisfaction, and we find that satisfaction outside of Christ, and outside of His word, in His ways, that is the lust of the flesh. Second of all, there's the lust of the eyes. She not only saw this tree that was good for food, she saw it was pleasant for the eyes. Are you telling me that she had never noticed this tree before? This tree that was in the center of the garden? This tree that undoubtedly had always been pleasant to the eyes? But now there was a new perception of this tree. The desire is that which seeks to have what isn't ours and what God has forbidden. This is when the lust of the eyes kicks in. At its heart and root is the sin of covetousness. I wish I'd had time to develop that fully. One of the old commentators, as I was reading through, really went extensively in developing how at the root of all of our sin is covetousness. It's the 10th command. Sometimes we think of it maybe the least because it's at the bottom of the list, but yet at the root of covetousness is wanting what's not ours. Wanting time that belongs to God. wanting glory that's not ours, wanting somebody else's wife that's not ours, wanting something that isn't ours, stealing. You can begin to apply and see how covetous permeates all the commandments. The desire to take, the desire to obtain and possess wrong things or to possess things in a wrong manner. Greed, stealing, it's all It's all sin and it can appear enticing. The things of the world are very enticing. There is a real pleasure for sin for a season. But the lust of the eyes is any temptation that leads us to put things in front of God. And that's what the lust of the eyes does. Instead of finding, again, God in his place first in our lives, we find that we want things to take the place of God. And then there's the pride of life, a tree that was desirable to make one wise. Any desire that exalts self, any desire that raises self up and puts God down involves the pride of life. It is any appeal that causes us to not be content with our place in God's order of life. I mean, there's a lot of pride of life going on. What's at the root of feminism today? But the pride of life. What's at the root of sodomy today? The pride of life. What's at the root of man-pleasing? The pride of life. Man not being content to be in the sphere and in the place of God's order that God put him. but wants to be lifted up out of that. Pride of life is any temptation to bring glory to ourselves and not to God. This is why John summarized these three things in 1 John 2, 15 through 17. Do not love the world or the things of the world, because if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. He doesn't say maybe the love, if he doesn't love, he says it's not in him. It's not in Him. For the things are in the world, and He throws everything in the world in these three categories. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. It is not of the Father, it is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust thereof, but He who does the will of God abides forever. So we see in these three enticements, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And it is by these three seductions to sin that Adam falls into sin and plunges the human race into sin. But it also needs to be stated here that it is by these same three seductions that Jesus Christ would be later tempted in the wilderness by Satan himself. But the second Adam, Jesus Christ, does not fall, but he resists and he prevails. The first Adam falls, the second Adam succeeds. C. H. Macintosh notes, what a contrast The garden with all its delights. I mean, here is a sinless man in the paradise of God versus Jesus in a wilderness with all its privations. Here is confidence in Satan versus confidence in God. Complete defeat versus complete victory. So this is sin's enticement. So much more could be said, but notice second of all, sin's inception. Very simple statement. She took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. This simple statement is of great consequence. Man rebelled against God. Man followed Satan at that moment and rejected God. Man believed the lie of the devil and rejected the truth of God. We might say, at what point did Eve and Adam actually sin? The eating of the forbidden fruit was in reality just an outward reflection of the inward moral fall, I believe, that had already occurred. You say, well, when they actually bit into the forbidden fruit, that's when they sinned. Well, that's when we saw them sin. That's when we saw them outwardly, but inwardly they had already rejected God. As Francis Schaeffer states, the sin was committed in the moment Eve believed Satan instead of God. And at this point, the whole matter was decided. Think about that for a moment. She certainly ate in defiance of God's command and warning. But when she disbelieved God and believed Satan's lie, sin had entered into the picture. Eve was deceived. No doubt. The record of history is clear in this matter, 2 Corinthians 11 3, but I fear lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness that your minds would be corrupted from the simplicity that's in Christ. Sin had seduced, sin had enticed her, and she had succumbed to it. But Adam, on the other hand, was not deceived, but he acted in open, defiant rebellion against God. He chose to exchange communion with Eve over that of God. He knew what Eve had done, he knew there would be some consequence, and he chose his companionship with her over God. God will point this out when He tells Adam of his fate later in verse 17, when God says to Adam, because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the... He didn't say because you were seduced by the devil, because you were enticed by the serpent. No, because you listened to your wife. and have eaten from the tree which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it." God says, Adam, you knew what you were doing. Paul confirms the same thing in 1 Timothy 2.14, where it states very plainly, Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived. You see, Adam wasn't deceived. Adam chose the path of sin. God had been so good to Adam even bringing him the woman to meet a need. But despite all that God had given him, Adam rejected God and chose sin. As one old preacher put it, the act was a high-handed, willful act of rebellion against Almighty God. You see, we try to trivialize this. Man does. What's the big deal, man? He just took a little bite from a fruit. That can't hurt. What's the big deal? We trivialize, or try to, Adam's sin because we do the same thing to our own sin, don't we? It's just a little lie, guys. Mom won't know. It was just a little lustful glance. Who's gonna know? It was just a little touch in the wrong. Who's gonna know? We belittle our sins. We think, not a big deal, not a big deal. What's the big deal in eating from this tree? The Puritan William Perkins notes how that this one sin, within this one sin, was contained many sins. And you can add to his list, but listen to him. He says, there was the unbelief of the truth of God's word. There was the contempt of God. God, you're holding something back good from me. There is pride. There is selfish ambition. There is an ingratitude for the good gifts that God had given them. There is a craving to be wiser than God. I mean, they just didn't want to know something they didn't know. They wanted to be like God. They wanted to exalt themselves above God. There was the blasphemies of charging God with lying. We won't really die. There was murder. By eating the forbidden fruit, they killed themselves and all their descendants. There was discontentment for what God had provided. In reality, it was a breach of the whole law of God in every way. This wasn't just a big deal, just a little bite out of a forbidden fruit. This was high-handed, defiant rebellion and treason at the highest level. And added to the gravity of all this is the fact, as we have already previously mentioned, is how that the sin of Adam was more than just the sin of a particular individual, but it was the sin of he who stood as the federal head of the entire human race. I don't have time to go back and open that back up, but two verses, Romans 5, 12, just as through one man, Adam, sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and death spread to all men because all sin. Adam, you did that to us. 1 Corinthians 15, 22, for as in Adam all die, even so all in Christ shall all be made alive. I think I heard that earlier today. But here it is. Sin is, sin's inception into humanity. High-handed treason and rebellion against God. I will do it my way. Isaiah 53, all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone into our own way. Our own way, my way. I'll do it my way. Well, there were some tragic, tragic effects to what took place that day. We see that in verses seven and eight. First of all, notice the inner effect. The inner fact is the fact that they died. God had warned that they would die, and it was so, that they did die. It may not be so obvious at first. They didn't drop over, there wasn't a lightning bolt that came down. The earth didn't open up at that moment and swallow them down into the center of the earth, and it was all over. But death was manifest in them on that moment, in that day, in three ways. Number one, there was spiritual death. Man's communion with God was severed. And this is evident in the shame and the fear and the guilt of rejecting responsibility that was manifested in them. It was a fall from sinlessness and holiness and a love for God to a total depravity in every aspect of their being and a hatred of God, a native hatred, a running from God, a wanting to get away from Him instead of a running to Him. There was a spiritual death that occurred the moment they ate. There was a physical death. Now maybe not so apparent, they would physically die, but what happened that day is mortality became the reality of them. At the moment they ate, they began to die, just as every one of us in this room, the moment we're born, are beginning to die. It is appointed unto man once to die. You don't have to be an old man to know that or to feel that. The reality is everyone in this room is dying. You say, I'm just beginning to live. I'm young, and I'm strong, and I'm healthy. You're dying. And the effects of death are in your body. And it manifests itself in pain, and in sorrow, and in sickness, and in disease, and it will ultimately lead to the grave. And there would be, at that point of physical death, there would be a full separation between the soul and the body. The body would return to the ground from whence it came. But the soul is a never-dying entity that lives on, and it lives on either in the presence of God, or it lives on separated from God. And then thirdly, there is what the Bible calls eternal death. Banned from earthly paradise, God's judgment on sin results in a place of eternal perdition that the Bible describes as hell. We read about that just a week or so ago in the public reading. It is what the Bible calls the lake of fire. or in particular, as it's called in Revelation, the second death, the physical death, but then the eternal death. But it's not an annihilation. It's a suffering. It's a eternal separation from the God who made you, and it's an eternal place of torment and perdition and judgment from God. All these things, effects of the forbidden fruit, of Adam's sin. But then there are the outward expressions, or the outward effects. And this is what we see in the text, or begin to see in the text. Verse seven, the eyes of them are opened. They knew they were naked. They see things differently now. This is a stark contrast from chapter two, verse 25, where we end the chapter that they're naked, the man and his wife, and they're not ashamed. There's no barriers between them and God. There's no shame, there's no sin, but now their eyes are opened in a way they had not been opened. And it's not just that they were physically blind and now they see. It's now they see and understand sin. It's more than physical nakedness here that they become aware of, though that's certainly part of it. This is where clothes comes into being. This is where the whole idea that humans, from this point forward, wear clothing to cover their shame. But there's more here. This nakedness reflects the guilt and the condemnation that they began to be aware of and feel in their souls. They knew they blew it. They knew in their heart they had sinned against God and it would come with consequences. They understood evil, not just now intellectually, but experientially. And their consciences were awakened and it began to condemn them. As Macintosh puts it, they knew good without the power to do it, and they knew evil without the power to avoid it. Think about that. This has never been the lot of mankind up to this point, but now, now they do know good, but they can't do it. And now they know evil, but they don't know how to stop it. What a terrible plight. So what do they do? They run to God. They confess their sins. They cast themselves at the mercy of the living God, pleading for his grace and mercy. He's a good God after all. Won't he save? That's not what they do. They do what every lost person does. They try to rectify things on their own by their own righteous actions and works. They sew fig leaves together and make themselves some kind of covering. So this is what every sinner does to try to fix his broken relationship with God, because every man in this world, every living creature, every human being knows there's something wrong with their relationship with God. That's why we got religions all over the world. That's why you can go into places where the Word of God is never gone and they've got some kind of worshiping going on. They've got some kind of religion. They've got some kind of sense of this is acceptable and this isn't. Some sense of morality because they know. They know there's something's wrong between them and their Creator. And so what do they do? They try to clothe themselves with their own works and their own deeds, which is at the core of every religion except the true faith. Righteous works to save. Do this, this, and this, and you'll be okay with God. Join the church, be baptized, give so much money, confession, penance, you know, pilgrimages. I mean, the list goes on and on. Do these things and you'll be right with God. That's what Adam and Eve are doing here. And they're using fig leaves. You know, it's interesting that the fig tree is the only thing that Jesus Christ cursed while on Earth. The only thing in his earthly ministry he ever cursed was the fig tree, remember that? Cursed the reality that man can save himself. We can't do anything to save ourselves, but they tried. In verse eight, they hear something. They hear what I believe they probably heard every evening. The Lord God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, nothing indicating that this was unusual, this was different than what had been the norm. And Adam and his wife hide. They hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Really? You think you're gonna hide behind a tree from God? God created the trees. Now you might hide from each other. but you ought to hide from God. In fear, they run away from God and hide. They hide because they knew that their righteous acts are insufficient to cover for their sins. Listen, if their righteous acts were sufficient, if the fig leaves are good enough, why not walk right out there? Hey God, here I am. But no, they know deep down that their attempt to atone for their sin, to cover their unrighteous action is insufficient. The leaves are like all the religious deeds and works of men. They don't bring sinners closer to God, but in fact they are a barrier from God, and they drive us further away from God. People think false religions are man's attempt to get closer to God. No, false religion is man's attempt to run from God, and hide from God, and atone for his own sins, and suppress truth and unrighteousness. That's what's going on here. They're keeping God at bay. I didn't know where to stop, but this is where I had to stop. I looked at it and said, I'm gonna get down to verse 11. There was no way. Then as this started open, I thought, maybe I just need to stay with verse six. There's just so much here, isn't there? Just a simple reading of what we have read since most of you were children in Sunday school classes and they put the little flannel graphs of Adam and Eve hiding behind the fig leaves and you thought, wow, that's intriguing, what's that about? But there is so much to learn, so much to take in from what has been taught here. But I'm gonna leave you with one overarching lesson, and it is this. Learn from Adam's fall instead of just blaming him for your sins. Now listen to me. Is he culpable of passing on our native guilt? Absolutely. Absolutely. He's guilty as charged. I'm a sinner because of what he did 6,000 years ago. You dirty dog. Why'd you mess me up like this? But I'm not gonna live my life in light of that. He may be culpable for my sin nature, but he is not culpable for my present sinful actions. and my personal rebellion and sin against God. And that's what I'm talking about. We need to first of all learn from Adam that if the power of sin is so strong to entice and deceive and cause the fall of a sinless man in paradise, in a perfect environment, perfect environment, sinless, holy man, sin is so powerful as to entice them to fall. How much more powerful is it to entice you and I in a fallen world? Sin is destructive. And sin is deadly. And it must be avoided. Like a ravenous beast, or I was thinking of a wolf that's rabid. You've seen those pictures, you know, they're snarling and their spits flying everywhere and the big old teeth. And you think, boy, if that's what sin looked like, you'd run away from it. But sin's that little cute little puppy doll behind the fence with his tag, tag, with his tail wagging. Pet me, pet me, come closer, come on closer. I won't bite, I promise, I'm cute. He rolls over. Then he jumps on ya. Takes a chunk out of your ankle. Whoa! That's how we've got to view sin. That's what we need to envision when we see sin. It is enticing, it is powerful, it is seductive. It allures. It puts up a false wall and a false image and it lies and it lies and it lies to us. It's good, it's pleasant, it's to be desired, but oh, the effects. The effects are deadly. And they're eternally destructive. Learn from Adam the vanity of drowning out the voice of our guilty consciences. Adam's conscience is now alive. Adam's conscience is awake. Adam now knows, I have sinned against God. What am I going to do with this? Am I going to run to God? Am I going to seek His mercy? Am I going to cast myself before Him in humility, in independence, and plead for His forgiveness? No. Adam's eyes are open to his sin and shame. Instead of confessing his sin to God, he ignores the voice of his conscience. I'm not gonna listen to that. You ever notice how much people love noise in the world in which we live? People cannot stand quietness. We are a noisy place. We can't stand quietness because when things are quiet, it causes us to have to think about who we are before Him and where we stand before Him because that conscience wakes up and begins to talk to us. Whether it's the old man with his television on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, where the young buck with his earbuds plugged into his ears and the music constantly. Noise drowns out condemning consciences. I'm not saying it's wrong to watch some TV or to ever listen to some music in an earbud. It'd be better to listen to sermon audio in an earbud. But I know what goes on in young people. I know what goes on in the world. They're drowning out their conscience. I don't wanna hear from God. You may drown out your condemning voice for a season, but God's coming and God is calling. and you will stand without your earbuds and television and boom box and whatever distractions, cell phones and all the other things that cause us to constantly be distracted from the things that really matter. We will stand naked before God and we will give an account of ourselves before God. Learn from Adam the foolish act of making amends for your sin by sewing together fig leaves of your own self-righteous works. It is not by works of righteousness which we have done, but it is according to his mercy that he saves us. We cannot atone for our sins. And the good news is that God has made an atonement through the life and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. for all who in humble faith repent of their sins and believe in him. Learn from Adam how that you can not hide from God. None of us can. Our lives are an open book before our creator. The psalmist reflects on that. I can go to the mountains, I can go down the caves, I can go to the depths of the sea if you're there. We can be sure, as it is stated in Numbers 32, 23, that you have sinned against the Lord and be sure your sin will find you out. Adam's hiding behind a tree. He ran over there behind the sycamore tree. No, probably a cedar tree. Them cedar trees are pretty good places to hide. He's hiding behind the cedar tree and that's where we leave Adam. That's where we stop today. Adam's hiding behind the cedar tree. He thinks God's not gonna find him back there. How foolish, how foolish. And thus, this is the history of Earth's saddest day, or history's saddest day. When man rebelled against God, and thereby plunged humanity into sin, the image of God in man is now stained and soiled with sin. Man now loves what he should have hates, and he hates what he should love. He seeks after what he should flee, and he flees from whom he should seek. And the reality is, as Romans 3.11 puts it, there is none who understands, there is none who seeks after God. You say, that was a cheery Christmas sermon. Next text, God seeks man. And brethren, that's Christmas, if I use that terminology. That's the incarnation. That's what this season is about. God comes to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. He seeks man. He brings salvation to man. Behold the salvation of the Lord. He who came to seek and to save that which is lost. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Brethren, that's what it's about. Well may God help us as we reflect on this passage this week to take seriously the reality of sin, its seductions and its power. But let us also have a deeper appreciation for what God in his mercy and grace through Jesus Christ has done. And the way of escape, the provision made for all who believe in Him is that we do not have to be spiritually dead, but we can be made spiritually alive in Christ Jesus. And we don't have to suffer the effects of the second death, but we can enjoy an eternal life with our living Lord. Let's pray. So, Father, we thank you for your word this morning. It is truth. It, again, directs our footsteps. It directs our minds in a direction that we need to reflect on. Help us, Father, to take the warnings that you have given to us in your word seriously, to reflect on the power of sin, not think ourselves stronger, the ineffectiveness of ourselves to justify ourselves. and a deep gratitude for what you have done in the person and work of Jesus Christ to redeem us. Thank you, in Christ's name we pray, amen.