Let us turn now in our Bibles to Genesis chapter three, verses 20 through 24. Genesis three, 20 through 24. And we'll read God's words together. Let's begin. And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take of the tree of life, and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he came. So he drove out the man and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. That is the word of God. Blessings in blood. My brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, I have cut off the heads of many chickens and ducks. I've watched sheep and goats being slaughtered and once even a bull. It's not a very pleasant sight. What is characteristic then is lots of blood. But as a result of lots of blood, I was very satisfied. They died. Their blood was shed so I might live. And I'm thankful they're willing to sacrifice their life so I might live, but I have a bigger problem. And what we're looking at is this picture is really true in a spiritual sense as well to fix our bigger problem. God reflecting His justice and holiness required that for me to live, to live spiritually, I needed to have the shedding of blood also. Someone had to come willingly. You know those chicken heads I cut off? They were never willing. We had to have someone coming willingly to die for my sins. And this is the one you hear about today. It might look like it's not there, but it's very much there. The headings are three, Adam received faith, Adam received encouragement, and Adam received protection. Our goals are that you will confirm the only way you are redeemed from the curse of the fall is to rest in the bloody sacrifice that Christ was for your sins. First, Adam received faith by blood. Immediately after the curses came on man, one would have expected great sadness to overwhelm Adam when he learned what the condition of his life was going to be and how all his children will be born as wretched sinners. But instead of sadness, Adam evidenced or showed faith. His faith was in the one promised by God who would crush the head of the serpent and set him free from Satan's deadly clutch. Now what is the evidence of Adam's faith? You see it here. Adam named his wife life or living. She was the mother of the living. Now before, when he got married, he says woman. This is the woman-ness, the one who came from man, emphasizing her origin. But now when he named her Eve, he was speaking of her destiny. This was not speaking of the fact that they would have children. Obviously, all the children in the world would come from the two of them because there was no other woman. He knew that. This was speaking of something deeper and richer. speaking of the son who would come from this woman who would give life to the world, the spiritual mother of all. So Eve's name ultimately pointed to the birth of Christ, her destiny. Woman is just her origin. Eve, her destiny. And this is the one whose blood will be shed so they could have life. Martin Luther said it nicely. He said, Adam turned from sin to the promise of the Lord. He did not let his sin overwhelm him, but he turned to the promise of the Lord. Just two lessons here. First of all, faith always results in godly action. Adam did not hide anymore as he did when he was confronted by the Lord. He was introduced to the Messiah, the one who would crush Satan's head and give him new life. And you see it come alive in his action. He showed his faith and named his wife as an evidence of his faith. So, the lesson is, show your faith. You can't be a secret Christian. People at your workplace should know you're a Christian. Now, I understand you can't be preaching at your workplace because it's not your area of domain, but the way you live your life, the way you talk, the way you bow your head to pray when you're about to eat your lunch, it tells a lot about who you are and in whom your faith is placed. Second lesson, never let sin overwhelm you and stop you from doing the work that the Lord has called you to do. Hope in the Lord. You notice, this is Adam. He could have said, oh, you don't know how bad I am. I got to hide in the corner because I feel ashamed for what I've done. I've neglected my wife. I've neglected my Lord. I've condemned all my children to hopelessness. You know what he did? He picked himself up. Or rather, the Lord picked him up and he jumped up with the Lord and went about the work. of doing what is good. You see, here's the thing, you do something bad, shame will stop you from teaching your wife and your children, will stop you from disciplining them, will stop you from coming to church, but never let your sin keep you away from doing the work of God. Your sins have been covered, covered completely. You know the ideas, if you find yourself naked, you feel ashamed, and the Lord is saying, look, I've got a covering for you. Let my love cover you. Go about your work. Jesus took your shame. You know what's kind of interesting, is that Jesus was crucified naked. He took the full shame of your sin. There's nothing worse. Don't act like you're exposed because your sins have been born. Second point, Adam then received encouragement. Encouragement by blood to cleanse. The cleansing was coming. The Savior was coming. What's the encouragement? Verse 21, the Lord made tunics of skin and clothed them. Now it was clear that Adam's attempt to cover his sins with leaves did not fool God. Adam's covering was inadequate. Leaves, for example, could only partially cover his nakedness and only for a short period of time. Leaves dry up. So he needed a better physical covering. Well, more than that, leaves could not cover the shame and guilt of his soul, so he needed a true covering. His sins were before God as a billboard. He was naked before God. Now, that covering for his body and his soul, God provided, was very important. Why? Well, the covering was to keep man comfortable. The temperatures would no longer be 21.5 degrees Celsius, no different. If you pick your own temperature. It wouldn't be the same. It'd be up and down. And it needed to be kept comfortable. That covering also provided a protection from lust. Because sin, now instead of having this pure relationship with his wife, would be one of lust. and they needed to be covered to curtail their depravity. But more important than that, those things, that covering prefigured the work of Christ, who would protect man from the curse of God, will cover him up so no one will see and be ashamed their sin anymore, because their sins will be covered with the beautiful clothing of Christ's righteousness. Remember how the priest had to wear a tunic? If he didn't wear a tunic in serving the Lord, he'd be killed. It's the Lord painting that picture and said, don't forget, there's shame with you, but I provided a covering. And what was really, what did the priest really have to do to be protected? He had to kill an animal for his own sins before he would go. The high priest go and make petition for the people. And then he had to have the symbolic clothing, another picture of what we needed in Christ. So how did God get the spiritual covering for Adam? God killed an animal, shedding the blood for Adam's sins, and used it to make clothes for him. You see, the blood of the animal was an atonement for Adam's sins. And the word atonement really means covering. Hebrews chapter nine, verse 22, if you have your sermon notes together. And according to the law, almost all things are purified with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. That is atonement. There's no remission, no removal of your sins without the shedding of blood. Now we use the word or the expression, you hear someone say, I'll cover you. You're going out to a restaurant, don't worry about it, I'll cover you. What do they mean? They mean they will pay the cost for someone's meal. So the term atonement is used to refer to the exchanging of money for products of equal value. Here's the problem though. The blood of animals could not remove sins. Never could do that. So why did God use animals as this picture? Because that's exactly what it was. It was a picture of the one who would come to die for the sins of the world and provide true covering for man's sins. You read about that in Zechariah chapter 3, that beautiful picture. of the accused before God, the Satan saying, he is filthy. And Jesus said, I'll give him new clothes, clothes of righteousness. So the real covering was Christ's expiatory death. which was a fair exchange for the value of their souls. And that was coming, and that's why God used this killing of the animals and providing these clothing because he was picturing Jesus' work. And in fact, one of the most common names for Jesus, most precious name for Jesus is the Lamb of God. And when was he slain? Before the foundation of the world. So his death would be effective even before Adam was made. So God offered the covering to Adam, which referred to Jesus, and Adam received it by faith. And what a blessing that was. We sing the psalm often, Psalm 32, verse 1. Let's read it together. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. You notice the language, whose sin is covered. It really swept away. Three lessons. First of all, the substitutionary death of the first sacrifice was a visible sign of God's invisible but real love for His elect. And the rest of the Scripture, the rest of the Bible continue to show this. So be encouraged by this. Speak of the same love that God showed to Adam. Speak of that today. Man is saved by Christ's death. You are saved by Christ's death. And make it even personal. I am saved by Christ's death and I am covered. Jesus was my substitution. He died in my place. Consider the covering you have now. The prefiguring animal is now gone. We don't need the sacrifices that God made for Adam. You're no longer covered with animals' blood, so you don't have to make bloody sacrifices. And as a pastor here, I'm very thankful for that. I kill enough chickens, I don't want to make sacrifices. It's done. Why is it done? Because Jesus was the one for all time sacrifices, we just sang. That is a precious covering and a permanent covering. Consider the beauty then of the covering that you have. Not that animal skin that they had to wear, but Psalm 45, verse 13 and 14, together, The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace. Her clothing is woven with gold. She shall be brought to the king in robes of many colors. The virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to you." What a picture now. When you read of the embroidered clothing, the beautiful picture of the bride of Christ covered Remember we talked about how do you get the wife? You have to prepare. The Lord did everything for His bride. He came, lived, died, rose again, and now takes care of His bride. That's what you have. Think of how precious you are in the sight of the Lord. One more lesson. When you think of how precious you are, your privileged position, and the security, the permanence of your blessing, then rejoice in your new heavenly clothes. There's not a lady I know who doesn't like to have nice clothing and dress up. They look good, all the decorations, and it's a wonderful thing. That's how it was meant to be. When you talk about the clothing that you do have, the real spiritual clothing, the one that protects you from the devil, the one that guarantees you a seat, the marriage supper of the Lamb, to be part of the Bride of Christ, ready for that consummation of marriage, the end of the world. When you think about it, what do you do? You rejoice. You rejoice. See what happens at weddings. Get all dressed up. And everyone's happy, and the bride is a highlight of the wedding. And when the bride walks in, everybody stands. The groom walks in, nobody cares. The bride comes in, and everyone stands, and they're looking, and wishing, and oohing and aahing. What about the bride of Christ? Look at the beautiful clothing we have. Learn to cherish that more than anything else, your privileged position as the children of God. Look at Galatians 3.27, together, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. That's the picture of the new clothing we have. Isaiah 61, verse 10. Together. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. See the language? Clothed me with salvation. Clothed me with robes of righteousness, clothed me with jewels, dressed with jewels. What a beautiful thing. And then you have a new name. That's what brides get too, don't they? A new name. You leave your family behind and you join together and start a new family. That's what Christians get. So God will cover you with the robe of righteousness, even as the prodigal son. You remember that? Luke 15, prodigal son returns, and what does the father say? Too bad. He said, look, let me be one of your hired servants. He said, no, go get a nice robe. Put it on him. Let's celebrate. His sins are covered. He's forgiven. Then we move to our third point. Adam received protection. Adam received protection. Yes, he received faith. We see him in the naming of his wife. Then he received encouragement. Encouragement by the sacrifice of the animal, saying, Christ is coming. Your savior is coming. He'll crush the head of the serpent and set you free. But it didn't end there. God's riches, blessings are many. Adam received protection. So he could wait for the bloodshed of Jesus Christ. First of all, consider God, Trinitarian God, spoke. Now, he spoke sarcastically, and he shamed Adam, even as he offered God's protection. And this is where you see something very interesting. Then the Lord said, behold, the man of God has become like one of us. That's Trinity expressed there. But God was using, really shaming Adam for what he did. He thought he was going to become like one of us. Look at where he is today. What a great God man has become. See what he got from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What was God doing here? He was humiliating Adam. Why? So he could come to his senses. You see, humiliation is a great arrow in God's arsenal. Sometimes we like to think, oh, we always want to encourage and encourage without sometimes being strong and confront people with sin. Look at what God said in Psalm 83, verse 16. Together, fill their faces with shame that they may seek your name, O Lord. You notice it? Let them fall flat. on their faces so they will look to God. So they will look to God. God again protected Adam by then putting him out of the garden so he wouldn't eat of the tree of life that was there. See, the tree of life was good for Adam in the beginning, but now if he ate of the tree of life, He would have kept him alive forever. And that wouldn't be good. That wouldn't be good for two reasons. First of all, it was comparable to abusing the Lord's Supper. You have these symbols of God's love and you should not take them if you're not living close to God. The other thing is, if he ate of the tree of life, he would live forever in sin. But we are only freed from sin when we die. That's when there's true liberation. So God was protecting Adam by putting him out and saying, you can't come near this tree. It's not good for you anymore. More, in living outside of the garden, Adam would have a full sense of his sin, of his loss. What he gave up because of his foolishness, his pride and his arrogance. He would know in there is a place of perfect rest, perfect temperature, perfect food. Perfect relationship with his wife. When he went out, there'd be fighting between him and his wife. There would be struggles to find food. There'd be wild animals. There'd be more weeds than vegetables. And then he would have to think what he needed. You see, troubles are often important for us. Put it simply, thorns tell a tremendous truth. The thorns remind you of your condition and of the one who is going to come to rescue you from your condition. And to make sure Adam did not try to come and eat of the tree of life, God did something interesting again. He put cherubim, angels to guard the entrance with swords in hand. So man had to wait until the true fruit of the tree of life, Jesus Christ, would come to receive eternal life, true healing for his soul. And you see this in the picture of worship of God in the tabernacle and in the temple. You know, they had the back third of the tabernacle, there was this thick veil, very thick veil, no one could see through it. But on that would be what? Two angels. And the angels, it's as if they're guarding so no one can go behind there without the shedding of blood that the high priest did once per year. The worshiper needed a mediator before he could go there, or blood sacrifice. So Adam and Eve were separated from the fullness of God's blessing. Adam then had to work hard for food as they were outside. Instead of just picking fruits from the trees that God provided, now labor, hard labor was coming. And yet, God didn't send him to hell. God gave him a place of toil. But God did not give him a place of torment. God was still kind, even in his punishment of Adam. He could have sent them to hell, he just did not. Remember, that's what God did with the angels that rebelled. Satan and the third of the angels that rebelled were sent, committed to hell. They had no opportunity to be restored. Look how much God loved Adam and Eve. They just had to wait for that time to come. I've got five lessons for you in this third point. First of all, shaming someone is not to be disregarded. Sometimes it's an effective tool. You know, like a judge might have somebody, remember a lady having to stand up by near a school with a sign that says, I need to respect the traffic when children are around or something to that effect because she drove past, drove on a sidewalk to go past a stopped school bus. So what the judge did, she had to have this big sign for several weeks, standing up there every time school was in and out. And I thought, that's incredible, good way to really teach her a lesson. Shaming was effective. Paul challenged the church in Rome to examine if they gained anything by their sinful lives. He said, look at you. What have you gained? Look at the verse, Romans 6, 21, together. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. You don't realize you would have killed yourself doing those things? The shame that those things bring, what did you gain from doing that? What did you gain from living that way? See, hurt feelings may be necessary to save the hurting soul. Confronting sin is necessary. Remember the Apostle Paul that we looked at not too long ago? Oh, foolish Galatians. And then he went further. Who has bewitched you? You look like you've been deceived by a witch, the way you're acting. You want to work for your salvation when your salvation was paid for by Jesus in full. We live in a society where positive reinforcement is the order of the day. You always say nice things to people. And I understand there's a benefit to use inducements to encourage good behavior, but sometimes you need to be able to confront it and shame those who do wickedly. Look at our politicians. You have to be very blunt with what they're doing. They're doing very wickedly and they don't seem to want to change. So sometimes positive reinforcements can be positively useless. That's not what you need. You need to be able to do so. So learn when to use it because often shaming others may be the only way to save them. Second, God disciplines but does not disinherit or destroy his children. He disciplines the son he loves, Hebrews 12.6. So don't despise troubles. He makes his elect suffer because they are his elect and he's doing what is good for them. Third, God protects you from all things that could destroy you. So don't be mad if you don't get the girl of your dreams. Don't get mad if you lose that job you think that would have helped you in your career. There may be better things waiting for you. If you're God's child, don't worry about those things. God has your welfare in his heart, and he knows what is best for you and when it is best for you. Four. Elders work to protect you from misusing the signs of the covenant, like baptism or the Lord's Supper, just as the Lord prevented Adam from eating of the tree of life. You need to trust your elders in this. They don't want you to be treated, or they don't want you to treat Christ's blood with contempt. And that's why sometimes some people are not allowed to take of the Lord's Supper, just like God says, Let them eat of that fruit. Angels, lock the gate. Put them out. Not because I hate them, but because I want to protect them. And five, you have the tree of life today. Eat. Believe in the one who opened up the way back to Eden for you when he died on the cross, that green tree. That became your tree of life. When he died, the veil of the temple, with the two angels blocking the way, was torn from the top down by God himself so you can have access with God again. God did this when Jesus died. What a beautiful picture now of the door being opened again. to the tree of life. And you know, when Christ returns, it wouldn't be just a ripping of the curtains. What the Bible says, when Jesus returns, the angels will come with Him. And what will they do? Kind of sneakily come in and rip people away? No, there'll be blasts of the trumpet. The angels will come and gather the people of God. to be with the Lord Jesus. And then they'll be welcomed into that heavenly Eden, that perfect garden in the presence of the Lord. You see how it's all restored? It's not a beautiful picture. It's not a beautiful promise we have in Jesus Christ. Let's conclude. Adam received faith. from the Lord and he showed it in the naming of his wife that she would be the mother of life, the bread of life, Jesus himself. Then Adam received encouragement when God used the benefit of the animal sacrifices and its benefit. And third, Adam then received protection. Protection from eating unworthily from the tree of life. So brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, remember, only those who are washed in the blood of the lamb and covered with the resulting righteousness can eat of the tree of life. That tree of life is restored. Revelation 2, 7 says, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. Here it is again. They lost it, God fixed the problem, and man has it back again. So rejoice. when you remember what God has done. Rejoice that you're washed in the blood of the Lamb and you are covered forever. Then eat daily of Christ and live. Work now as you are being restored. Work for his dominion on the earth. Live like the redeemed. But along with rejoicing is reproduce. At least try to. Bring others in to eat and live and work for the spread of the gospel around the world. Finally, if you are not a Christian, Isaiah 28, 20 says, for the bed is too short to stretch out on and the covering so narrow that no one can wrap himself in it. What does that mean? It means having no covering in a cold climate in the night led to death. The covering was inadequate. But thank God Christ provided that beautiful covering. When that covering comes, you have new life. Remember also Ephesians 2.1, and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. And God gives you the faith by which you receive that new life, that new covering that he provides through Jesus Christ. Let your hands of faith receive that covering that he offers to you today. Let us pray. Thank you, Lord. for the work you did in redeeming us. You could have left our father, Adam, in his sin and sent him to hell for eternity. But what wondrous love is this, that you would redeem us in such a remarkable, wonderful way. Help us then to rejoice as we remember what you have done. and work to spread that good news, to reproduce, to bring others in so that they too can receive what we have received and be able to enter again into a heavenly paradise at the end of this world. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen.