I invite you tonight to turn with me in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 3. Our scripture passage will be from Genesis chapter 3, verses 9 through 24. And in conjunction with that, we're also going to be looking at Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 3. Let's go to the Catechism first, and then I'll read the Scripture passage from Genesis chapter 3. First of all, then, Lord's Day 3 of the Heidelberg Catechism. I'll read the question. I'd like all of us to respond with the answer. That's found on page 10 in the back of your blue psalters. Lord's Day 3. Did God create man so wicked and perverse? 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. Then where does man's corrupt nature come from? from the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in paradise. This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are born sinners, corrupt from conception on. But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil? Yes, unless we are born again by the Spirit of God. And now we come full circle with what we talked about this morning. Turn with me to Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3, we'll begin reading at verse 9. This is immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve. A day that is Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman you gave me to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. She shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. And to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall return. The man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and also take of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man and at the east of the garden of Eden, he placed the chair of him with a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. So far the reading of God's word. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, three centuries ago, a Puritan poet, a blind poet, by the name of John Milton, wrote two poems. The first he entitled, Paradise Lost, in which he portrays man's fall from God's favor. The second poem he entitled, Paradise Regained, portraying the restoration of man through Jesus Christ. Now there have been those throughout the centuries who have criticized Milton's poetry. They claim that he has used the truth of scripture all right, but often in a very unbiblical way. He talks at first about paradise lost as though man had somehow misplaced it and couldn't find it, which of course is not true. Man rejected paradise. But Milton then also talks about paradise regained, giving the impression that man, by his own efforts, regained paradise, which, of course, is also not true. Man was restored to paradise by the sovereign grace of God. Nonetheless, I wish to use this thought of Milton's in my sermon tonight as we look together at the history of mankind in relation to paradise. And we will first look at paradise granted, secondly at paradise rejected, and finally at paradise restored. Paradise. What does that mean in the Bible? When the Bible talks about paradise, is it simply talking about a nice place? I know there are some cities named paradise. It's not really a place. It's talking primarily about a state, a condition, which is attractive because it involves fellowship and friendship with God. That, by the way, is what makes hell so terrible. In hell, people do not have fellowship with God in His love and grace. But on the other hand, that's what makes heaven so beautiful, because there, people will have everlasting fellowship with the love and the presence and the grace and the mercy of God. Today, we stand between the two paradises. We haven't been to either one of them. We can't go back to the paradise that was lost, and the other paradise, well, I hope that we will all get to that one, that we can enjoy that eternal fellowship, unending with God. But let's start at the beginning by talking first of all about that paradise that was granted. Consider once what Romans 7 and 8 says about our natural state, our unregenerated state. We are by nature prone to hate God and our neighbor. In other words, we sense that by nature we no longer belong in paradise. Instead of being close to God, man is far away from God. Instead of being happy, man is miserable. But you see, it wasn't always that way. In the beginning, man and woman enjoyed paradise that was granted to them by God. You can picture it, can't you? It was the sixth day of creation. God had already created many things, and now He's going to create something very special. And you can tell He's going to make something very special because He's having a conference with Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And at the end of that conference, having come to a decision, God makes an announcement. He says, make man and now God is going to do something special and there's something special he's going to do is to make paradise for man man is going to be able to enjoy fellowship man is going to be able to enjoy friendship with God something that no other creature no mountain or chicken, or flour, no other part of God's creation can do. Man is going to have fellowship with God. And now you watch as God makes this special creation. He forms man out of the dust of the earth, and then he breathes into man the breath of life, so that man becomes a living being, created in the very image of God, in distinction from all the other parts of God's creation. This one, this part of creation, is able to have fellowship. This one is capable of receiving and responding to. the Word of God, and having finished his work, God looks at what he has made, and he looks at it and he says, now that's good, not just nice. When I get done making something, I say, eh, it'll do. When God gets done looking at what he made, he says, that's good. Why is it good? Because it's going to fulfill the purpose for which it was created. That's good. Fellowship with God, that's paradise. They receive the word of God and they respond positively and joyfully and obedient to that word. Now they are in paradise. Man and woman have been granted paradise, friendship and fellowship with God. But, sad to say, paradise is rejected. The paradise granted to man was glorious. Just imagine! Knowing God intimately. Wanting what God wants. Loving what God loves. Loving and being loved by God. Now that's living. That's paradise. And God has promised man that this paradise would last forever if man and woman would only obey. That is, if they would serve Him. And that was a reasonable request. Man certainly was able to fulfill it. But surprisingly, man rejects that fellowship with God, and he chooses, rather, to have fellowship and service devoted to Satan. It all happened when man and woman ate that fruit of that forbidden tree. And when they did that, they then rejected the paradise of God, and God drove them out of Eden, which is a visible sign of the fellowship that they earned and wonderfully had with God, because He gave it to them, now spurned. And they're out. But now, when they did that, you know what happened? It was bad enough that they had to leave, But Adam and Eve dragged, yeah that's the word, dragged the rest of humanity out of the Garden of Eden with them. When Adam sinned, he sinned as our father, as our covenant representative. And therefore, when we are born, all of us are born outside of paradise. That is, outside of the loving, gracious fellowship with God. And now I can just hear someone say, well, hey, that's not fair. Why should I be blamed for what Adam did? I wasn't there. I wouldn't have done what Adam did. I want to go back to paradise. No. No, you don't. You can stop complaining. You don't want to go back to paradise. Every day again, you say, I don't want to go back to paradise by your sin. Every one of us, you and I, by our sins, reject paradise. And we really say, no, I don't want to go back there. You know, sometimes a little child will want to run away from home. And so they gather all their belongings together, and they tie them up somehow, and they get a little something to eat, maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a package of bubble gum, and they walk very slowly down the driveway, and when they get to the end of the driveway, and they get to just go around the corner, and they begin to rethink that decision, and they kind of come to the conclusion, you know, This isn't it. And they turn around and they run back home as fast as they can. Mom! Dad! May I come back home again? You see, we're not like that. We're not like that at all. Sometimes young people decide that they don't want to stay at home anymore. They come to the point where they really hate their parents and the other members of their family. They despise the faith of their fathers and they want to get away from it as quickly as they can and so they leave their home because they hate everything that their home stands for. And if you were to approach them and ask, don't you want to go back to your parents? Back to your family? Back to that God? Back to that church? They'd say, we want absolutely nothing to do with it all. That is what we're like. In spite of all of our complaining, the fact of the matter is, brothers and sisters, young people, we don't want to go back to Paradise. Every day again, we join Adam in turning our backs to God, in rejecting Paradise. We really don't want to go back. But God sees to it that Paradise is restored. So that once again we may not only have fellowship with him but we may also serve him in his creation. Which by the way is the reason why man was created in the first place. And so we move on finally to note that paradise is restored. Because of our depravity we cannot regain paradise and we don't want to. The very actions of Adam and Eve after the fall demonstrate that. When Adam and Eve sinned, they ate that fruit of the forbidden tree. Did they then go searching for God? Did they then call out and say, Lord God, really, we want to talk with you? Lord, we want to come back to paradise? We want to have that relationship restored? We want fellowship with you again? No. They ran. They hid themselves. They pulled away from God, and they pulled away from each other. They got dressed. They put on some kind of fig leaf, and they ran from paradise. And if paradise is going to be regained, if paradise is going to be restored, God has to restore it. And He does it in His sovereign grace. God doesn't wait for man. but goes out seeking man. He calls out, Adam, where are you? Is that because he doesn't know what bush or tree Adam is hiding behind? Of course he knows. God knows exactly where Adam is hiding. But he wants Adam and Eve now to consider what has happened to them. Now that you have sinned against me, Adam, Where are you? Are you happy? Are you blessed? Do you have what you wanted? And the answer is obviously no. God calls out, where are you, sinner? I'm calling to you. And then God places before them the way back to paradise, the way back home. It's by way of Genesis 3, 15, where God says to the devil, I will put enmity between you and the woman. Already there, we've got the beginning of the gospel, the beginning of the good news. It's the way of the cross of Jesus Christ. Come with me for a moment. come to that cross. It's an awful place. It's ugly. It's dark. And looking through that darkness, you can see someone hanging on the center cross. It's the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. He is now outside of paradise. He's been thrown outside of the city, outside of the temple He's been thrown away from God, outside of paradise. And his blood drips, and he experiences all kinds of agony, and he turns to that repentant thief next to him. Today, he says to that thief, today, you will be with me in paradise. And then a few minutes later, he says powerfully, it is finished. Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. And when he says that, it's as if he's saying to that thief and to all the redeemed, now, follow me. We're going back to Eden. And they walk together, led by the Savior, and they come to the gate. And there is that angel with that flaming sword. And we say, well, Lord, what's going to happen? But as Jesus approaches, the sword drops. And Christ and all of His redeemed walk into Eden. And He says, here it is, people, paradise restored. You see, brothers and sisters, young people, through Jesus Christ, we are born again. Through Jesus Christ, we are restored to fellowship with God. Through Jesus Christ, we are enabled once again to obey and to serve Him, which is what we were made for from the beginning. That's why we were created. That's why we've been redeemed. God's paradise, granted, rejected, has become God's paradise. Restored. Scripture begins and ends with a description of paradise. It begins with the paradise in Eden, the paradise from which Adam and Eve turned their face, and the paradise from which we reject as well. But scripture also ends with a revelation of the paradise to come, granted to all those who believe, reaching its perfection, uninterrupted, unending in heaven as we see Christ and as we bow before his throne every day. But paradise has its beginning right now in our hearts when we are born again when we are restored to that fellowship with God through Christ, which means that right now we are in paradise. I know we're in Bellingham, but right now we are in paradise. Now we may know Him. Now we may be loved by Him. Now we can serve and obey Him. People of God, welcome to paradise.