Again, I'm going to pause from Daniel this morning and turn to Genesis chapter 3. I was studying for Daniel and going to really talk about his determination to remain faithful to God, his humility, as we saw a little bit last week as he approached the officials of Babylon, but also his expectation that God was going to be faithful to him. And so that's really marks of a godly man, to have a determination to seek the Lord, to have a humility in their life, to submit to all things that God brings across their path. and also to have an expectation of God's faithfulness in our life. But I'm not going there this morning, okay? I'm reading a biography of Urich Zwingli, he was one of the reformers in Switzerland, the main reformer in Switzerland. And as he was making the transition from the liturgy and all the trappings of Roman Catholicism to focus solely on preaching the word of God, and began to talk about what true religion is. There was a phrase in this about Adam, the question, where are you, Adam? And so that, I couldn't get that out of my mind the rest of the week, so I'm camped there this morning. So if you have your Bibles turned to Genesis 3, I'm only gonna read kind of the middle part of chapter 3, beginning in verse 6 and going to verse 9. So if you're able to stand, stand with me as we look at God's word here. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And as they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And I've put in parentheses there, Adam. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word, and I thank you, Father, for your faithfulness in giving it to us. And so, Father, we pray, because it's your word, it has power, authority. And we pray, Father, for the Holy Spirit to open hearts that are darkened this morning. And Father, to call us to yourself by your grace and through your Son, Jesus Christ. Father, you tell us in your epistle to the Corinthians, Father, that you've determined that man, through his own wisdom, cannot know you. But you've determined that through the foolishness of what is preached, to save those who are being saved. Your word says to the Jews it was a stumbling block, to Greeks it was foolishness, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God. So Father, we pray for that power to go forth from your word this morning, for your glory, And Father, for the salvation of those who are lost. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, I know I had some notes here, but maybe I don't. Well, I got them on the screen, so I'm not helpless. I guess I didn't put them in my Bible when I left this morning. I have them here. Where are you at them? That's a question every individual has to answer. And sometimes we do it, where am I going in my life? What am I going to be doing? What am I going to pursue in college, or am I going? My advice today is, unless you're sure God's calling you to be a lawyer or a doctor or a preacher, I'd skip college and I'd be an electrician or a plumber or a carpenter or a painter. You're going to enjoy your life better, you're going to make much more money, and it's not going to cost you thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. So we try to answer that question, where am I? Where am I going? What's the meaning of life? What's the purpose of life? They say suicide rates among young people are skyrocketing because there's a meaninglessness in life. There's a pessimism that our young people for the last probably 40 or 50, maybe even 60 years have been told they're nothing more than an animal, there's no God, there's no supernatural, that all we are animals. And so we shouldn't be surprised when some young people act like animals and they take a gun to school and just kill people indiscriminately. Because if you're told you're an animal long enough, some people are going to take that to the extreme and act like an animal. The brutality, you just read almost every day, 10 people, 11 people, 5 people, 7 people were shot here and there at a June 19th celebration last night. I forget what city it was in, but I think 11 people were shot because what's in the heart of man comes forth, the anger and the bitterness, and people pull out guns and start shooting. So what's the answer to all this? What's the answer to this darkness that's in our world, where people can't determine if they're a woman or a man? They ignore the science and biology of their bodies. And there are those that are pushing this on children and kids. And that's why there's a rising of parents up resisting this. You know what a nine-year-old or a five-year-old boy or girl needs to be concerned with you know someone said on Facebook the only thing that a Young boy needs to know about girls as they have cooties. Okay, that's all he needs to know but this is being pushed and pushed and pushed and Without a doubt it's the adversary that's pushing this world system this darkness in our culture and so God came searching for Adam. Adam was running from God. When he became aware, and really that nakedness, he became aware of his vulnerability, his weakness, his need, his inability to meet the needs of his life. That's when he really became aware. It wasn't just physical nakedness. There was a vulnerability there. And he was afraid of that vulnerability and he ran from God. And so I want us to maybe try to answer this question. What was Adam's condition? Now his first condition was he was created in the image of God. He was created without sin. He was innocent of sin. And I'm basically a covenant theologian. I don't know if I would say theologian, but I embrace covenant theology. I'll say it that way. where in the garden God established a covenant of works with Adam. That if Adam would have begged God, God would bless him. And the implication is he would have had the opportunity to eat from the tree of life and would have lived forever, would have had eternal life. And God didn't put down ten rules. He didn't put down a hundred rules or a thousand rules. He just said one thing, right? He just told Adam one thing. Here's one thing you cannot do. You cannot eat of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because if you do, and the moment you do it, you're going to die. Death is going to enter into your life. Just one rule. One prohibition. You know, we can kind of yell at Adam You know, one of the curses of the fall was a curse on the earth, where there were thorns and thistles. God always intended Adam to work. But since the fall, work has been kind of an adversary of mankind. And there's a resistance to work, and a laziness within us. But God always intended Adam to work. He was to take care of the garden. He was to take care of the animals. God always intended to do that, but there was a curse on it. And then there was a curse on the earth where there became thorns and thistles. And God said to Adam that he was going to labor in this earth by the sweat of his brow. And so I haven't golfed in probably 10 years. But when I was in Effingham, I golfed quite a bit, a couple of times a week. And every time I hit the ball out of bounds, which was quite frequently, and I had to go in there, and there were thorns and thistles trying to find my ball, I'd think about Adam. I'd say, Adam, this is your fault. These are here because of your rebellion. But what is his condition? And it's not just his condition, it's the condition of every one of us in our birth, because in our birth we're in Adam, fearful. Adam and Eve were fearful. That instant where they disobeyed. And by the way, if we go back, when she was looking, when Eve was looking at the tree and at the fruit, it says it was a tree to be desired. Now what is the problem here? And this is our problem. She began to look at this tree and began to desire it more than what? Desiring God. That's our problem. We look at this world, we look at our own mind, our own thoughts, our own desires, our own will, and we desire that more than the will of God and desiring God. That was her first chink in the armor. That's when the door was cracked open in temptation. She began to linger there and began to desire something that God had prohibited, when everything around her was at her access, and same with Adam. God had provided everything that they needed, and most of all, He had provided Himself, and that's what they truly needed. And by the way, that's what every one of us need, is a true relationship with the true and living God. And it's only because of the darkness of our heart and the rebelliousness of our heart that we don't give heed to the gospel. Adam was fearful. He was fearful of the presence of the Lord. He was running from God's presence. And mankind is still doing that. He was fearful of the judgment. Now, there have been times, and I think we're living in a time like this, particularly in the Western world, where there's no fear of God in the heart of men. Go back, and I think it's Psalm 10. Psalm 10 talks about the wicked. It says God doesn't care. He's not noticing. He's not paying attention. He's not going to do anything about my rebellion. But the sad thing is, he is. He's going to do something. The day's coming of accountability. That's one of the comforts of the righteous. When it seems like the wicked are prospering, it seems like the wicked are reigning. And by the way, that's going on in our world today. The wicked is reigning right now. Calvin said when God wants to judge a nation, he gives them wicked rulers. And I think we're experiencing that in our world today. But one of the comfort of the righteous is there is a day coming. When everything that is upside down is going to be made right side up. When the wicked are going to receive judgment, and the righteous are going to receive reward. We may not see it, in fact, that's part of the point of Hebrews chapter 11, when he gives this whole list of these faithful people, he says they didn't experience the full measure of this promise, but they still believed in it. But the day is going to come when the Lord Jesus comes back. And we don't receive the full measure of the promise of God until the Lord Jesus comes back and we're glorified. But the day is coming when he comes back and the wicked are going to be judged and the righteous are going to be rewarded. It's going to be a day of great sorrow. It's going to be a day of great rejoicing. And so he was fearful. And he was fallen. He had fallen out of relationship with God. That communion, that connection he had with his creator was severed. Now, Adam, when he ate of the fruit, when Eve ate of the fruit, they didn't topple over and die physically right then, did they? Now I forget, I forget now, right now, I think it's 700 plus years, might be 800 plus years that Adam lived. He lived a long time after he ate that fruit. But he died instantaneously spiritually. He was dead spiritually. He was dead in his trespasses and sin, which Paul tells us that all of us are dead in our trespasses and sin because we are born in Adam. And he was fallen, fallen in his relationship to the Lord God. He was fallen in his relationship to each other. The conflict that mankind has with each other, and I read, I tell you before, I read a lot of history. And there have been wars going on almost since the inception of creation. And it's generated by hatred, it's generated by greed, it's generated by pride, all the things that are birthed out of this Adamic nature that are contrary to the nature of God. And so conflicts in marriage can be traced back to our, generally, to the selfishness of at least somebody. Conflicts in homes between parents and children can be traced back to selfishness in the heart of somebody in that relationship, and the rebelliousness of that heart, because that's the manifestation of being an atom. and in relationship to creation. In fact, Paul tells us in Romans 8 that all of creation is groaning, waiting for the redemption of the children of God. That's when Jesus comes back and this earth is going to be purged, not with water. By the way, the rainbow, we all know the rainbow is a symbol of what? God's promise that he's not going to judge the world again by a flood or by water, okay? that symbol has been stolen, been taken. In fact, I watched a little bit, I think it's a Church of God black pastor. And so in his church, he's got a flag, a rainbow flag, and right in the middle of that is the name of Jesus. And he's saying his whole church this month is celebrating Jesus Pride Month. And he's just exalting the Lord Jesus Christ and redeeming that rainbow as God's promise that he's not going to judge this world by water again. But how is he going to judge this world? By fire. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes back, this world is going to be purged and it's going to be recreated. It's going to be a new heaven, a new earth. If we think the beauty of this earth that has fallen is so wonderful, and it is. It just blows my mind to think how beautiful the new earth is going to be, the new heaven is going to be when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back. And his condition is fatal. Now, I believed this for a long time. I don't know if I ever read a commentator that agreed with me, but I believe that when the Lord kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden, that was not just an act of judgment, but it was an act of grace. Because if they would have eaten of the tree of life, I think in their fallen condition, just like the angels and Satan, they would have been internally damned to separation from God. And I'm not sure there's implication, even as I was reading this biography of Zwingli, it seemed that he was kind of implying he believes that Adam did believe. and believe the promise of chapter three, verse 15, that from Eve would come one that's going to crush the serpent's head, though that one will bruise her descendants' heel. Now, I don't know about that, but we at least know their son, Abel, was a righteous man, right? And then their other son, Seth, it says, with the birth of Seth, there were those that began to follow the Lord. Putting Adam and Eve out of the garden, I believe, was an act of judgment, but also an act of grace to give them an opportunity to repent and trust again in the Lord and to receive the gift of salvation. But it was fatal. And death has come to all men. By the way, physical death is a one-to-one proposition, isn't it? Every one of us that is sitting here, from the youngest to the oldest, have an appointment that we're going to die. Hebrews 9.27, appointed a man once to die, and after that comes judgment. The only one that has overcome death is who? The Lord Jesus. Now Lazarus was resurrected, but what happened to Lazarus? He died again, physically. I heard in college, when I was in college, it says twice born men die once, but once born men die twice. Twice born, physically born in just a few weeks, I'm going to hit that glorious milestone of 70 years. I think it's three weeks from tomorrow. I'm marking it off my calendar. And so I can trace to a moment in time to my physical birth. But I can also trace to a moment in time to my spiritual birth as a seven-year-old boy being redeemed by the grace of God. And so I've been born twice. And unless the Lord Jesus comes back, I'm gonna die. Doesn't bother me. Not afraid of it. I was talking to Chris's dad, Ralph, a couple weeks ago when they had the memorial for Brianna down in Washington. And Ralph said, I'm ready. And he said, I'm looking forward to it. to be delivered from a body of pain and step into the very presence of the true and living God. He said, I'm looking forward to it. That's what Paul said in Philippians 2. For me to live is Christ. I want Christ to be glorified in my life as long as I live on this earth. But for me to die, it's gain. It's gain because we step from the presence of this world into the presence of the true and living God. Ephesians 2 said that we're all dead in our trespasses and sin. We're dominated by that Adamic nature. And we're doomed in that Adamic nature. And his conscience, what happened to his conscience? He was awakened to his nakedness, to his sin. He became conscious of his rebellion. That's why he ran from God. That's why he tried to cover up He tried to meet the need of his life by some activity, and people are doing it all the day, either through sex or drugs, pornography, wealth, fame, accumulation of money, all kinds of things. People are trying to meet that hole that's in their soul by all sorts of things, but it will never be met, I told a young man this week. that the only one that can meet the ache and heartache of his soul is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, he can believe me or not believe me. Right now, I don't think he believes me. You can believe me or not believe me, but this is the truth. It's the truth. It's the truth. It's not a husband. It's not a wife. It's not a son. It's not a daughter. It's not a relationship. It's not a bank account, it's not a shiny car in the garage, or the biggest house that you always wanted. Jesus said, what gains a man but gains the whole world, and what? loses his soul. I think I've told you this before. This is a little bit dated, but Howard Hughes, when I was a teenager kid, he was the wealthiest man in the world, billionaire. And back then, it was said that if you had a billion dollars, you could not spend a billion dollars in a lifetime. I don't know if that's still true or not, but back then it was. You couldn't spend a billion dollars because just the interest would keep accumulating so fast, you couldn't spend it fast enough. And they asked Howard Hughes, the richest man in the world, how much money do you need? You know what his answer was? Just a little bit more. Because he was never satisfied. In fact, he was germaphobic. He was a hypochondriac. He would spend hours flying over Las Vegas in an airplane just by himself and a pilot in a sanitized compartment because he was fearful of being in contact with people. And here's the richest man in the world flying around by himself over Las Vegas. because all the wealth that he accumulated did not meet the need of his heart and of his soul. Only the Lord Jesus can do that. He recognized his weakness, his need, his humiliation. He was aware of his guilt before God again. Sin will drive us from God instead of drive us to God. That's one of the tools of Satan. If he gets you to yield to sin and you and you yield to it and you feel that guilt, which is good It's good. The Holy Spirit is convicting you Convicting me of our sin and what we need to do is run to Jesus, but we usually do we run away from Jesus Usually when we tolerate something in our life that's opposed to God will stop reading our Bible Where we should be running to the Word of God We'll stop praying when we should be falling on our face before the Lord. The guilt in Adam's life caused him to run from God. But God is saying, come to me. God came looking for him. God was calling out to him. Sin is ultimately rebellion against God. That's what Adam did. That's what Eve did. God said, don't do this. And they said, oh yeah? I'll show you. Okay, take a two or three year old or five year old and say, I want you, you can play in the driveway, but I don't want you going past the sidewalk. And what's that kid going to do? He's going to go right to the sidewalk and look back at you to see if you're watching. And then he's going to put his foot over there and say, I'll show you. You know, Proverbs says there's foolishness bound up in the heart of a child. That's why we have to bring discipline to them, where they respect authority, and they begin to recognize the foolishness that's in their heart. It's ultimate rebellion against God. It's expressed by rebellion against parents. You're not going to tell me what to do. I'm going to do what I want to do, and you're not going to tell me what to do. It's rebellion against police, teachers. All these things is a manifestation of our fallenness. Because we're ultimately rebelling against the true and living God, because he's the one that places us in homes with parents. He's the one that gives authority to governments. And he's the one, and he's the source of all authority. And each of us has a rebel heart. None of us are exempt. way that that heart can be changed is by the grace of God. In fact, Franklin Graham, you know who Franklin Graham is, right? Billy Graham's son, head of Samaritan's Purse, Operation Christmas Child, that's how we're connected there. He grew up in Billy Graham's home and he rebelled against God. Until by God's grace, the Lord Jesus got a hold of his heart, and he repented of that rebellion, and he returned to the Lord, and God has used him mightily through the last several decades, three or four or five decades, I don't remember now. But he wrote a book. There was a movie by James Dean, it says Rebel Without What? A Cause. And Franklin Graham, once he repented of his rebellion, once he repented of his sin, and returned to the Lord Jesus Christ, he wrote a book called Rebel With A Cause, to serve God, to proclaim the gospel, and to serve the world through the grace of God. Accusing others to blame. We go on in the story. God said to Adam, what happened? What did Adam say? The woman you gave me, it's her fault. What did Eve say? The serpent, it's his fault. We always want to blame other people. We're doing that in our world today. We blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, instead of taking accountability. Add to Eve, Eve to the serpent, and it continues. How quickly? Adam's covering. We need a covering. We need a restoration. Man's effort is insufficient. How many have tried to cover their nakedness, but it was insufficient? No self-effort. Go ahead. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps. Go ahead. It's not going to work. It may work for a season. It may work for a time. But compared to eternity, it's not going to work. You are my righteousness, your righteousness, the prophet Isaiah. God said it's like filthy rags in his sight. Self-effort is not enough. No ritual, no self-righteousness, it's not sufficient. You know, Job asked a question in one of, I forget which guy, his so-called friend asked the same question. What must a man do to be right with God? How can I be restored to God? What covering can cover my nakedness? What covering can cover my sin? It wasn't self-effort, it wasn't rituals, it's not religion, it's not self-righteousness. There's a need of a substitute. There's a need of a substitute. One that is innocent. One that is pure. And there's a need of sacrifice. Now all this is pointing where? to the Lord Jesus. It's all pointing to the cross. In fact, another statement in this biography that just really stood out to me was, in the Lord Jesus, God reconciled justice and love. God's holiness demands justice, the punishment of sin. That's the whole point of Romans 118. where God's wrath is going to fall upon all ungodliness and wickedness of men. All sin must be, will be, eventually punished. That's God's justice. We don't want God's justice. If we got God's justice, we'd all go to hell. We want God's grace, his love. And so at the cross, Jesus reconciled God's justice, the punishment of sin, with the love of God, the grace of God, the forgiveness of sin. Because, as I've told you before from Colossians 2, all my sin was nailed to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He paid the price. He paid my sin debt. Now what God did, God rejected the coverings of Adam and Eve. when they sewed those fig leaves together to cover their nakedness. God rejected it. And he went, and I think the implication is he took a pure animal, an innocent animal, and that animal was slain. And the skins of that animal, or the skin of that animal, was made for covering of Adam's nakedness and Eve's nakedness. And the picture there is Lord Jesus Christ was slain for us. He was our substitute. He is the sacrifice for our sins. A blood sacrifice. In Deuteronomy, God says, without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. What does that mean? It means death. Someone has to die. Now, people say, well, I don't believe that. God's a loving God. He wouldn't demand that. If you talk about Jesus dying in our place, you're telling that you're accusing God of cosmic child abuse, all that nonsense. No. God told Adam, you eat of this tree, you're going to die. Someone has to conquer death to reconcile us back to God. And the Lord Jesus Christ came and he was that innocent. Even Pilate knew that. Even Pilate said, I find no fault in this man. He was innocent. Yet he died in our place. He was pure without sin. Again, there's lots of folks, even religious people. Again, I'm on this thread for Methodism. It's just, it's amazing what you read on that thing. That Jesus isn't the only way. Jesus really wasn't resurrected. Jesus wasn't sinless. That's a whole rejection of the Revelation of Scripture. That's why United Methodist Church is going downhill. They're on a slippery slope to insignificance because they reject the word of God. Death must be met by death. See, the reason I'm not afraid to die is because I'm going to live. I'm alive in Christ. This body's going to go away, go back to dust if Jesus carries long enough. But not me. Not me. It's like Billy Graham said, I'm just changing addresses. I'm going to be absent from this body, and I'm going to be present where? Now that's shouting ground, isn't it? That's shouting ground. And it all is pictured here. And God is asking the question, where are you, Adam? That's a question all of us must answer. Where am I in this message, in this gospel of Jesus Christ? Have I rejected it? Have I said it's foolishness? I don't believe in God. I don't believe in supernatural. This is just what it is. It is what it is. I don't believe in hell, I don't believe in heaven. Now, most people believe in heaven, even if they don't believe in hell. Well, I tell you, if there's no heaven, there's no hell. Okay? But the message of the gospel is that God was in Christ Jesus, reconciling all of us who were in Adam. God was in Christ Jesus, reconciling us to himself. For all who believe, all who repent, all who humble themselves before the Lord Jesus Christ, and we receive the forgiveness of sin. So the question is, where are you, Adam? Where are you in relationship to God? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Father, that you called for Adam Father, I thank you that you called me to yourself. Jesus said, unless you draw those, no one would be saved. It's your activity. It's your grace. It's the work of the Holy Spirit. It's the planting of the seed of the gospel. And Father, I know that you can open up darkened hearts. You can open up dead hearts. You can take hearts that are stone that reject your word, that reject the gospel. And Father, you can make them hearts of flesh because salvation is your work. It's a miracle that you perform. And so, Father, we pray for our loved ones that do not know you. We pray for our grandchildren, our children that do not know you. We pray, Father, for you to open their hearts, to soften their hearts, to bring the light of the gospel to their heart. and the faith that they need to humble themselves and cry out to you. We ask this, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.