Well, let's look into God's Word. Genesis chapter three. Great joy to be able to anticipate taking the Lord's Supper together and also to think about how we can appropriately think about the Lord Jesus Christ and his cross. Yes, even here from the earliest chapters of the Bible, way before we ever get to the God-man and the incarnation. All right. Let's look at God's Word. This is His Word, Genesis chapter three, verse one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Genesis 3, 4. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. 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. Verse seven, then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Would you join me in prayer? Let's pray together. Take just a very quick moment. Let's each individually ask the Lord and say, Lord, search my heart and my mind this morning. Not through John's words, but through your word. Lord, indeed, would you help us? We thank you for this season. We rejoice. And yet we also, for many, we may grieve, we may sorrow. Lord, help us to remember that. Lord, help us with these family items that we've mentioned this morning. Sickness. Not sure, in some cases, what's going on in terms of health. Death. grave and life and birth. Lord, help us this morning in your word. We have nothing to offer in our own efforts apart from your grace, apart from your word, but we do have your word and we do have your spirit. So we pray for your help now through your Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus name, amen. Now would you turn back with me to Genesis chapter two, verse four. Look with me at verse four of Genesis chapter two. It says, these are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. I'm going to keep reading in just a second, but I'd love to spend more time on verse four, which I'm not going to do today. You know, this is one way that you can approach the book of Genesis. I don't know if you knew this. I didn't know this until recently, but there's about 10 scenes that run through the book of Genesis. And you can go through and you can find every three or four chapters. It says, these are the generations of. And so here in verse four, this is the first instance of that. And you see that all throughout the book of Genesis. Basically what it means is, okay, I've brought something up, now I wanna tell you more about it. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth. Verse five. When no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground. And a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. And there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Stop right there for at least just a moment. I don't know if you got the chance. It's okay if many of you didn't. I don't know if you got the chance to take a look at the little article that I sent out for your edification this week. The article was entitled, The Biggest Threat Faced by the Church, by a brother in Christ, Keith Matheson. The biggest threat faced by the church And as you've already noticed, since we started out reading Genesis 3, I do want to look at some of both chapters this morning. And we read there in Genesis 3 about the entrance of sin. In that article that I sent to you, Matheson says this. He acknowledges that government tyranny or political tyranny can be a sin and can be a real threat. But here's what he says. Political tyrants cannot destroy the church. The very gates of hell cannot prevail against the church. But what is a threat to the church? What can result in Christ removing a church's lampstand? The same threats that existed in the Old Testament. Idolatry, apostasy, faithlessness, false doctrine, tolerating false doctrine. In short, the biggest danger the church faces is sin. Let me say that again. In short, the biggest danger the church faces is sin. Although that can be real and wrong, the biggest danger the church faces is sin. The biggest danger comes from the hearts of those within the church, he says. Before I leave his quote, let me just remind us, because I found that so helpful, even tolerating false doctrine. Oh, you know, doctrine divides. Let's just love each other. Let's love each other by caring about doctrine. And let's realize that the answer here, the way that he says we can guard against this threat to the church is by dealing with the sin in our own hearts. by dealing with the sin in our own hearts. And so we see this morning, again, from the first passes that we read, Genesis chapter 3, we see the entrance of sin. I believe it was Augustine who was the first person to call Genesis chapter 3, verses 1 through 7, the fall. The fall. Let me hear right off the bat, and you don't have to turn there, but let me read this to you, right off the bat this morning, and it's from Romans 5, verse 12. Listen carefully. It says, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, you got that? Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned, For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come." That last phrase is important. Pastor Ray has already mentioned, alluded to it. In what I just read there in Romans 5, 14, it says, who was a type of the one who was to come. The Bible very clearly and explicitly says that Adam is a type of the one who is to come. Praise God, we have a new and better Adam, a second Adam. Praise God that you this morning, which is all of you and all of us, We are guilty because of our connection with the first Adam, but we can be cleared of that guilt and receive forgiveness of sins through the second Adam. And so that passage should loom large even this morning. You know, let me share with you something about, really, Very quickly, 15 things, wow, 15 things quickly. Yeah, I wanna take really just a couple of minutes, just a couple of minutes. This is really important. This is a brief part of my sermon this morning, but these are 15 things that are not original with me. I'm happy to share them with you later. As we're thinking about Genesis one through three, you remember the title of our series is actually the title of this morning's message, because we're looking at all three, creation, fall, redemption. These chapters are so important, and I'm gonna share with you, thanks to my brother in Christ, Blake White, how these chapters, how they are so foundational. Here's just very quickly, and we'll see these things this morning, just how, 15 ways that these chapters are so foundational, Genesis 1 through 3, you ready? God is the creator of all things. The world is not a result of chance or random impersonal processes, but God's wise design, right? Science, right? God's the creator of all things. It's certainly not macroevolution. Number two, this is God's world. He cares about it. The material world matters. So if you know anything about Gnosticism or whatever, you should just reject that. You gotta reject that. Okay, now again, these are things that we see, they're right there in Genesis one through three. Number three, because God is the creator, he has authority to tell his people how to live, and his way is the best. All right, number four, all humans are made in the image of God, and therefore worthy of dignity and respect, regardless of background, skin color, ethnicity, whatever. All made in the image of God. Next, God created binary gender. You got that? You know what binary? God created binary gender. We are made male and female. You see how this speaks to our culture today, of course. Next, the cultural mandate remains a fundamental calling for mankind. I don't know if you've ever heard it recalled this. When the Bible says, be fruitful and multiply, and when it says, subdue the earth, Like that still applies today. Subdue the earth, be fruitful, multiply. To put it maybe, I don't think it's crass, but one person that says, make babies and make culture. That still applies. Next, work was God's will for mankind before sin entered the world. Work was God's will for mankind before sin entered the world. Next. The institution of marriage between one woman and one man is the foundation of society. Institution of marriage. Next, autonomy is satanic. Satan tempts us to be the ones who determine what is good and what is evil. We are to be ruled by God through his word. Boy, this is massively prevalent. Autonomy is satanic. We are not the ones who determine what is good and what is evil. The enemy's tactics have always been to question and distort and deny God's word. Next, we are born sinful. The doctrine of original sin is true. In Adam's fall, we sinned all. Next, I believe this is number 12. The whole world is fallen. The ground is cursed. It was subjected to futility and is in bondage to corruption. The whole world has fallen, including creation. Next, 13, God created mankind male and female. Listen, he created them male and female, equally made in God's image, and he assigns us complementary roles and responsibilities. The man's fundamental calling will be to lead, love, provide, and protect, and the woman is fundamentally called to be a helper, nurturer, mother, and wife. Next, life is war, but victory is assured. Did you just read that? Did he just say that out loud in Genesis 3, 7, where it says, the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked. And so you're a little child and you hear the pastor say the word naked, but look, look at the end of chapter two. At the end of chapter two, the very end of chapter two, verse 25, what does it say? It says, and we think in the context of God's good creation in 2.25, and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Naked and not ashamed. And how quickly, how quickly from 2.25 do we get to 3.7. And we notice again, the eyes of both were open and they knew that they were naked. And now there is shame. And now there is fear. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. Which really is a pitiful thing to do. Which actually represents all of human efforts, represents all of our efforts. to try to clothe our own shame, to try to deal with our own sin. What has happened? What has happened when we read verse 7 and when we read it in light of verse 25 of chapter 2? Well, I'll tell you what's happened. You know what's happened. It is the entrance of sin, which we cannot understand unless we see that these two chapters go together. They are meant to go together, my friends. Now in Genesis chapter two, if I could sum up Genesis chapter two, we'll look at it a little bit in some detail. But Genesis chapter two, a basic summary would be God creates man and God creates marriage. especially there at the very end of Genesis 2. We do see that this is what's called a creation ordinance. We see, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ picks up on these words at the very end of Genesis 2. Genesis 2, 24, and 25, massively important. They're given to us by Moses, but they're actually the revelation of God. And Jesus picks up on the word of God given through Moses when he talks about marriage. You know, our society, of course, as I don't have to tell you, does absolutely seek to redefine marriage. But as we've said before, at the end of the day, you can't do that. At the end of the day, you can try to run into a brick wall, but you will only hurt yourself because this is a creation ordinance. Marriage, as we see here at the end of Genesis 2, through the words of Moses, picked up by the Lord Jesus, Genesis 2, 24 and 25. This is intended from creation to be the lifelong union between one man and one woman in covenant together. And so, as I say, a basic summary of Genesis 2 is God creates man, Like Pastor Ray said about the hymn earlier, when he said he's talking about male and female, all right, I'm using it the way scripture uses it. God creates man, male and female, and he creates marriage. Glance with me at Genesis chapter two, verse seven. This is where the action really begins to pick up. Then, Genesis 2.7, then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the man became a living creature. And so this is, you read this and this is all the Lord. There are many characters here in our story today The serpent, the woman, the man, the main character clearly is the Lord. He's the one who plants a garden. He's the one who causes the trees to grow. He's the one who creates marriage. He's the one who creates man. The Lord is the central character. Verse 8, and the Lord God planted a garden in Eden. By the way, if you're really attentive, you'll notice here that in chapter one, it's God. In chapter two, it's the Lord God. He is both creator and redeemer. He is the creator and sovereign. Chapter one, He is God. And in chapter two, He remains creator and sovereign, and He is with us. He is our redeemer. He is the covenant Lord. He is the Lord God, Yahweh God. And so we see that here for the first time, verse 8, and the Lord God, again, chapter 2, verse 8, the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He put the man whom He had formed. Skip down to verse 10. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. and the gold of that land is good. Delium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. So all of this means that we're probably thinking about ancient Iraq and that area. Verse 15, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may... Now notice what he says here. Notice what he says. You may surely eat of every tree of the garden. What a terrible sin it is to impugn the character of God. What a terrible sin it is to make God in our own image. to make God out to be a strict killjoy. No, no, you may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Genesis 2.18, look there with me. Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. Now, if you go to college and take a religion course, or if even you go to some sorry Bible schools, they may tell you that chapter two is a totally separate creation account. I just wanna get this, I'm not gonna camp out here, but they may say Genesis chapter two is another creation account, but what Genesis chapter two actually is, is it's zooming in on day six of chapter one. Alright, so chapter 1, this is really important. Because many people, what they're doing is they're taking God out of the equation. And the Bible becomes only a human book. And it is given by human authors. But there is one ultimate divine author. It is God breathed. And so what chapter 2 is doing, it's zooming in on chapter 1, day 6. In chapter 1, we've got the whole picture, all, if you will, all the cosmos. But in chapter 2, he wants to speak more about day 6, particularly about man and woman. So in chapter 1, verse 27, he says in the first poem in the Bible, so God created man in His own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And then you get to chapter two, verse seven, and this is day six. The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground. So we are, we are special. I don't believe in the modern self-esteem movement. However, we are made in the image of God. Wow. And You were formed out of dust, and to dust you shall return." Never forget both of these things. Mankind is not formed in the same way as the other things in Genesis 1. And God said, and it was so. Here, He forms us out of the dust of the ground. And of course, woman is formed from man. So we are gloriously made in the image of God. And we are creatures. We are creatures from the dust. So look again at verse 18 of chapter two. If we understand that Genesis chapter two is certainly not some competing creation account. It's certainly not a competing, it's also not a separate creation account. If we understand that this is A larger look at day six. Then you look at chapter two, verse 18, and you got to get this because what he's been saying is day one, he, he creates and it is good. And he creates and it is good. And he creates and it is good. And the people of Israel to whom this was originally given, they would have read chapter two, verse 18. And they would say, what? Because this is the first time he says something is not good. The first time something, everything to this point has been good, good, good, even very good. And now in verse 18, he says, the Lord God, the covenant name of God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. Now it's been pointed out. Hey, you know what? Is Adam even aware of this? Does Adam even know that it's not good for him to be alone? Maybe, maybe not. This is God's design. This is God's design, not taking anything away, not taking anything away from some who may spend their lives in singleness, but this is God's creation ordinance. You're not in any way living in sin if you're seeking to be married in the Lord. This is good because it's not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. You see that there at the second part of verse 18, I will make a helper fit for him. Look at the end of verse 20. There was not found a helper fit for him. In the verse 20 says, there's not found a helper fit for him. God says, I will make a helper fit for him. And he helps Adam to know that he needs this. How does he do that? In between verses 18 and verse 20, he brings a parade of the animals. He helps him anticipate this good, awesome gift that he's about to give him. He brings a parade of the animals. He says, I want you to name them, which involves a lot more than just looking. I would call that a zebra. Actually, he's really using his intellectual, he's thinking about this. Adam is, again, he's not just naming these animals and just some random, oh, that seems like an elephant. He's thinking, God's bringing this parade. He's realizing, that's not like me. That doesn't correspond to me. So when God brings him this wife, like the father who walks down the aisle with his daughter, it's like that. The Lord brings the woman to the man after he's caused him to be in a deep sleep and taken one of his ribs and he's created the woman from man. And he says, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Oh, it's a great gift, isn't it? It's a great gift. Matthew Henry said this about the creation of a woman. She was not made out of his head to top him, not out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved. It's beautiful. That's beautiful. This is a gift. from God, Adam rejoices, which includes, of course, seeing with his eyes, and this, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Therefore, brothers and sisters, leave and cleave. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife, verse 25, were both naked and were not ashamed. My first point to appreciate the story of the fall. You must see that chapters two and three go together, particularly verse nine of chapter two, verses 16 and 17, where God graciously, it's a covenant of sorts, and he gives this command to them. You may freely eat, remember it's important, you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you must not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Genesis 3.1. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made." Don't forget that the serpent is God's good creation. The serpent, in other words, is not inherently bad. This is, of course, the serpents being used by the ancient serpent who is the devil and who is Satan, but don't forget the serpent is part of God's good creation. He said to the woman, Did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? Chapter three, verse two. And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. You know what's going on here? She's adding, right? When did it ever say? When did it ever say that you should not touch it? Okay, so we could say a couple of things that we do need to know. We don't know that it was an apple. Obviously, we have a talking serpent here. It never said, neither shall you touch it. And there's almost also something, lest you die. No, no, not lest you die. No, you will die. Verse 4, "...but the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die." Verse 4 is a flat-out lie. It is a flat-out lie. If earlier the serpent, who is God's good creation, used, manipulated by the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, if earlier the serpent had called into question the Word of God, If he'd only, which is awful, if he's only called into question the word of God earlier, now he's flat out lying. You will not surely die. Verse five. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. And if you read the rest of the passage, you see that's actually true in one sense. One sense. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the, you know, 1 John talks about this, about how we stumble in sin and we see things and our hearts are drawn to that sin. Now, I don't know about you, but sometimes I get curious. I do love music. And I hear a beautiful, powerful tenor sing a song. And it's just glorious. It's like, it causes you to resonate because we're human beings made in the image of God. Sometimes the arts or whatever it is for you, whatever, it can cause you to remember and it takes us back to the goodness of creation and the goodness and the beauty. And I hear a powerful tenor or you watch a movie. Just a sidebar reminder. I say this a lot. So many shows and movies are truly not worth watching. They will not help you in your walk with the Lord. But you watch a movie that is worthy of the Lord, that you can watch in good conscience. And those types of things are gifts from God. Those things are good to be enjoyed. But we need to be careful. But you watch a movie and you think, man, that was so good, and that was so helpful, and that just, I saw beauty, and I saw some created goodness. And then I don't know if you're like me, but I get curious, and I think, man, that actor or that actress did a great job, or that person's got an incredible voice. That voice is amazing. And so you get curious and you look them up on Wikipedia. And then you find out that, man, like, I just watched that movie and I thought, man, that was awesome. Their life is kind of messed up. His life's kind of messed up. Unless you think I'm only pooh-poohing celebrities or famous people, you know, we also have mirrors. And it's not just looking up a celebrity's Wikipedia page and you get to the personal part and you see that, you know, they've been married four times or whatever, but we have mirrors and you can look in the mirror and you can say, I am far from perfect. And you can look into your own life and you can look back and you can say, whether you've been a relatively clean cut person or not at all, you can say my life apart from grace was pretty messed up. And so we see here in Genesis chapter 3, we see the entrance of sin. We see the fall. And we see here, if you'll notice at the end of verse 6, This first sin, it says at the end of verse 6, it says, she took of its fruit and she ate. And we often, as it's been pointed out, we often think of that as the first sin. But if you're reading this story at all, you know that there's been some sin in the heart already. That this is the action that was birthed by the questioning of God's word. This is treason. This is rebellion. And in Adam, listen to me, friends, this is every one of us. We have all rebelled against God. And this is the thing, as we said earlier in those 15 things, he calls into question, the serpent, the ancient serpent calls into question the word of God. As the old King James says, right? Half God really said, half God said, So we begin to reason. And then when really all hope is gone, then it's just pleasing to the eyes and the deed is already done. And by the way, the authority of Adam over his wife is not a result of the fall. The authority, the good authority of husband over wife in the mutuality of their marriage and the equality of their marriage is not a result of the fall. It's a good design of God. And so here we see when we read this text that, oh yeah, we just happened to notice Adam was there the whole time. He was there. What was he doing? Well, he was being sinfully passive. In verse seven, the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. You know, as we think about verse 7, and I've mentioned already how verse 7 goes back to verse 25. And there's this awareness. And as we think about verse 25 in the context of marriage and that first marriage, marriage as a creation ordinance, and they're naked and they're not ashamed. And we see God's good design. We see marriage here. And we see, of course, remember the Lord Jesus Christ in Ephesians 5, or excuse me, Paul. Paul in Ephesians 5 speaks to husbands and wives, and he says, I acknowledge that Genesis 2, 24 and 25 is about human marriage, but what I'm talking about is the relationship between Christ and the church. Marriage is a good gift from God. It points forward to the relationship of Christ in the church. Just read Revelation chapter 19. We are considered the bride of Christ who is our husband. What a good husband he is who laid down his life for us. My main focus this morning has been on verses one through seven, the fall, but then also to see that you gotta get chapter two. You gotta keep the big picture in mind. And now I just wanna close, if you'll just bear with me. I just wanna close. As I said, the whole series is creation, fall, redemption. Creation is Genesis one and two. Fall is Genesis three. Redemption is Genesis three. And so if you were to ask the question, well, so what? So we've looked at the fall. What is the teaching of the fall? We've looked at that even somewhat briefly in chapter three, verses one through seven. We've looked at the background in chapter two. So what? Well, one so what is you don't forget about chapter four, which goes with it as well, but there is creation, fall, and there is redemption. And this text originally given to Israel has in many ways the same message for us as it had for them. It has the same message for us as it has for Israel. It's a four-letter word. The word is hope. The word is hope, because first of all, we gotta realize we're in a royal mess. We've got to realize you and I, apart from grace, are in a royal mess because of this fall, because of our solidarity in Adam, as Romans chapter five says. We've gotta understand that. But the message for Israel at the time that they received this was you have messed up and there is hope for you. God's people through his grace. Now, I hope you'll be here because if unless something changes, I want to you may already be thinking as I talk about redemption. Yes, Redemption's even here. Hope you may be thinking about Genesis 315 and I want to come back to that for Christmas. Genesis 3 15 just notice it quickly. I will put enmity between you and the woman in between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel Messiah. That's the whole course of human history. That's in one sense the whole Bible right there. That's the whole Bible Genesis 3 15 the war between the two seas. But let me just point out this before we close verse 20 of chapter 3. The man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. How'd you get that? The mother of all living. He names her Eve, the mother of all living, after the fall. There is surely death. Because of Adam's sin and because of your choice to sin on top of that, there is surely death. But friends, there is hope. There is hope and there is redemption. He calls her the mother of all living. God will keep giving children. Chapter four, verse one, God's given me a man-child with the help of God. Amen, and then Abel. And then verse 21 of chapter three, verse 21, and the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Now some of you may know this already, but if you don't, this is wonderful. Genesis 3, 21, we don't wanna make too much or too little of this. You remember what they did? Oh, we're naked. I hid from you, Lord, because I was naked. Who told you that you were naked? And so they made loincloths for themselves. And here God in his grace provides clothing for them. It's been pointed out, and I tend to agree with it, that verse 21 doesn't happen. Genesis 3, 21 doesn't happen unless there is the death of an animal. He made for his and his wife garments of skins and clothed them, which seems to require the death of the animal, which seems, does it not, to prefigure what Moses gave them, which was a sacrificial system, which seems, does it not, to prefigure the Lord Jesus Christ. But main point, whether or not you go with me all the way on that, is that the Lord and his compassion is not done with his sinful people. There is hope because there is grace. There is hope because there is God. There is hope not because there is us, but because there is God, and because there is Christ, and because there is the cross, and because there is His compassion, and because there is the clothing that ultimately Christ gives of His own righteousness. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't seek to clothe yourself or your shame. The blood of Christ shed on the cross is exactly what you need, not your own efforts. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for these 15 things that we quickly noticed from this passage that inform our world today. Lord, there's so much here in these first three chapters as we think about creation, fall, and redemption. We thank you, Lord, for the cross and the resurrection of Messiah Jesus, the promised seed who on the cross won our victory, crushing the head of the serpent, our ancient foe. Lord God, help us with the question that is asked. Help us this morning as Crossway Church, help us as we ponder that question, has, hath God said? Your word, oh Lord, is firmly fixed in the heavens. Help us to humble ourselves under your word. Lord, please help us to humble ourselves under your word that we would tremble Lord, that we would hunger and thirst for your word, that we would not stand over your word. Help us to receive your word, oh God. We receive it this morning and we pray in Jesus name. Amen.