In your Bibles this evening, I'd like you to turn me in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 3, as we look at this portion of scripture in connection with Lord's Day 3 of the Hatterer Catechism. We'll be reading from Genesis 3, the first 13 verses, as well as from Lord's Day 3 in the back of your blue psalter. You're reading from Genesis 3, the first 13 verses. This is the word of the Lord. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? The woman said to the serpent, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden and you must not touch it or you will die. You will not surely die, the serpent said to the woman, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, She took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, He answered, I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid. And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? The man said, the woman you put here with me. She gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. And we'll end our reading from God's word there this evening. I invite you also to turn with me in the back of your blue psalters to Lord's Day 3 of the Heidelberg Catechism. Lord's Day 3. You can find it on page 10 in the back of the blue psalter. There we see question and answers 6, 7, and 8. Question 6 asks us, did God create man so wicked and perverse? Answer, no. God created man good and in his own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness. so that he might truly know God his Creator, love Him with all his heart, and live with Him in eternal happiness for His praise and glory. 7. Then where does man's corrupt nature come from? Answer. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and Paradise. This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are born sinners, corrupt from conception on. 8. But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil? Answer yes, unless we are born again by the Spirit of God. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, there is no doubt in my mind that every single one of us has at one time in our lives looked at the food that our mother has lovingly prepared and put before us on the table, and asked with all the displeasure we could muster, why do I have to eat this? And as every good parent has done, we most likely heard the response that we had to eat this thing because it was good for us. Perhaps your parents even went on to make sure you ate that food or vegetable. And if they were anything like mine, it was eaten either then or it was eaten for breakfast the next morning. Because we can all be very picky individuals. We can all be very picky individuals, and oftentimes we are too picky for our own good. It's perhaps a little more difficult to see when we get older, but it's only because we're more or less free to eat what we want, when we like, and how we like it. Because we have the freedom to decide what we will do. But one thing that we cannot, indeed must not do, is pick and choose which teachings of scripture we will accept and reject. There may be many things we don't want to hear, or like to hear. We might think that we would simply be better off if we took this teaching off the menu. But the God who would save our souls and fill us with comfort beyond human comprehension, would tell us the things we need to hear, even for as much as we may not like them. God loves us too much to give us what we want. He loves us so much that He instead gives us what we need. And one of those things we need, one of those messages we must accept and believe is that about the fall of man and the wretched existence that he brought upon himself because, because this is the source to all our problems. As D.A. Carson has written, all our problems, all our problems without exception can be traced to this fundamental source, our rebellion and the just curse of God that we have attracted by our rebellion. It is this message we'll be looking at tonight in connection with Genesis chapter 3, about how man has forsaken God and reaped death. Man has forsaken God and reaped death. And this is a message we must hear, must believe, must accept, and must learn from as well. So we want to be looking at this passage of Scripture this evening. We're going to do so in three parts. We're going to look first of all at the discussion which takes place between Eve and the serpent. And secondly, we're going to look at the decisions who eat of the tree. And then lastly, we're going to look at the depravity man has brought upon himself. So we have the discussion, the decision, and the depravity. The story is one we are all familiar with. We've heard it countless times throughout our lives. God had made a beautiful world which He declared to be very good. And for an unknown period of time, Adam and Eve enjoyed a life of blessed existence, completely free of sin, completely free from death and sorrow and pain and strife. They walked and talked with God. They joyfully carried out their God-given responsibilities, and they possessed the most perfect marriage that any two people on the face of the earth have ever had. They possessed true knowledge, true righteousness, true holiness. They purely reflected the glorious character of God. When they looked at each other, they saw the Lord. In many respects, they were completely different than how we are now. But then one day, the devil, Satan, came to Adam and Eve by means of a serpent in order to test them, in order to test Eve and hopefully lead them both into sin. It's here that we witness some of the craftiness that we spoke of this morning. You see the devil, for instance, come to the garden here, come to Adam and Eve, but he doesn't come directly to Adam, does he? But he would work through Eve in order to lead Adam astray. It's more than likely the case that Eve never received the revelation of the commandment of God directly from the Lord, but she very likely received it by way of Adam. And so perhaps there's something of a weakness in the chain that the devil would seek to expose. He comes to Eve so that through Eve he might reach to Adam. And the way he begins to undermine the life of these people is to begin by asking a question he loves to ask time and again. A question that comes up again and again on the pages of Scripture and comes to us again and again as God's people. Did God really say? Would God really say this to you? Would God really make such a harsh command? As many people point out, the devil is here exaggerating the Lord's command, and he does this in order to cast doubt on God's Word and God's character. It's as if the devil is coming to Eve and saying, he's a God of love, isn't he? Why then would he give such a command? Are you sure that you understand this command of God correctly? Maybe you need to think about these things some more. Maybe you need to think about what God has said. The character of God is one of love and of joy and happiness with His people. And so, how could God give you a command such as this? And Eve, it seems, decides to listen to this servant some more. She's willing to dialogue with the one who is effectively questioning God. And that this poisonous attack of the devil is working in the heart of Eve. We can see that as she repeats God's command, but now she adds to it. That they must not only not eat that tree, but they can't even touch it. You see, Eve, her confidence in God is being called into question, and so her confidence in God is beginning to waver. She's making God out to be more severe in His laws and His commands. She's giving an impression of God who is unreasonable in His expectations. Eve is giving vent to her doubts and questioning the very character of God who would say, we cannot even eat nor touch this fruit. And see, this is really what incites the devil to go on and to outright deny the punishment God has promised. The devil comes to her and says, outrightly, you will not surely die. He directly undermines the teaching of God. He directly ignores what the Lord had proclaimed to Adam and Eve. This is the reason why the Apostle John wrote that Satan has been a liar from the beginning. From here we receive a bold-faced lie. And yet, as if that isn't enough, Satan goes on to effectively imply that God is greedy and unrighteous. He's saying God wants to keep wisdom to himself, the Lord wants to keep man down, to keep him lowly, to keep him subservient. Calvin writes, I have no doubt that Satan promises them divinity, as if he had said, for no other reason does God defraud you of the tree of knowledge than because he fears to have you as his companions. The devil is building off of that doubt that's going on in the heart of Eve, and he's denying then the consequences to her actions and telling her now that God is just being greedy and capricious. God is seeking to just keep you from real happiness, real joy, real peace, real prosperity. And notice too that there's just enough truth, just enough truth in what he says to make it all appealing. Because when Adam and Eve eated the tree, they would know what is good and what is evil. And in that respect, they would be like God. But you see, it was the thin veneer on a pit of lies. It was the thin dressing over that despicable lie. And you see, that is what is so seductive and manipulative about the attacks of the devil, even as we were hearing about this morning. He's not scared to use half-truths. He's not scared to give the appearance of truth. Paul tells us he can even appear as an angel of light. The time when Christ was tempted in the desert, we see that the devil can take Scripture upon his lips without them burning. And he can use it in a way that appeals to the weaknesses of our heart, leading us to justify the sin that lies before us. And you see, God is coming to us here. God is recording these things for us and saying, this is where it all began. This is how it all started. The creature allowed the Creator to be put on trial. Eve should not have listened to the devil for even a moment. She should have told him to shut his mouth. She should have called Adam to come over and toss this filthy serpent out of the garden. She should have kept and treasured God's will in her heart as more important and certain than her own thoughts and feelings. And as for Adam, what a sorry picture we meet there. In verse 6, we find out that Adam was with her. He was nearby as everything was taking place. He let his wife encounter his attack alone. He didn't interject. He didn't stand up for the holiness of God. But he effectively left a fellow child of God to face the onslaught of the devil alone and fall prey to his deception. One of my professors said one time that Adam was like the first scientist. who stood there watching to simply see what would happen to his wife in hearing and agreeing to what the devil was telling her. You see, God is telling us these things not simply to show us where our sinful nature has come from, where man went wrong, but God is telling us these things and teaching about these things so that we can be aware of the various attacks we receive from the devil and how we would play to our doubts, how we would play to our questioning of God's moral character. And the Lord is saying sin and the devil is not something you can have a rational discussion with. These are not ideas that you can toy and play with. But no, I am calling you to put sin to death, to kill your old nature, and to lead one another on in the faith, and to defend each other from spiritual attacks. See, this whole discussion opens up for us, in a very frank manner, the way in which the devil is seeking each and every one of us, every day of our lives, to turn away from the Lord. And he does it by appealing to our desires for peace, for happiness, for wisdom, for assurance, for love, for prosperity. He tries to convince us of what is good, what is true, and to imagine that such things are earned and gained by ourselves by departing from God. See, that is what this discussion reveals, and how prone we are as people, as humans, to give in to these ideas, to give in to these attacks. These were Adam and Eve who were created with that true knowledge and holiness and righteousness, who were able to deny this attack, who were able to turn away from this attack, and yet they even still were overcome by these things. And so how much more ought we to be on guard and ready and prepared for when the devil would come to us and appeal to our sense of what is good for ourselves? Our desires are often our worst enemy, and the devil is one who would exploit that to the fullest extent. But in seeing this attack and seeing how quickly Eve gives ground to it, it's almost no surprise that we encounter the sad decision that we do. Eve receives no help from her husband, even as she listens to the devil and engages in a discussion with him. And so now, filled with the desire to be like God, knowing good and evil, she takes and eats from the tree. And so it is that Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2 that the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Eve sins against the command of God. She knew it. She knew she was not allowed to eat of the tree. She had plenty to eat from every other tree in the garden that God had provided them. But she decides to listen to the lie of the serpent rather than to the truth of God. And sadly, perhaps not realizing the full extent of what she had just done, she now goes to her husband and holds out to him this fruit in order to make him a partner in the crime. And it's remarkable because even here it's described as if Adam just simply sees it and takes it. There's no questioning, there's no doubt. He just takes and eats of the fruit as well. But this time things are different. Adam's eating of the tree is different than Eve's. Paul points out that Eve was deceived. Eve was deceived by the serpent. And what that also means is that Adam, on the other hand, Adam was not deceived. Adam was not misunderstanding what the devil was saying and what the devil was doing. Adam wasn't ignorant of this attack. Adam wasn't ignorant of the lies and deception of the devil, but he knew it and he understood it, and in full-blown knowledge of these things, he takes and he eats. You see, sin begins with Eve. But in a sense, it comes to completion in the actions of Adam. That's not to say that Eve isn't guilty because she is cursed, as well as her husband. But Adam was the covenant head. To him was given the original command to fill the earth and subdue it. He was the one who was to protect the garden, to keep it. He was the one who was to be the watchman on the walls, to be the one who's uttering the warning cry. He was supposed to be the protector of his wife. the defender of God's honor, the king who made sure that God's will was carried out and obeyed. He was the head of the human race. And this is why we talk about how, particularly through Adam's sin, we are found guilty before God. You see, Adam and Eve were both corrupted together in their sin, and together they produced a corrupt offspring. But the teaching of Scripture is that Adam's eating was different than Eve's. Because in Adam's fall, we sin all, because he was the king, because he was the head of the human race, we all have received this guilt before God. And what is it they were guilty of? Where did they go wrong? What led them to this decision? What was this sin they committed? Was it simply the act of eating? One common idea about the fall of man is that the first sin was pride. It's a very popular understanding, but it's actually the Roman Catholic teaching about the fall of man. And there is some truth in it. There was pride because they did eat out of a desire to be like God, but Reformed theologians have always said that there is something else behind the pride. There's something else behind the pride which came to expression. And that the first sin of mankind was not pride, It was unbelief. You see, this is where the devil began his attack. Throwing doubt on God's character and words. See, the heart of Adam and Eve's sin was unbelief. And out of that unbelief rose the pride, the desire to be like God. of Eve, Calvin writes this, the faith she had in the Word of God was the best guardian of her heart and of all her senses. Unbelief was the root of defection, just as faith alone unites us to God. You see, what this fall of mankind teaches us is that the root of all human sin arises out of unbelief. All sin at its most basic level is a sin of unbelief. We steal because we disbelieve the goodness and providential care of God. We have other gods because we disbelieve in the power and the glory of the one true God. We fail to worship God as He calls us to because we disbelieve the holiness and righteousness of God. We fail to keep the Sabbath day holy. because we disbelieve that this holy and righteous God is the creator of us all who can tell us how we are to live. We disobey those in authority over us and disrespect them because we fail to believe in the very authority and power of God. We covet because we fail to believe in the good providential care of God and satisfaction with which God has taken care of us and blessed us. You see, all the sins that arise in our life, all the wicked things we do, every sin we commit is driven by unbelief. And you see, that has everything to do with what then the answer is. You see, the problem of mankind is unbelief. And the solution is belief in Jesus Christ. That is why the Reformers pointed to the root of sin, of the sin of man, as unbelief, because that shows us that the real answer, the real need of mankind is not for them to overcome their own pride, not for men to work their own salvation, but to look to Christ and faith, and to see that the primary battle we are to wage in our lives is the battle against unbelief. It's always the battle against unbelief. You do the things that you do in the quiet of your own home when no one else is around because you refuse to believe in the omnipresence of God. God isn't there to you. You don't believe in God's presence. And so you watch those filthy things. You do those filthy actions. You treat others in that filthy, despicable manner. Because you're denying and disbelieving the omnipresence and omniscience of God, that God is there and that God sees and that God knows what you're doing. You see, and that fits in with why the Reformers even press home again and again that we must live by Scripture alone. Because Scripture alone reveals to us the will of God. Scripture alone can lead us to life. Scripture alone can help us to stand against the devil. To reject God's Word, to ignore it and despise it, is to fall in the very same footsteps as Adam and Eve. When we sin, we're sinning in unbelief, and we're showing ourselves to be the very children of Adam and Eve who are corrupt from conception on. See, that is the great struggle that we're faced with. That is the great battle with which we need to continually seek the Lord's help, even as that man in the Gospels. Lord, help my unbelief. Overcome my unbelief, because this unbelief is at the heart of all my sin and rebellion against You. We just see again and again that that great primary cry of the Reformation holds true. We live by faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone, according to Scripture alone. Obedience to God's Word is the life of faith we are called to live, and the kind of life we're restored to in Jesus Christ. So the decision Adam and Eve made in the Garden was to sin in unbelief. And with that we come face to face with the consequence of their decision, the terrible depravity of mankind. By comparing the picture Scripture gives us here of the life before the fall with what we find after the fall, we really begin to get a sense of what we have lost and the horrible change that has taken place. The very first thing Moses points out to us here in Genesis 3 is the immediate understanding of Adam and Eve that they are naked. Before the fall, Moses is very clear to say that the man and woman were naked and they were not ashamed. They walked and talked with God in the garden completely naked. They were not clothed. They were not wearing clothes. And yet immediately after we read of their eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, their eyes are open, we're told, and they understand, they realize they are naked. And the message that's being told to us here and sent to us here is that the depravity of man is now expressed in the utter shame they possess for themselves. Moses says, with the fall of man, there has come that insecurity, that desire to hide, that want to cover up. There's that desire to avoid the looks of each other. That even as man and wife, they try to hide from one another's eyes. Gone is the innocence, gone is the carefree life. And in its place is only the horror, the utter horror of people knowing us and seeing us for who we really are. And that insecurity even endures in the most intimate of human relationships, even in the marriage. That there's even embarrassment and insecurity and shame within that beautiful relationship of husband and wife. But even more, Moses goes on to describe the utter sense of shame that they have in their relationship to God as they try to flee and escape from His notice. He says, now the life of depravity is one where we try to flee from God, where we try to delude God. In our foolishness, we imagine that we can somehow make ourselves look good. That's what they're doing when they sew fig leaves together. They're trying to cover themselves up to make themselves look good before God. And so man has been reduced to thinking we can brush off our outward appearance and make God think that we're good people. However, the Lord teaches Samuel, he looks at the heart and he sees what's inside of us anyway. So we're faced with that pitiful picture of man quivering in the bushes, hoping to avoid God, thinking that when God appears, he'll be able to show himself presentable to the Lord. But then notice what further depravity comes out when the Lord inquires about what has taken place. Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? And the sad thing we hear is, this woman, this woman that you gave me, Lord, this woman gave me some fruit and I ate. This blame game of husbands blaming wives for everything bad that happens, and of women blaming their husbands for everything terrible that's going on, finds its origin right here in Genesis. Right here in the fall of Adam and Eve, right there from the beginning, played out before God's eyes, is the sorry picture of man trying to justify himself by condemning others. I ate from the tree, says Adam, but it's really Eve's fault. And moreover, God, I should add that it was You who put here with me to begin with. So really, Lord, it's Eve's fault and it's Your fault, and You have no reason to be upset with me or to condemn me or exercise this judgment of death. And for Eve, it's no different. She knows she can't really blame Adam, but she tries to make the devil her scapegoat. The devil made me do it. He lied to me. He tricked me. And so I really can't be held responsible, God, for what I've done. You see, that's what humanity has devolved into, degenerated into. People who continually sin, and then try all they can to lay the blame at other people's feet, and thinking that by just pointing out how much better they are than other people, and how their actions and their responses are driven by the actions of others, that they can somehow meet with God's approval. And you see how endemic it is to the human nature now. You see it in your children when they complain that someone else hit them first. You hear it when an employee states that they're going to waste their time because their employee or employer doesn't pay them enough. You go right along with it yourself, when you justify in your own mind that your spouse behaved this way, and so you have every right to react to them and treat them as you will and as you did, because that's the way that they have responded to you and acted toward you. It's the cry that comes from the lips of every unbeliever. This is your world, God. This is the world that you made. This is the world you let the devil enter into. This is the world you made possible, God, because you allowed for Adam and Eve to fall. It's all on you, Lord. It's all on you. See, we've become finger-pointers. We've become experts at throwing one another under the bus. And to our greatest shame, we accuse the infinitely holy and righteous God of evil. And I know this depravity goes deeper than that. I know we talk about how we have a natural inclination to hate God and our neighbor. But you see, what God is doing here is God is really showing us what this depravity looks like, what this depravity has resulted in, and how then this depravity is so evident in our own homes, in our own marriages, in our own relationships to family and to the church. And God is saying we must see this, and we have to understand this, because this is what Christ answers, and what Christ overcomes. Because Jesus came exactly so that he might not only forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness, but also make us new creations, so that as his people we might begin to live a new life, so that this new life might come to expression in our daily lives. I want you to just think for a moment about how this idea of forgiveness in Christ is supposed to make us able supposed to allow us now to open up our hearts to one another. Just think about it here for a moment, the fall of man and the depravity of man and how it's given expression by trying to cover up, by trying to hide from each other. But try to make our lives look so pretty and put together and all wonderful and great. You know, you see it, you hear it. We all do it, don't we, around the coffee after church. Things are going so well at home. My child is an honor roll student. My kids are so obedient. Life is going so well. Look at them here, they're dressed so wonderfully for church. Everything is good. We try to put on this marvelous front of how things are all good, and that's a reflection even of our depravity, our fear, our shame, our unwillingness to open up. And part of the whole glory of the Gospel is not only the forgiveness of sins, but in the forgiveness of sins, to now realize we don't have to be ashamed anymore. We don't have to be scared of people seeing into our lives. We don't have to be scared about talking about our fears and our doubts and our struggles with our children. And with how we feel we have failed as parents or how our marriages are not as put together as they should be. Because we understand and we know that we've been washed in the blood of Jesus. We know that we are made clean in Him. And we know that these are our brothers and sisters who have sinned like we have sinned, and who themselves know the struggle against flesh. And so, if anything, we should be able to be open and honest with one another, to care for each other, and to help each other. You see, knowing Christ, we understand the glory of repentance, and we find in Him the wondrous freedom to no longer point our fingers at one another, but we can say instead, yes, I'm a sinner. Can you understand the freedom of saying that, brothers and sisters? Of saying and acknowledging, yes, I am a sinner. And I'm not scared of saying that, because Jesus is my Savior, and I am washed in Him. And so it doesn't matter what I might have done. It doesn't matter what you might do to me. It doesn't matter how might you react to me, because Jesus has loved me. And Jesus makes me whole. You see, that's how the church even is beautiful. Because it's the one place on earth that to a certain extent we can let down our guard. We can say, brother, I need you. Sister, I need you. I need help. I need your love. I need your support. You see, this is even the beauty of being reborn by the Spirit of God. The shame begins to go away. The finger-pointing begins to come to an end, so that we can, as husbands or as wives, lay down our weapons, lay down and stop the bitter attacks so that with our children we can begin to stop being so harsh and unloving, so that we can all begin to show the very character of what Adam and Eve had in the Garden, which is ours in Jesus Christ. That is the beauty of the Gospel that God gives us. The beauty of the Catechism saying, yes, unless, We are born by the Spirit of God. Born again by the Spirit of God. Because then, this depravity within us begins to be defeated by the Spirit of God in Jesus Christ. Because we are made new. And we are being made holy. And we are being changed after the image of Jesus Christ. So that our relationships to the church, our relationships to our family, that in our work, in our play, in our studies, that in all these ways, this horrible human existence begins to be overcome. You know, a lot of people kind of ridicule the idea of coming to be a Christian and talking about how Christ begins to recover your marriage, or Christ begins to recover your family, or how Christ begins to recover the broken relationships that have been established in your life. And they say, you're distracting from the gospel and you're taking away from the gospel. But you see, the Lord's whole intention here is to say that is part of the gospel. that is part of what Christ is doing, that is part of what God is doing even now here today, overcoming our depravity and restoring what has been lost. You see, we need to hear this message of sin and death, not because we like to torture ourselves, but because it drives us to Christ and it fills us with hope For what we have and what will be, and what Christ is doing, so that we don't give up, so that we don't surrender, so that we aren't satisfied with the grievances we're bearing in our heart and our soul, but seeking by the grace of God to have our Lord overcome these things. so that more and more and more we experience the fullness of the life that is to be had in Christ. Because, brothers and sisters, it is so true that we may have lost much in Adam and Eve, but we gain even more in Jesus Christ. And so there is hope for us all at the feet of Jesus. And so we have every reason to go to Him, to receive His salvation, and the progressive transformation of our lives, our homes, and our families. That is the beauty of the Gospel of Christ. Amen. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly God and Father, we again give You praise on this day and we ask that, Lord, as we would end and cease this day and look forward to a new week, that it may be in the glorious comfort of salvation in Jesus Christ, with the knowledge of our sinfulness, O Lord, but even more with the knowledge of the magnitude of your grace and mercy in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit living and moving within us. And Father, would You truly continue that work in our hearts and our lives. We again pray, we again pray, O Lord, that You would begin to recover that which is broken, that which is hurt, that which is strained, that which has been tested. And that, Father, You would overcome these things through the gospel of Your Son. And that, Lord, You would continue to battle the depravity of our hearts and our souls. so that we might truly enjoy and experience and live out the life that is ours in Your Son. That, Lord, this world may see, may see the glorious freedom and joy and comfort and release that is found in Jesus Christ. Father, may it be that in these ways, through the working of Your Spirit, the glory of Christ might abound more and more, that His name would be exalted and lifted up that you, our God and Father, might be praised in Him. May Father continue that work within us, keep us from sin, and glorify Yourself. In Christ's name we ask it. Amen.