Hello and welcome to our broadcast. Today we're looking at Genesis chapter 3, now the serpent it starts out. What a sad story. We'll be looking at it in just a moment. Have your Bible ready if you can. you Well, now we come to Genesis chapter 3, and it is an extremely important chapter in the Bible. Now, when we can't say one portion of the Scripture is any more important than another portion of the Scripture in the sense of importance, but as far as understanding everything that is going on in our world today, if you understand Genesis chapter 3, you understand why we have all our problems today. It's an explanation of all of our problems, where they came from, We have man's response to God's commands here in this chapter, and also we have God's response to man's rebellion. So in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 19, as a result of that rebellion, we read that out of it, the ground, was thou taken, the Lord said, for thus thou art and thus thou shalt return. So we have an answer now of why we have death. There wouldn't have been any death if there hadn't been any sin. Well, we find that the evolutionists, they say, well, man began at the bottom and he's working his way up to the top. No. The Bible says man began at the top. He began in a perfect environment. He began at the top and he is sinking lower than even the animals are sinking these days. And so we come to this beginning of this chapter and it says, now the serpent, now the serpent, this is where it all starts, now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. This word subtle here has been translated prudent eight times in the Bible, and to be prudent is to show care concerning the future. Well, that's exactly what the devil was doing here. He wanted to destroy everything. Of course, he hates God, and he hates everything that God stands for, and he hates the people of God. And so now he is going to do what he can to destroy the future of God's people. And he does a pretty good job of it here in this chapter. Well, we read here in verse number one that he said unto the woman. Now, we have a really serious misconception of some kind of a snake literally slithering down a tree and talking to Eve. If that was the case, Eve would still be running. That is not what took place there at all. The snake was cursed and became that ugly reptile that he is now as a result of the curse. But when Eve was talking to him, she was talking to one of the most beautiful creatures that was in the garden at that time. Now, he said unto the woman, the only hope that Eve has here is to quote scripture. That's exactly what she needs to do, is to quote scripture. Satan can't stand scripture. The only way you're going to defeat him is to quote it. And so what he does in Genesis 3 and 1, he comes and he says to the woman, yea, hath God said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Now what's he doing here? He's throwing doubt on the Word of God. Has God said you shall not eat of every tree? Well, he questions the Word of God And then he misquotes the Word of God here, because it says in Genesis 2 and 16, God said, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of one. But he comes along here and says, oh, so you can't eat of all the trees of the garden, eh? Yeah, they can eat them all but one. And so he misquotes Scripture. It's exactly what he does today, too. Well, then he misquotes the Word of God. We read here in Genesis 3, Verse 2 and 3, And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. She got that part right. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it. Got that part right too. But listen to this. She went on to say, Neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Now God didn't say anything about touching it. She added that to the Word of God. And people are adding all kinds of things to the Word of God today. And then she said, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. Lest ye die? God said, thou shalt surely die. There's no lest ye die about it. Well, then Satan changes the word of God. We read that serpent said, in verse 4, the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. Now, all he did was add one little three-letter word. You see, that wouldn't cause much trouble. It would cause a lot of trouble. God said, ye shall surely die. All the devil did was add one little word. You shall not surely die. And then Satan goes on to question the goodness of God. He says in verse 5, For God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good from evil. God's just holding some good things from you. You need to just get on with this. And God is not... He's not as good as you think He is. You know, you hear that all the time. Well, why is God allowing this and why is God allowing all that? Well, it's all right here in Genesis chapter 3. God says, you do it my way and things will be perfect like it was in the garden before they decided to rebel against God and listen to the devil. You're going to listen to the devil? You're going to get what the devil has to offer, which is all the sin and sickness and heartaches and things that are in the world today. Well, we read here finally that Eve just rejects the Word of God. We read in verse 6, And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. Well, you'll notice here that the devil attacked in three areas, the body, the soul, and the spirit. First of all, it says she saw the tree was good for food. That's going to satisfy the body. And pleasant to the eyes. Pleasant to the eyes. That's talking about what would be, you know, it's not going to make her eyes feel warm and fuzzy or anything like that. It's talking about what pleasures there are out there that can be taken in through the eye gate. And it's taking and talking about the soul, satisfying the inner person. And then it's a tree to be desired to make one wise. The Bible says the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. So we get here body, soul, and spirit. This is how he attacks. Well, he did exactly the same thing, you remember, when Christ was on the Mount of Temptation. And he came after him and he said, oh, you haven't eaten for 40 days, you've been fasting here. Command that these stones be made bread. And so he started off with the body. And then he says to him, cast thyself down off of this mountain here. And it was a challenge to the emotional nature of the soul. And then he right out said, if you fall down and worship me. And so we see that in the Garden of Eden, and then thousands of years later when tempting Christ, and today when the devil wants to tempt us today, he uses exactly the same formulas. Worked so well for him, except with Christ, but it worked with Eve, and it works with us sometimes too. Well, what happens here in verse 7 is man has his self-effort, he's going to fix things by himself. We read that, and the eyes of them both were open. And they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. They said, well, we're going to have to fix this problem ourselves. And we have a lot of self-made religion today, and it's not going to do it. You just can't do it yourself. Except for the shedding of blood, the Bible says, the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, there is no remission of sins. Then there's an attempt to hide from God. Boy, we do that a lot today, too. It says in verse 8 that they heard the voice 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. Well, in verse 9, we read the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? Now, that's a very interesting verse, an extremely interesting verse. He asked the question, where art thou? Well, God knew absolutely for sure where Adam was. There's no doubt about that. But what God wanted was Adam to figure out where he was, not just hiding behind a tree somewhere, but where he was spiritually. He said, where art thou? And that's what God wants for us. He wants us to take an honest assessment and say, where are you spiritually? Where are you? And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? Well, look at Adam's response, Genesis 3.10. He said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. He's still got this eye problem here. Now, what God wanted here, and what the Lord wanted here, was for Adam to repent. He was giving him an opportunity to repent. He didn't have to come to him at all. He comes in the garden. He says, where are you? And all Adam needed to do was say, I have sinned. Please forgive me. I'm a sinner. No, no, no. What's he say? I was afraid and I was naked and I hid myself. And God says, Well, who told thee that thou wast naked, and hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou should not eat? No, he knew he did that. He wanted Adam to own up to his sin. All he needed to do was repent. Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Did Adam repent? Well, look at verse 12. The man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Not my fault. It's my environment. Yeah, they had a perfect environment. They were in the Garden of Edith. Oh, no, he didn't repent. It's not my fault. The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Oh, notice he even says, whom thou gavest to be with me. If you're going to blame the woman, blame God. You made that woman in the first place. How much of that goes on in the world today? Well, you know, God's responsible for this and God's responsible for that. And why does God allow this and why does God allow that? Why don't they say, why does the devil do this and why does the devil do that? Why do we blame God? Well, it comes right from the garden. We just don't want to admit that we're a bunch of sinners and we need to repent. But he said, God says, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. So Adam's response, the woman, the woman that thou gave me, And so the Lord said unto the woman in verse 13, what is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, oh, I'm sorry, I repent, I'm a sinner. No, that's not what it says. Look at what it says at 13. The woman said, the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. It wasn't my fault. The serpent, the devil made me do it. No, no, the devil didn't make you do it. You have a free will, Eve. Adam had a free will. They chose to do what they were going to do, and they did it. They sinned, and they refused to repent. And so verse 13 and verse 14, we have some very pivotal points here in the scripture. It says, the Lord God said unto the servant, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field, upon thy belly shalt thou go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life, and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Now we'll go into this in more detail in another broadcast, but What we have here is the beginning of the battle of the ages. We have some hope in the middle of all this slush and sin, and that is where he says, the her seed, the virgin birth is what we're talking about here, and Christ coming, and the Bible says at Calvary, Christ will crush the head of the devil, and when he said at the cross, It is finished. He is talking about the battle that started right here in Genesis chapter 3 and verse number 15. Well, then he turns to the woman again and he says, under the woman, verse 16, he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow. That certainly has happened. And thy conception and sorrow shalt thou bring forth, children. And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. They had a perfect leadership in the garden. They had a perfect fellowship. That was all destroyed. Now the leadership is not perfect anymore, and the followership is far from it. It says, thy desire shall be to rule over your husband, but he'll rule over you. That's basically what this verse is saying. Well then, 17, he said to Adam, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, there's an interesting line, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days. of thy life. He said, you have hearkened unto the voice of your wife. See, she was deceived. The Bible tells us plainly that Adam was not deceived. And God went on to say that thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In verse 19 we have another verse that's often misquoted. It says here, in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. Usually it's quoted in the sweat of thy brow. It doesn't say that. It says, in thy face thou shalt eat bread. till thou return unto the ground, for out of it was thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." Now we know why we have funerals. Well, it says in Genesis 3.20, and God called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living, and unto Adam also, and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them. Their little self-efforts of fig leaves is not going to do it. and the Lord God said behold the man has become as one of us to know good and evil now lest he put forth his hand and also take of the tree of life and live forever we read that therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of eden to till the ground from whence he was taken he drove out the man and placed at the east of the garden of eden cherubims with a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. Well, there we are out of time again. Tune in again tomorrow. We'll carry it on from here. May the Lord bless you. In the meantime.