Scripture reading will be from in a moment. Last week we looked at Genesis 1 and 2, and I showed you the marvelous communion that God established with us at creation. It was a communion in which God gave us a home that was very well suited to us for delight and for living, and a home in which we received from God in the communion aspect. He gave it to us. And then we give back to Him praise and thanksgiving and worship for what He's given to us. There was also a communion at creation in which God gave us, communicated to us his own image so that we are able to be a reflection of his glory as his creatures and to reflect that glory back to him for his pleasure and delight. And finally, it was a communion in which God gave us a society like his eternal society and the Trinity, which we are all one human race, yet where woman proceeded from man and where children are begotten of the man and the woman together. And in this society, we were to live in love like the love that the triune God has dwelt in for all eternity, giving to Him service by serving one another within the context of the human race, the society that He had created and the various societies within that. What happiness there was at creation! What beauty! Man had a creation. Living in this full and rich communion with God. Receiving so much from Him. And then returning to Him what was pleasing. Constantly receiving. Constantly giving. That's what communion is. A back and forth. Giving, receiving between God and man. But what has become of this blissful communion that we saw last week, that we were created in? We look around and we see trouble in our home, the world that we're in. We see famines and earthquakes. We see vicious animals, aggressive animals. We look around at the image of God that's supposed to be in man, and instead of seeing beauty, we see corruption, wickedness. We look around at our society, and instead of seeing love, we see selfishness and war. What happened to the communion in which we were at first created? The story is told us in Genesis 3, a very important chapter in the Bible. When we look at this chapter in terms of communion with God, we will see three things tonight. First, an invitation to break communion with God. It came from Satan. Secondly, an acceptance of that invitation to break communion with God by Adam and Eve. And third, the consequences of this broken communion. Now, in looking at this topic, you need to understand that Adam is representative of the whole human race. Therefore, what he did, we all did in him who are born of him, who are his offspring. Our communion with God was broken when Adam's communion with God was broken. And it is only in Christ that it can be restored for those who are elected in Christ, and so become united to Him by regeneration, by the new birth, and by faith. Even Jesus Himself, however, had to bear the punishment of Adam's sins for the sake of His people. He had to bear the penalty for sin. The only difference in Christ is that being conceived of the Holy Spirit and being a pre-existing person, He did not have His own sinful nature to bring in, but came as one pure and holy, but yet still subject to the curse and having to bear the curse on the cross. So, let us turn now to read this account. about how our communion with God was broken. I should mention that this chapter also speaks of restoration, and we're going to be skipping a lot of chapters as we go along in the Bible, but this particular chapter 3 here is one that we're going to do this week and next week. Because we're looking at how the communion was broken this week, and then how it's restored next week, which is also in chapter 3. So I won't be focusing on restoration tonight, as we kind of glance through this chapter, but we'll be going to that next week. Okay, well listen now as I read to you from God's Word, Genesis chapter 3. 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? 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 it, 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. So the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise. And she took of its fruit and ate. 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. And the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? Then the man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate. The Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. So the Lord God said to the serpent because you have done this You are cursed more than all cattle more than every beast of the field on your belly You shall go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life All the days of your life and I will put enmity between you and the woman in between your seed and her seed He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel to the woman He said I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception in pain You shall bring forth children Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. Then to Adam, he said, because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you are taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return." 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 also of the tree of life and eat and live forever, Therefore, the Lord of God, therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to tell the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden in a flaming sword, which turned every way. to guard the way to the tree of life." And there we'll end the reading of God's Word. As you look at this chapter, as I mentioned before when I gave you a summary outline, you see first of all the serpent comes and invites Eve and Adam with her to break communion with God. There is first of all this great communion-breaking question. A communion-breaking question. that has been replayed again and again and again. Has God said? That's the question. The idea is, in asking that question, surely you don't mean that God has said thus and thus. This is unreasonable for God to say something like that. The serpent knew that God had given us language for the primary purpose of His being able to, as a transcendent being, being able to communicate with us in ways that we could understand. That He could speak to us and reveal Himself to us through word revelation. And to call into question the words that God spoke that were a revelation of Himself was a way to break communion with God, to cut off the main avenue of communication connection that we have with God. That's why this dragon, or as he is sometimes called, or this serpent attacked at this point. He knew that by calling into question the reasonableness and goodness of God's Word, he could bring man down. Note that this is the way of our world now that we have fallen. Each generation rises up and questions the Word of God, one at one point, another at another point. You can compare two societies. And those two societies will judge one another. Children judge their parents' generation. Parents judge their children's generation. One society judges another. The cannibal of one society judges the abortionist of another society and says, how can they do that to their own children? And the abortionist judges the cannibal and says, how can they do that to other people? But neither submits to the Word of God. Whatever sin we are involved in and is familiar to us, of course, always seems a lesser sin. The one over there. So we judge one another, but no one really submits to God's Word. Two of the most powerful destructive forces in the church have been those that have attacked God's Word. Questioning has God said. Rationalistic liberalism uses human reason to question the Word. It regards certain things like creation out of nothing as impossible, or the miracles in the Bible, and it rejects doctrines such as original sin that are clearly taught in the Scriptures. It questions everything that doesn't fit with human reason. Has God said this? How can that be? Neo-orthodoxy is the close cousin of liberalism, and yet a reaction in response to it, every bit as destructive. Unlike liberalism, it claims that everything in the Bible is inspired. This is why it's more dangerous. But it reinterprets the Bible. according to its own preferences. And so, again, questions what God has said in the plain sense of the Word, and casts other meanings upon the Word according to its own desires and ideas. It doesn't allow the Word of God to stand as it is written. I had a conversation with a woman this week. She went about continually saying, that's your interpretation. And what she meant was we can depart from the clear sense of the words to these other interpretations that fit with whatever it is that we want to fit. So the serpent or Satan begins by attacking the Word of God. You can tell that Eve, in response to this, is starting to fail, because you see her beginning to enter into this idea of reasoning and debating about the Word of God. She feels that she must defend God. She starts to explain that they can eat of all the trees except one, and that God has given warning that in eating from that tree that they will die, and so it is for their own good. that God has told them not to eat of that tree. Now, it's always dangerous as soon as you move away from the authority of God and start to debate the justice of what God has said. It is dangerous because we're always capable of misunderstanding the things of God. We're not capable of understanding the things of God is perhaps a better way to say it. What I am saying is that as soon as you allow God's commandments to be up for debate, you lose. I talked to a woman this week, another woman, about she was speaking of taking her life. And I said to her, that is not an option. God has spoken, and it's not a matter of whether your life is good or whether your life is bad. It's a matter of what has God said. And that's the only issue. And until you live your life according to what God has said, and not according to what would seem reasonable to me or what would work for me, then you are on the wrong basis altogether. Take a topic in our society like abortion or like homosexuality. It is okay to argue with someone about what God has said or what He has not said from the Scripture. to show a person a scriptural case for what God has said about these matters and how He has forbade certain practices. But as soon as we move from there and we start to argue about whether what God says about that is good, then we have moved away from the recognition of the authority of God. we are lost at that point. As soon as these topics come in as a matter of public debate about whether they be reasonable and whether they be good, then we can count it as that they will soon be practiced. We see things like intergenerational intimacy being discussed today. It will not be long when that is debated that it will be practiced. Because human reason will fail. The point is, if God forbids something, it doesn't matter if we understand all the reasons for it, or if it makes sense to us. That is not the question. The question is, if God says no, then it is no. If He says yes, then it is yes. Haven't you found this to be true in your own life? When temptation comes, what happens? If you start to reason and say, well, it seems like it would be a good thing to something that God has said no. Why wouldn't this be a good thing for me to do? And, well, maybe it would even be better and it would help me to serve God. And you begin to talk that way, you might as well have gone on and fallen into that, because that's where you're headed. Unless you repent. Once it is up for debate, we're lost. That's the way it is with mankind. Satan made headway because he got the woman to begin discussing the reasonableness of what God had said. Having done this, he next makes a very bold assertion. A flat contradiction. He says, you shall not surely die. Right then, he should have been thrown out of the garden if not before. Anyone who so boldly rejects God's Word, cannot be given audience, cannot be given any respect. But the debate had already begun. Instead of fleeing from Satan, they were debating with Satan. And so Adam and Eve allow him to continue. He goes on to say, 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. You see the reasoning that's going on here. It's going to be a good thing. In other words, breaking away from God's boundaries is not the way to death. Breaking out of that box that He's put you in and those restrictions and those boundaries, that's the way of life. That's the way of freedom. That's the path to enlightenment. That's the way to divinity. You will be like God. God has boxed you in. You have to break out and experience all of the richness and the fullness of what real living is about. You are all restrained and miserable now and restricted, but break out and you'll be happy. Just look at how God's word concerning the calling of a woman is looked at today. We heard about a missionary who is a missionary to Haiti who is telling about how she was trying to help the poor, confused Christian women there that she had met. She thought it was a terrible shame that these poor women were under the impression that they were not permitted to become pastors in the church or to teach in the church. and that they thought that their primary responsibility was in rearing children and things of that nature. These missionaries were making it their concerted effort to free these women from these life-destroying shackles. If only they could experience real womanhood in the pastorate. That was their thinking. The assertion is that life is not found by following God, but by breaking away from God. That's the lie of the devil. That they become the ones who define that we should become the ones who define what is good and evil in the place of God. It's not for God to do. Surely, we ought to know what's best for us to make us happy, to make us blessed. God was not able to bless them nearly so well as they would be able to bless themselves. Is that not what you think whenever you go away from God's calling yourself? To do something else? Is it not that you think that you will gain some kind of blessing by your disobedience? No, if I go and do this thing that God has forbidden, it's going to make me happy. It's going to make it better for me. That you will bless yourself in ways that God cannot bless you if you continue to obey Him. Yes, this is done even in worship. We think we can devise our own ways of worship that will improve on the ways that God has given us. Summing all this up, then, Satan was inviting Eve and Adam with her to break communion with God. You will not die. You will be enlightened and happy if you break away from your communion with God. Now, as you know, The second thing here, Adam and Eve accepted the invitation of Satan to break communion with God. They broke communion because they did not think about what they had in their communion with God. They had a home, as we saw, a world created for them, a garden full of rich foods, interesting animals, sky full of all sorts of planets and the sun and stars. that their Creator had given to them, and they had fellowship with their Creator Himself. They didn't think about the privilege that they had, and all of these things that they were all from Him, for them to give thanks to Him. They were not able to provide all of those things. God had provided all of those things. God was the One who was worthy of all praise, but they didn't think about that when they were under this temptation. They forgot all these very obvious things because they were giving way to temptation. They did not say, where did I get all that I have? Where did my life come from? Why am I here? How did I get here? All the things are so obvious. But when a foolish soul begins to give way to temptation, it is as if all of those things had just somehow happened. They were just sort of givens. Not from God. Not from any personal agency. They did not think about the home that they had been given to live in. Nor, secondly, did they think about what was proper for them as creatures made in God's image. That their only glory, as we saw last week, their glory was found in reflecting His glorious character back to Him. In reflecting His glorious character to one another as they lived and moved in the world. Now whose likeness would they reflect in their rebellion? That of Satan. A liar from the beginning. And the father of lies. A deceiver. A murderer. A destroyer. That was the image that they were going to reflect. How opposite was God in whose image they were created? Not the father of lies, but the father of truth. not a murderer, but a giver of life. Under temptation, they lost sight of the privilege that it is to be God's image. They were prepared to jettison what they had been given as the image of God. for an image of death and falsehood. They were under the delusion that they would be like God if they had the authority of God, rather than recognizing that they were to take their place as God's image. That was the place that they had been given, as God's image, not to take His authority so that they would be in the seat of authority determining good and evil. So first then, they did not think about the home that they had from God. Secondly, they did not think about the fact that the privilege that they had to be living is God's image. And thirdly, they did not think about the harmony that He had given them. Adam is said to be with Eve when all this happened. Adam had the responsibility of guarding the garden when God told him to keep it. That word also means guard. It's the same word we have in Psalm 121 that's used six times there. telling us how God keeps Israel. That He slumbers not or sleeps, but He keeps us. Well, Adam was to keep the garden. He was to drive out Satan and to lead his wife in the ways of truth. It was his place to establish what they would do in this matter of eating the fruit. And it was the place of Eve as given to help him, to submit to him. to ask him before she made the decision regarding him as her head. But neither of them took their roles that God had given them. Adam was quiet. Eve broke out without asking Adam's permission and ate the forbidden fruit. And then she gave the fruit to Adam, and he ate. You see, everything was turned upside down. Instead of Adam submitting to the Lord, and Eve submitting to Adam, and the animals submitting to Adam and Eve, we have Eve submitting to an animal, the serpent, and Adam submitting to Eve. Now, of course, the Lord did not submit to Adam. They were ruining the order that God had created for them, the economy that He had placed them in. Temptation causes us to lose sight of what God has given us. To cast it aside because we don't see the value of it. Because our eyes are so focused on the temptation that is before us. Eve got so focused on the fruit that she lost sight of what she had and of what she was forsaking. Sin is always foolish. Never makes sense, because we become bedazzled by our temptations. We become stupid and blind. The way of rebellion looks attractive. because we don't see what we're casting aside. Look at v. 6. So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. See, she focused on that temptation. They completely lost sight of the things I just mentioned that they were losing All they could see was what they foolishly thought they were going to gain. They were like a robber who gets so focused on the loot that he's in pursuit of that he loses sight of everything. He loses sight of the harmony with his fellow man that he's going to trample underfoot as he goes to take that that is not his and perhaps kills people along the way. He loses sight of The fear that will come upon him is he's on the other side of the law and is sought out by his community to bring to justice. He loses sight of the dignity that he will forsake. as the image of God and the happy communion with God if he breaks out and does this thing because he's focused on the prize. All he can see is the prize and not all these things that he's losing. This is how the human race fell into ruin. Christian, is it not the very same thing that leads you away? There's the man that goes into an affair. Why? because the affair looks good to his eyes. It seems like a thing that will make him wise, give him a fullness of life and enrichment. And he takes, and he eats, and he dies. He completely loses sight of what he is forsaking, because his eye focuses upon the temptation that is set before him. Now just look at the dreadful consequences that come about because of the fall. There are Adam and Eve in verse 7 and 8. What are they doing? Trying to hide from God. They're no longer comfortable with God because they have defaced His image and they know it. He looks at them now and He sees corruption. His image corrupted rather than His image purely reflected in them. They realized how defiled they had become. They realized how unacceptable and ugly they were in God's sight, so they hid. They were exposed. They realized that their reproductive organs, that they had been given gloriously to produce life in the image of God, could now only produce death, a corrupted image, Satan's image of deception and lies and murder. See them hiding behind their fig leaves. Indeed, they ought to hide. It is proper for us now to cover ourselves because of shame. They are Ichabod. The glory has departed from mankind. And so it is today that men still try to hide from God in the wrong kind of way. Rather than coming openly to His revelation, they avoid it. They deny it. Some do it by legalism. We talked about legalism a little bit this morning. They reduce God's law to a standard that they can keep. Sometimes there's a lot of rules and things that nobody else wants to keep. And then they can say, we're not defiled because we keep this list of rules that nobody else is willing to keep. And in that way, they avoid the true God. It's their fig leaves that they put on. to hide and cover themselves from what they really are. Others hide from Him by drowning themselves in wine, women, and song. They become addicts of this and addicts of that. Our society is a society of addictions. Why do they do that? To avoid God? To hide from the truth of God? To hide from the conscience? To hide from accountability? To hide from responsibility? They're fig leaves. to try to hide their corruption away. Still others do it by distracting themselves with perhaps an honorable vocation of some kind. Maybe parenting is their calling. Or a career in art, or science, or business, or technology. They lose themselves in these things in a way in which rather than doing them unto the honor and glory of their Creator and for His service, these things become their consuming passion and focus, so that they draw themselves away. They hide from God and make their identity in these things rather than in Him. In every case, they change the truth of God into a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. They try to draw life out of the creation without acknowledging the Creator. The true God is too much for them. He is too glorious. He is too holy. So they exchange Him for idols because they don't want to think about Him anymore. They make up gods who are not like the true gods. They make up gods who are just like they are. Gods after their own image. Whatever they aspire to be, powerful or mighty or whatever it might be, they make their gods according to their own likeness. So then the first dreadful consequence is that they now, Adam and Eve, now found it necessary to hide from God. That's what fallen man has been doing ever since. As the scripture says, there is none that seek after God. They run for the bushes instead. But note well, they also destroyed their communion with each other. The second consequence to the fall. The man who was supposed to rule his wife and lead her, instead blames her for his sin. Verse 12, the woman whom you gave, blames God too, whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate. What a man Adam is, huh? This woman was given for joy and harmony to you, Adam, but you've turned your relationship into one of sorrow and confusion. Instead of thanking God for her, He's there blaming her. Where were you, Adam, when you were supposed to guard the garden? Where were you when you were supposed to stand up to Satan and drive him out? No doubt, he will deal the same way with his children. Do you not see how this is so characteristic of our world? Instead of taking responsibility, we all want to blame someone else for what we are. And all we end up doing is making enemies of each other. We destroy peace in our world. You're the cause of my problem, husband says to his wife. She says, you're the cause of my problem. And on and on it goes. There's the woman. What does she do? She blames the serpent. Well, yeah, he did tempt her, didn't he? The fault of the lower creation, she says, these animals that you've given us here in the garden, it's the fault of these animals. We would be happy, a person says now in our context, if it wasn't for all the environmental problems that we have. And if it wasn't for all of the shortages, and of course, these things have come about because of the fall, but the rain that spoils our picnic and all of these things, we're upset about all this. And if it wasn't for this, then things would be okay for us. We're going to blame that. That's the reason for our problems. What disharmony has come about in the world by the fall? Adam, we're told, God promises Adam and Eve that they'll have many sorrows now. Adam will have to wrestle with the ground, with nature, to get his food. There will be storms and insects that will come and destroy his crops, and lack of rain, and all sorts of problems. Eve will have to labor in sorrow to bring forth children. There will be death many times in that process. There will be enmity between the serpent and the woman. There will be conflict within the creation. There will be struggles with authority between Adam and Eve that she will desire, literally it says, to have His place and that He will rule over her. And in the end, the earth that they were given to subdue will subdue them. The dust that they were taken out of to rule over and to subdue will subdue them and Adam and Eve will return to the dust. For dust you are, God says, and to dust you shall return. The world of order and harmony and love has become a world of discord and strife. And then finally, we see that they are also driven out of the garden. This is the third thing. cut off from the near communion with God that they had when they walked with Him in the Garden. They are cast out as unfit to dwell in the presence of the living God. All the Old Testament worship spoke of this distance that was given. No one could go into the Holy of Holies but the priest. And even then, he could only go with the blood of animals as sacrifices for his own sins and the sins of the people. And even then, that holy of holies on earth was only a shadowy place. It was only a picture of the real holy of holies. God is saying, you have been cut off from near communion with Me. And yet, throughout the Old Testament, there is the declaration that though they are unfit to approach Him, that God promises that He will redeem them. and that He will provide a sacrifice by which they will be able to come in to the Holy of Holies and to come near to God. And it's a promise that we have in Christ that now we can draw near to God and we can come into His presence because of Jesus Christ who leads us. by His godliness and by His sacrifice, provides the way for us to come into the presence of God once again. Now, we're going to look, as I said, at the promise of redemption, which is right here in this chapter, next week. This being cast out from God's presence is the worst consequence of all. We who are made to have communion with our Maker have been cast away from our Maker because of corrupting ourselves. This is why the world is as it is. This is why there is death and sorrow. This is why children are born with terrible handicaps. This is why there are wars in our homes and wars in our nations. This is why we do not know God. Sin has separated us. from our God. It is our ruin. But let me point out to you now that though we have been undone by the fall, Jesus Christ has gone into that holy place. Not just a copy of the heavenly, but into the heavenly place itself. Not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with His own blood that is able to truly atone for our sin. He is the new Adam. And by Him, communion with God is restored again. By Him, we are able to draw near to God and to rejoice in blessed communion with Him once again. Let's give thanks. Heavenly Father, we praise you and we thank you. Blessed be your name for you have blessed sinners. You have come to us in our misery into which we fell, corrupting ourselves, ruining ourselves. And you have brought your son to restore us and bring us back again. Father, I pray that as we consider the fall that we would also consider the great redemption that you have accomplished for us. Father, we are humbled to see what we have become, to see what we have lost. And we know that the temptations of the world that are all around us today often keep us even from seeing the glory of what we lost and what we regain through Jesus Christ. We're often dull. when these things are presented to us. We pray that You would awaken us, Lord, that Your Word would live and abide in us, that it would have its place, that it would shine forth as a bright light to illumine us and to cause us to see what we otherwise would not see. We ask You these things in Jesus' name, Amen.