All right, nobody else was waving, so take your Bibles and go to a very familiar passage, Genesis and Chapter 3. Genesis and Chapter 3, the lessons are in the back there, if you didn't get one yet, if somehow I missed you. Let's read our passage and we'll pray and then we'll begin. And let's see here, I'm gonna start at verse 20. Okay, this is a real familiar event in scripture. Genesis chapter 3 and verse 20, And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothe them. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil. And now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. Let's pray. Father we thank you for your love for us, we thank you for our mothers, as several have given testimony already, and we do thank you for our mothers. And ask that you might bless them, work in their lives. I pray for the ladies who are here who are mothers, help them while they're in such a noble and important position. and guide and direct in that, Father, please. Even today as we sort of focus on mothers, both here at church and I'm sure in our families, would you help us to use that for your glory and to encourage the mothers that are in our lives, please. We do pray for the requests that were shared. Father, we think of the college kids who now are on summer break, and would you guide and direct and help them in whatever is happening this summer for them. Some will be doing jobs and other things. I pray you might bless them and give wisdom and direction in their lives. Father, we pray for this man, Greg, and his wife. as she's there caring for him in a difficult time, I pray you'd put your hand upon him and just guide and direct and use even that difficulty for your glory, Father, please. And we do thank you for the many blessings of yesterday's outreach and the folks that we talked to and were able to share the gospel with and give invitations. Father, I pray you might bless those efforts and folks that see their need whether we saw them pray yesterday or not, that seed might begin to grow and they would recognize that need, and would you just work in that regard, Father, please. We thank you for helping this man that Sharon had mentioned, whose mother had surgery for her heart, and we do pray for that recovery and guide and direct in that. Father, no doubt there are many things that haven't been said, that we need you to help us with. And so I pray for those unspoken needs. You know exactly what they are and what is needed, and so would you give us grace and strength to take steps of faith and obedience to you. Would you help us, please? Bless now this morning as we go into our study. In Jesus' name, Amen. And before I forget, let me say Happy Mother's Day to the mothers, so I'm not too delinquent, amen? Alright, here we are in Genesis chapter 3. Now we've been doing a series of lessons on the types. which are prophetical things. They are pictures. They are object lessons, etc. of real things that were a picture of things to come. And there would be a fulfillment. That fulfillment is then an anti-type. In light of today as Mother's Day, I'm going to make a slight diversion. It's still sort of in the realm of types and their fulfillment, but in a different sense, rather than necessarily types of Christ. Other things, other lessons that God has taught us in His Word, And this morning we're going to look at three mothers. Three mothers. And lessons we can learn from these three mothers. and you probably can guess the first one right here out of Genesis chapter 3 and that is Eve okay a mother, Philemon is a mother for us all okay a mother for us all as it says there in Genesis 3 and verse 20 Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living According to the record that God's given to us in His Word, Adam and Eve started it all. The first man, the first woman, and so everybody that's living on the planet goes back to those two individuals. and some very important things happened in their life as we see in the record that we were reading there in chapter 3 at that point there's been the whole thing with the serpent and eating of the fruit and etc. and the various judgments that God gave upon Adam, upon Eve, and upon the serpent that's the point of the story where we are and so they've been judged. Adam calls his wife's name Eve. It would seem that probably takes place maybe afterwards, but either way, he calls her Eve. She's the mother of all living. There are no other people on the planet at this point in the story. And then we see that God makes the coats of skins, which obviously would mean he's taken those skins off animals, and that's often looked upon as the first sacrifice for sin, at least an atoning, a covering sacrifice, so they're covered properly. And then they're kicked out of the garden, because now Adam and Eve know good and evil from the wrong direction. They could have known good and evil from the right direction, meaning they could have obeyed. And they would know right and wrong by doing right. But instead they learned right and wrong by doing wrong. And once they did that, there was a twist, there was a perversion, a corruption, if you will. Because God had said, in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And literally, it's in your dying, you shall die. So a process of death begins, and it ends with the conclusion of physical death, and in reference to sin, an eternal death, a separation from God. So Adam and Eve could have known the right, but they didn't. They chose to disobey. They ate the fruit. This is all real familiar to us. And God says he became as one of us. And so then they're forced out of the garden and he's got to till the ground and he drove them out. And then they go east of the garden and the garden is guarded by these angels with flaming swords. Okay. Where is that garden now? I don't know. I think it went away with a flood. It got washed away. I think that's the best answer we have for that. Revelation talks about a tree of life in heaven. Maybe God took it to heaven. That's a possibility as well. But it's not where we usually think it would be geographically on the planet because that's kind of desert. It doesn't look much like the Garden of Eden. It's kind of not very good. Now, moving from the story that God gives to us, and just to remind you, whether we look upon it as a story that gives lessons, or we look upon it as history, the lesson is the same. It's the same lesson. However, I want to hasten to say, as a Bible-believing person, I take it as history. Not just a story, but as history. That's actually what happened. That they were literal people. Literal people. If that's the case, then I got two resources I'm just going to mention to you. This is not an unqualified endorsement. But if you're into studying more deeply some of these kinds of issues, I'm about to mention two resources. a lecture by Dr. Rob Carter, who did his genetic whatever, his, in marine biology I think is his primary field of study, but he got his PhD from the University of Miami. But he gives a lecture on, it's titled, The Mitochondrial Eve and the Three Daughters of Noah. Interesting. Human Genetic Data Fits the Bible Better Than Evolution. That's the title of the DVD. If you're very tired at night, I wouldn't recommend watching it then. It's not like watching a John Wayne movie. It's not like that. That's not an endorsement of John Wayne either. I had watched it before and I was watching it last night and it put me to sleep. That's the reality of it, okay? The other one is a very interesting book. This is by Dr. Nathaniel T. Jensen, or Jensen, I don't know if I'm saying his name right. And he received his PhD in cell and developmental biology from Harvard. So these aren't resources by preachers, they're resources by scientists. And he's done a big study on the human genome. tracking all of that stuff, and it's a bit technical again, but it's quite interesting. He's using genetics as it shows the migration history of humanity, and how that can be tracked by things within the genetic code. Okay. That sounds a bit heady, and it is. I think I got through chapter one. To be quite honest, I spent more time looking at the pictures. But it's interesting, if you have the time and the interest and maybe a background to understand those things, it's quite interesting. To summarize, I would say Eve is the mother of us all because she was the first woman. That's what the Bible says. So that makes it pretty simple for me. Okay, I don't have to get real technical. But if that was true, then if that's a true statement, then we would anticipate the evidence proving that. That's a logical, position, wouldn't you agree? If it's true, then we should find evidence of it. It's kind of like, if Jesus is true, if he's the greatest person in all of human history, then we would expect to find evidence of that in history. And we do actually. Now sometimes that evidence shows up later on as things are studied and archaeologists and all that kind of stuff takes place and we discover this and we discover that and so on. There was just a report in the news I saw about I think a factory that was discovered that created the purple dye from the little mollusk shells You know, because that would, purple was a royal color because it was very expensive. It was intensely labor-dependent to collect the shells, crush the shells, process them to extract the dye. Well, archaeologists have discovered a factory that produced the purple dye. That's kind of interesting. So my point is, if these things are true, then we would expect, eventually, if we're diligent in our studies and our searching, and we're honest with our conclusions, we would find evidences in support of that. That makes perfectly good sense. Well, in fact, at least according to Dr. Carter in his lecture, he brings out some things that I didn't know because genetics is not my field of study or expertise. But that, if you're a man, you have a Y chromosome and you only get that from your dad. That would mean that not counting for corruption and maybe mutations etc. over time, but in essence there is only one Y-chromosome. For the whole world. Because there is only one guy. Right? I mean if that's true, Right? That's interesting. Even if we go to the flood, there'd only be one because it was Noah and his three sons. And from them, all the rest of the world was populated after that great disaster. So it'd be Noah's, which would be Adam's if we trace that all the way back. However, the DNA in the mitochondria in our cells, excuse me for being so technical, don't assume that I'm sort of an expert, I am not. I'm parroting what somebody else has said, okay? I confess right off the bat. But apparently you only get that from your mom. Now on the arc, how many of those would there have been? Four. And there's no record, there's not a record in scripture that Noah and his wife had any more children after the flood. Potentially, okay. But the three sons did, obviously, because then we get all those genealogies. So at the very least, I guess would be the way to say it, there would only be three sources of that particular piece of our DNA. And to make a long story short, that's exactly what's found in all these genetic studies. In fact, even, you know, the terms, the mitochondrial Eve and the Y chromosome Adam are general terms that are used, not just terms by those who believe in creation. Interesting, interesting. Of all the various DNA, of all the various peoples in the world, 99% of our DNA is all common. Only a small percentage is actually the variations of the different kinds of people. And that makes sense. That makes perfectly good sense. If we all came from knowing his wife, that was our great, great, great, great grandpappy and grandmammy. Okay. However, far back, we gotta count. Okay. And so we're all related. We're all cousins. Right? I mean, that's how it is. Which, you know, that becomes quite distressing to me. It helps me actually, it helps me when we think about things like racial tensions. I don't even like the term because there is only one race, the human race. It's just people. It's just people, okay. Yes, Joe. Yes, that's right. We're one. That's right. We're right. So it all points back to this one mother of us all. You say, Pastor, why are you stressing that? Well, a fellow by the name of Frank Zindler, who was quite a very active, an activist for atheism, kind of took over the Atheist Association after, um, Malamari O'Hare kind of was off the scene, et cetera. And in a debate, he, I'm going to summarize it so I can move on to the next point. In a debate, he summarized it this way, that Adam and Eve were not literal people. They did not exist. And if they did not exist, if they're mythological and they did not exist, then there is no original sin. And if there is no original sin, there is no need of salvation. And if there is no need of salvation, there is no need of a savior. And therefore Jesus, whether he's historical or otherwise, is among the unemployed. That's what Frank Zindler said. And on the assumption that his first statement is true, that Adam and Eve are not real people, then everything else he said is true. And I can agree to that. But his first statement, I don't agree with. Adam and Eve were literal people and even now as more and more of these kinds of studies are being done at deeper and deeper levels we're finding that there is a commonality and a common root and we go back. And so that both spiritually speaking and Literally speaking, Eve is the mother of us all. Your very salvation and entrance into heaven is dependent upon that. That's pretty important, I think. Now, so there's one mother. Let me move on to two more mothers who were literal people in the record, the historical record in the Bible, but also they're used in, well, go with me to the book of Galatians. Galatians in chapter 4. Galatians in chapter 4. And what happens with these two mothers, while what happened with Eve was literal and set the stage with her and Adam for us and our spiritual need for salvation, These next two mothers illustrate that truth. Now what happened to them was real in the record in the book of Genesis. And we may go back there and just remind ourselves perhaps, but primarily Paul, as he writes to the Galatians, he uses these two mothers to illustrate the one of two options when it comes to salvation. And so there's some lessons for us to learn. So point number two is a mother we all had. A mother we all had. And while a mother for us all was Eve, a mother we all had is a reference to Hagar. All right, so we're in Galatians chapter four, verse 21. And Paul says, tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory, for these are the two covenants." So Paul's telling us that what happened with Hagar and Sarah are object lessons of two covenants that God has given. The one covenant has to do with the law, Sinai, verse 25, for this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. He's talking about the giving of the law, the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. But Jerusalem which is above, now he's talking about heaven. day, is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not, break forth and cry, thou that travailest not, for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, Isaac is the child of the promise, the son of the promise, that was Sarah's son. So those are the two mothers we're comparing now, Hagar and Sarah. So a mother we all had, what do I mean by that? Well, when we get to looking at these two mothers, what Paul is comparing is law versus grace. So that's why he talks about Mount Sinai and he talks about heaven. Mount Sinai is the specific reference to the Ten Commandments and the giving of the law. Where heaven is something that you can't earn your way in, can you? No, for by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So when we think of Hagar, we're talking about an act of the flesh, not just in her becoming pregnant, but in the sense of Abraham, well both, all three of them, Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, all three of them in essence, took God's plan into their own hands to fulfill it. That's, whenever you and I act in the flesh, Obviously, it's going to involve our bodies, because your body doesn't do anything unless you tell it to do what it's supposed to do. I'm not talking about involuntary things like breathing and blood pumping. I'm talking about our actions, our attitudes, our interactions, etc. When we take things into our own hands, that's living in the flesh. living in the now, living without submission to God, et cetera. Okay, a lot of different ways maybe we could talk about that. So when we think about the law, the law makes us think about sin. Why would I say that? Well, go to Romans, if you would, please, and chapter seven. Romans 7 in verse 7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law. For I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. And you can continue reading there how he's talking about the interaction and the relatedness between the law and sin. Not that the law brings sin, but the law shines upon sin and shows us where we come short of God and his character. Back in Galatians in chapter 3 verses 24 and 25, Paul writes to that same group of people, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. but after that faith has come we are no longer under a school master. The whole point of the law being given on Mount Sinai was to teach God's chosen nation, Israel, that they needed a savior and that they couldn't do enough, they couldn't earn their way in. So when we think about Hagar and the mother that we all had, we're talking about the fact that all of us were born with a sinful nature. And all of us are just like that. We take things into our own hands at times. Maybe we wouldn't think so. But just listen for a moment here to what's stated back in Genesis when this whole fiasco begins with Abraham. and Sarah in that Genesis 12, just verse 10, it says, And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was grievous in the land. Okay, so we know the story. He goes there, he lies about his wife because she's pretty, and he thinks that they'll kill him and steal his wife away, so he lies about her, and they steal his wife away. That didn't really help him very much. You know, it's always better to just be honest, right up front, rather than lie and get whacked anyways. That's an extra lesson, okay? Verse 16. All that comes to light though, and look at verse 16. And he entreated Abram well for her sake, and he had sheep and oxen and he asses and men servants and, what's the next word? Maid servants. That's Hagar. Hagar's in that bunch. If he would have trusted God and not gone to Egypt in the first place, he wouldn't even have been in this household. Well, now he's filthy stinking rich. And that causes a problem with Lot, and that's chapter 13. So they split up, and then Lot goes where he shouldn't go, and so that causes the problem in chapter 14, where Abraham has to go and rescue him. But then look at 15 and verse 4. So in chapter 15, God reiterates his covenant with Abraham that he's gonna bless his descendants. Of course, Abraham doesn't have any descendants. And he's not, in our words, he's no spring chicken at this point. Verse 4, And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, meaning Eliezer, who was basically his chief steward in his house, who was born in his house, raised in his household, which Abram had said, One born in my house is as good as my son. And God said, No, that's not what I promised you. I didn't promise you to have a servant. I promise you, you have a son. Okay, if thou be able to number, I'm sorry. This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. Okay, you're gonna have a baby boy. That's what God says to him. Chapter 16, verse one. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bare him no children. And she had a handmaid, and what's it say? Egyptian. Oh, I wonder how did she get in the household? We gotta go back to chapter 12, don't we? We just looked at that. Whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, behold now, I want you to notice what she says. The Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go in unto my maid. It may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. Will this be Abraham's actual son? No? Yeah, he's not the one of the promise. So what's Abraham doing? And actually, what's Sarah doing? Sarah's saying, I want to be careful with how I describe this. We've been trying, and God's not letting me have a baby. Right? Isn't that what, basically that's what she said. God's restraining me. God is not allowing me. And that was true. That is a true statement from a wrong attitude. It's a true statement because when we go to Hebrews, we find that by faith, Abraham, excuse me, Sarah, obtained strength to conceive seed. God was restraining her on purpose because the Lord wanted everyone to know this is something only I could have done. Otherwise, it's what every other couple was doing. We get it? So what's miraculous about that? What's miraculous about a young couple having a baby? Nothing. Thank you, Don. Nothing's miraculous. Now, the whole process is amazing. What I'm saying is that's a normal process that takes place. But Abraham and Sarah are going to have a baby when, in fact, according to Hebrews, it says that Abraham was accounted as good as dead. and she needed strength miraculously so that she could conceive. They both were well past the time that there would be any children. That's obviously something God did. Now the process obviously was the same human process. It wasn't a miraculous conception like Mary and Jesus. But it was amazing, God had to intervene. So my point is, when we think about these two mothers, Hagar is the picture of us taking it into our own hands. This picture of Hagar is not about unsaved people, it's about people thinking, I can earn my own way. Somehow if I keep the law, if I check all the do's and I don't check any of the don'ts, weigh the scales of justice or whatever, that's us. And so as I said, Paul's using these two mothers to illustrate the two ways of salvation, which are works or grace. It's one or the other. It's one or the other. And Hagar is a mother that we all had because if we're not gonna get there by grace, we have to find a way to earn our way. But sadly, we're never gonna make it. We're never gonna be able to pay the bill. It's not gonna happen. Law versus grace. Sin and the relationship of law. The one requires the other and the other reveals the one. Thirdly, a mother we all need. And that's Sarah. And the story about Sarah, and how that was God, and that was faith. Abraham, they took it into their own hand, and what happened afterwards? Did God say, fine, Abraham, you want to do it your own way? Poof! I'm kicking you out! I'm negating my promises! Is that what God did? Now, isn't it wonderful that when we flub it up, God doesn't say, fine, I'm cutting you out of the family. Does God do that to us? No, he doesn't. Now, he might be like, I can't believe they did that again. I don't think God does it that way, but you understand what I'm trying to say. Does God become disappointed in us? I think so. Paul talks about grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit. Yeah, we do that. Only Christians can do that. Only Christians can grieve and quench the Holy Spirit. So yeah, I think God gets disappointed with us when we take things into our own hands, even things that are right and holy and He wants us to do, but we start forcing it. We start figuring out how to mechanize it, how to whatever it. And now it's all on us, isn't it? And what we need is grace. We need God's touch in our lives. And that's the whole picture of Sarah. It's finally, they had to come to the point where it was impossible for them And God says, yep, Sarah, you're gonna have a baby. And she knew that was so impossible. She is laughing in the tent, like, ah, yeah, right! And God says, what are you laughing about? Oh, no, I wasn't laughing, Lord. No, no, no, I wasn't doing that. Oh, yes, you were. Yes, you were. And what, nine months later, what happens? There's the baby, like, I didn't think that would ever happen. But it did. Because God got a hold of it, and God did what He wanted to do. So the story of Sarah, as it says here, in verse 25, for this Egar is not signing in Arabia and answer it to Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children. That's the law, that's us under sin, that's us doing it in our own ability, whether we think we can earn our way into heaven or somehow you can keep yourself holy by your own bootstraps and determined separation, whatever. And everybody knows I'm not against separation, I'm for being holy. But I can't do it in my own strength. Because I fail. And I won't ask for a raise of hands, but you do too. We can't do it on ourselves. God has to enable us. But Jerusalem, which is above, now he's talking about heaven, is free. That's a wonderful synonym, you might say, for grace. Because if you've earned it, it's not grace. It's not grace. At the end of the week, if the boss gives you your paycheck, you worked 40 hours, and he or she, whatever the case may be, gives you a paycheck for 40 hours worth of labor, you say, oh, thanks, boss, you're so gracious. Was he gracious? No, you're like, you had better give me my paycheck. But if the boss gives you your paycheck and he says, oh, by the way, you did such a great job, I'm giving you a bonus. You didn't ask for it just because he chose. That's grace, isn't it? That's free. It's free. And that's what we need. We need grace because we're unable. What did it say back in Genesis 16? The Lord has restrained me. I can't. Well, at least she admitted that it was beyond her. And so if that was gonna happen, it would obviously be the Lord. The Lord. Wow. She was unable and it wasn't going to happen until God was ready to make it clear that it was His work and not hers. Grace is the answer for the promise. The promises God give to us, promises of answered prayer, promises of victory over sin, promises of peace in our heart, et cetera, all of those, grace is the answer to those things. You cannot work it up or work it down. That is grace. God, now I'm not dismissing, we need to get in line with the Lord. But if we can demand God to do anything, do we have the authority to demand God? No. I don't think there's anything wrong with us as his children reminding him, like children will, Dad, you said, oh, I hated those words, you know. In our house, the girls, I wouldn't let them get their ears pierced until they were 13. That's just, okay, I don't know what you did in your house, but that's what I did in my house, okay? And as soon as they turned 13, dad, you said, I had totally forgotten that, but I had said it. And when they reminded me, yep, I did. Okay, okay. I don't think there's anything wrong with reminding the Lord, not that he's forgotten, but we are his children, are we not? He did tell us to come, like the widow who goes to the unjust judge, or the friend who knocks on his friend's door and he won't go away. Go away, I'm in bed, I don't care, I need some bread. I'm gonna bang this door until you answer it. I'm not dismissing that. I just want us to grasp a hold of the fact that the answer to all the things in your life is not you working it, as if it depends upon you. It really depends upon the Lord. Now, He expects us to get in the right line, etc., etc., etc. But in the end, He's the one that has to do it. It's his strength, it's his wisdom, it's his truth. So Sarah's a picture of grace. Hagar is a picture of the law and the law's rigidness and restrictiveness and really of our failure. Where Sarah's a picture of God's grace and benevolence and his gifts to us. Which one do you want? I mean, it comes down to which one do we want? Eve. Yep, we're all in the same boat. Romans 3, 23. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Hagar. Yep. Yeah, we're all in the same case. Okay, Romans 3, 10. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Amen. Okay, all have sinned. Sarah. In her, we all have the same way. But God commended this love toward us. Romans 5a. Or how about 10, 13? Whosoever. Isn't that wonderful? Whosoever. God's grace. Three mothers. We learn three very important lessons. We're all related. We all have the same problem. And we all have the same availability of the answer. And that's the Lord. All right. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your love and grace. Would you help us? At times it's so easy for us to digress and we get distracted and we get to thinking somehow we've got to work it down or work it up or whatever. And while we certainly ought to be obedient to you, we should be crying out to you for your grace and your mercy. Would you help us? Again, we ask you might bless the mothers today, work in our services to follow, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.