Anatomy of a Fall

Well, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Genesis 3. We are doing a series through the book of Genesis and as we continue in our series through this book, we come to Genesis 3, verse 6. My goal today is to look at verses 6 through 8 as we continue. To study what one writer has described as the most tragic chapter in all of the Bible.

And yet inside of this tragedy that plays out in Genesis chapter 3, we see, hope, the early rays of hope, that is found in, in the gospel. So this is a wonderful textured A chapter full of tragedy and brokenness, as well as hope and glory all at the same time and we'll be looking at verses 6 through 8 as the narrative of all of this, unfolds. Genesis 3. When I was a kid, we lived, for a short spell in Laurel Bay, South Carolina, and we lived about a mile from, an inlet, that came up to the bay, from the Atlantic Ocean and during certain times of, of the year, we would often, go shrimping.

Near our house. Shrimping is where you catch Shrimp. and we would, wade out into the waters of Laurel Bay about waist-deep with shrimp nets, and, we would cast those nets and we would catch a variety of things, shrimp and a number of other things that we didn't even know how to identify, but it's one of my great memories of my childhood. shrimping with my dad and my siblings.

sometimes when we would try to find a better spot and we would try to move from one spot, to another, we would find ourselves walking in a really muddy, mucky area, along the bay, and I'm talking real mud, like, where when you're walking, your, your shoes are going like 4 inches into the muck. there on the bay, this muddy area that sometimes we would walk on would feature what looked like mud puddles. of various sizes. And I have a distinct memory one day of walking with my dad through one of these muddy, mucky areas that featured these puddles and my dad, pointed to the puddles and he said to me, whatever you do, don't step in those puddles.

They are deeper than they look. Idiot child that I was. About 3 seconds after my dad gave that instruction. I promptly stepped into the very next puddle that I came to, and the next thing I knew, I was completely underwater.

And before I could even think of rescuing myself, I felt my dad's strong hand grabbing my arm and pulling me out of the water. He saw it coming and knew exactly what I was going to, to do. And I still remember the look on my dad's face after he pulled me out of the water. I saw that look many, many times growing up.

It was like a, it was a wordless pleading, blinking. Gaze, the look of a man being punished by God for past sins, and I Was his punishment. But anyway, my dad, my dad spoke loving words of direction to me and I disregarded them, and the next thing I knew, I was in over my head requiring rescue from the very one who had given me that instruction. That's exactly the story that we find here in Genesis 3 as it unfolds.

God in chapter 2, has given to Adam and indirectly to Eve very clear instructions. Here's what he says in Genesis 2 verses 16 and 17. He says, from any tree of the garden, you may eat, actually, OK, it's not on there. Genesis 2, from any tree of the garden, you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die.

This is God's word, God's revelation to Adam. And to Eve, and it is all so clear. But we have already seen, studying the first few verses of Genesis 3, how Satan uses the smartest animal to deceive Eve. We have seen how he twists God's word in order to cast it in the most negative light possible.

We have seen how Eve made 8 subtle changes to God's word and the way that she represented God's instruction, his revealed will, showing that she was already slipping towards sin. And we have seen how Satan through the serpent outright contradicts God's word and impugns the motives of the God who had spoken. That word. We have seen how the serpent, Satan through the serpent promises Eve that if she would just partake, her eyes would be open, and she, and if Adam would join her, both she and Adam would have opened eyes and they would be like God, knowing good and evil if they would just partake of this fruit.

Ultimately, we saw a couple of weeks ago what Satan has done is he has sought to degrade Eve's view of God. You'll notice in reading this passage that the serpent never directly tells Eve to partake of the tree. He's too cunning for that. He doesn't need to do that.

The art of seduction does not require that. All that Satan wants to do. is to get Eve to doubt the truthfulness of God's word and to doubt the heart of God who spoke that word. And with a head full of doubt and a diminished view of God, Satan knows that the potency of the tree.

Will be enhanced and Eve will prove to be no match. For the tree So let's read the accounts that we'll be looking at today. And pick up where we left off two weeks ago. let's begin in verse 6.

says, and 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 desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. And they 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 God among the trees of the garden.

This is the word of God and may God help us to understand His word this morning.

Here's how we're gonna break things down. We're gonna observe 7 developments that are entailed in the fall of Adam and Eve into Into sin. And in looking at this, we're, we're not just learning about their fall into sin, we're learning about our fall into sin in them and we're also witnessing not just them making the choices they make, but we're actually watching a video of ourselves and what we have done millions of times throughout our life. 7 developments that we'll observe entailed in this fall of man.

Into sin. The first development that we see here is that the woman, Eve, ponders the quote unquote benefits of the forbidden tree. We see her staring at the tree and thinking about and observing its benefits. One of the ways of evaluating Eve's response to the serpent is not just to study what she does do here, but actually to ponder what she does not do.

Eve could have quoted God's words precisely and exactly as God had spoken them. She could have fled. From the serpent. She could have run to her husband before she gave in to eat the fruit.

She could have run to God and cried out to him in the midst of this temptation. She could have started contemplating God and the goodness of God. She could have gone to the other trees of the garden that God had provided for them to feast upon, specifically the tree of life, and she could have started studying those trees and pondering their benefits and feasting upon them. But she doesn't do any of these things.

Instead, she begins to check out this tree, the forbidden tree, and to give it some thought, which is the worst thing that she could have done. What she does here would be the equivalent of Joseph studying Potiphar's wife. And pondering all the pleasure and the benefits that might come to him if he would give in to her seductions. But Joseph does not do that.

Instead, he runs away from Potiphar's wife and her temptations. He runs because he knows that you don't study sin. You just run from it. You don't just say no to sin, you flee from sin.

You don't flirt with sin, you flee from sin. But Eve does not do that. She moves toward the forbidden tree and she studies it and she ponders it, she stares at it and begins to draw some conclusions about this forbidden tree that she is gazing upon. First of all, notice.

That the text tells us that she saw that the tree was good. For food. This is ironic wording from two standpoints. First of all, throughout the days of creation, it is God who looks upon all that he has made and sees that it is good.

Same exact language. God has the authority to do this and the God who does this is the God who told Adam. And indirectly, Eve, that this particular tree would be bad for them, very bad for their spiritual health and their physical health. But here, Eve is posturing herself as one who has the right to arrive at her own determination about what is good or not.

It is as if she is assuming a divine prerogative and contrary to the revelation of God, she looks at this forbidden tree and is essentially pronouncing it good for her, for Adam, good for food. This tree almost literally comes with a warning label. That says the day that you eat from this, you will surely die, and Eve reads that warning label, stares at the tree and says, I think this would be good for food. Never mind that God told her this will kill her.

What is also ironic about this wording here is that this is the same description given in Genesis 2:9 describing all the other trees that God had caused to grow in the garden for Adam and Eve to eat. God had provided Adam and Eve a whole garden full of trees that were, Genesis 2:9, good for food. Eve though is not pondering those trees. That are good for food.

She isn't speaking in praise of the fruit of those trees that God says are good for food. Instead, she's looking at the forbidden tree and observing that this fruit on this tree seems just as good for food as all of the other trees that God had told them to feast upon. She also sees something else that she stares at and ponders the tree, and that is she observes that this tree is a delight. To the eyes.

This doesn't merely mean that it was delightful. To look at, but that it looked like it would be tasty. To be delightful to the eyes means that it looked delicious. So the fruit of this tree looks aesthetically pleasing.

The presentation is beautiful, but it also gives every appearance to Eve of being delicious to the taste. Again, the wording here is ironic given the fact that in Genesis 2:9, we learned that all the other trees of the garden created by God were literally pleasing to the sight. It's not like God made a bunch of ugly trees and says, sorry, you gotta eat that, but that beautiful tree that's really pleasing to the eyes, don't eat that. That's not what's happening here.

God makes all these other trees that are good for food and pleasing to the sight, and he says, feast your eyes and your mouths upon these trees. But Eve is not enjoying these other trees, nor is she speaking in praise of them. Instead, she's staring at the forbidden tree and concluding that this is pleasing to my sight. We can infer from this quite safely that the forbidden tree here is not an ugly tree.

This is not a black tree with dead and flea-infested foul smelling fruit that is repulsive or disgusting to, to look at. No, this is a beautiful tree that has nutritious fruit. It is aesthetically pleasing to look at, and its appearance gives every indication to Eve that this will be very delicious to the taste. We know that Eve, even right now before she partakes, is experiencing waves of delight.

As she simply looks at the tree and because of the delight that she is already feeling, even before she partakes of the tree, she might have been wondering how could something be so wrong when it feels so right. How could something be wrong if it makes me feel the way I'm feeling and I haven't even partaken of it yet? There is yet one more thing that Eve concludes about this tree as she studies it, and that is she sees that the tree was desirable to make one wise. The word desirable is probably the key word in this part of the verse.

The word speaks of that which is desirable or covetable because it has the capacity to bring delight and pleasure. I want that because that will make me happy, that will be satisfying to me. Eve here is observing that this tree is uniquely desirable because of its unique ability to do something that apparently none of the other trees could do, and that is that it has the power to make one wise. All the other trees are good for food and a delight to the eyes also, he probably would not disagree with that.

This tree is good for food and a delight to the eyes, but this tree can do something none of the other trees can do, and that is make one wise. She sees This is her thinking. This is desirable to make me wise. This tells us that Eve has totally bought into the lie of the serpent.

In her mind, there's no question at this 0.1 + 1 equals 2, and eating of this tree will make me wise. And it is for this reason because she's come to this conclusion that Eve is finding this tree desirable. She hasn't even reached out and grabbed it yet, but her heart already has reached out. Her desire has wrapped itself around this fruit even before her hand has.

She sees that this tree is desirable to make one wise. The word translated wise here is not a bad word. this is a good word. It's one of the Hebrew words for wisdom in the book of Proverbs and throughout the Old Testament, we're told in the book of Proverbs to pursue wisdom.

This word speaks of the knowledge that is needed and the capacity that is needed for making decisions that lead to success. Who wouldn't want that? Eve wants this wisdom and she thinks it is a wisdom that God has been withholding from her. She wants to become wise, the problem is that she is pursuing wisdom through a forbidden means, and she is pursuing a type of wisdom that God specifically told her and Adam that they are not supposed to have.

Specifically, Eve wants the knowledge of good and evil that is arrived at apart from obedience to God. She sees that this tree will give her the right to determine for herself what good and evil is and what she therefore should do about it. Ultimately, the promise of this tree is moral autonomy. The right to decide for yourself what's right and what's wrong and what you should do about that with your life.

It offers the freedom to know on your own good and evil such that you do not need anyone else to define those things or to direct you or tell you what to do and not do. This is the promise of the tree that Eve is being seduced by, and her heart already has leaped out of her bosom and wrapped itself around the fruit. She desires this because it will give her this wisdom that God has withheld from her. So look at what she does next.

This is the 2nd development, and that is that the woman takes and eats from the forbidden fruit. The text says she took from its fruit and ate. Notice the language here she took from. It's fruit.

You might want to mark the word from. This means she didn't take all of the fruit that was on the tree. It just means that she took from some of the fruit that was on the tree. Of all the fruit that was on the tree, she only took some, and perhaps it means that she even just took from one of the pieces of fruit.

She plucks one fruit and she doesn't eat the whole thing, she just takes from that one fruit, maybe just taking one bite or two. Evidently from the language here, Eve did not eat all of the fruit on this tree. If questioned, she could have pointed to this tree after the fact and said, look how much. Of the forbidden fruit I did not eat.

She just takes from. It's fruit, a sample. And she eats. The damage is done.

The text tells us that she ate, she bit into this fruit and she chewed it and she swallowed it. There's just something here about just the ordinariness of the language. This is one of the most epic moments in human history. All of human history is pivoting on this incredible moment and yet, The language is so ordinary.

She took from its fruit. And she ate There's no fanfare, there's no crescendo to describe this fateful act of Eve. As one writer has said, the unthinkable and terrible is described as simply and unsensationally. As possible One writer has said from the human perspective, it's also natural and undramatic, but it was cosmic and eternal.

And the same is true for us. We make many of the sinful choices that we make because in the moment, those choices don't seem all that dramatic. The fate of the universe is riding on this choice that Eve is making, and yet if we were there in this moment, it would all seem so normal and ordinary. We would never know that such a choice on Eve's part was so fraught with staggering consequences that will begin.

To ensue immediately after she partakes. The brevity of this account is surprising. It all happened so swiftly. She took from its fruit and she ate.

There it is. The deed is done. But Eve is not done. Eve could have realized after partaking of the fruit that she had sinned and what she had done was wrong.

She could have repented at this point and run to God, but she doesn't do that. She immediately sets about to bringing Adam into her sin with her. You see, sin is not a static entity. It is restless and it always grows like a cancer.

It spreads like leaven. It contains within itself a whole universe of evil and Eve partakes and, and the contents of this universe of evil begin to unfold and play out and it will in your life, unless you come to God for deliverance. And in repentance. That leads us to the 3rd development, and that is that the woman gives to her husband from the forbidden fruit, says, and she gave also to her husband with her.

The text tells us that after eating of the fruit, she gave also to her husband. Eve was not content to eat alone, but she wanted her husband to eat with her. She wanted Adam to experience the nourishment, the tastiness, and the enlightenment that would come as a result of eating from the fruit of this tree. Keep in mind that Eve has bought into the lie of the serpent.

She has partaken of the tree. Because she's thinking that she will attain to God-like status in her knowledge and wisdom, right? And so having partaken, her thought is, I have achieved this god-like status, and if I have achieved this god-like status, I don't want to be married to a man who is beneath me. I have to bring him up to my status that I have attained to.

My husband's eyes are closed and he's not like God, like I am right now. I need to save my husband and help him to attain to the heights that I myself am attaining to. In a way, Eve In giving of this fruit to Adam is thinking in her deceived state that she is serving her husband and doing him a favor in giving to him of this fruit. This is just like people today who think they are doing you a favor in putting what the Bible calls sin in front of you, and they say this is good, and they offer it to you, and they genuinely think they're doing you a service.

When Madonna, the music artist was asked back in 2003 why she published her raunchy book entitled Sex back in, I believe, the 19990s. Listen to her reply. She says, I thought I was doing a service to mankind, being revolutionary, liberating women. She's being motivated by in her twisted logic, her twisted understanding of morality.

She's thinking she's doing a service and making trash like that available to the world. This will be good for women. This will liberate them. Eve comes to Adam with this fruit and she in her deceived state thinks that she is doing a service to Adam.

Adam probably would have been very impressed with her sincerity. Thinking to liberate him to live life on a higher plane of awareness and existence. It just says she gave to him of the fruit. There's nothing said here about what Eve said to Adam.

The text merely tells us she gave him from the fruit, but we know from Genesis 3:17, you might want to write that reference down that Eve did use her voice and she did say something to Adam. She did instruct him with her voice. To eat of this fruit because in Genesis 3:17, God says literally to Adam, because you obeyed the voice of your wife, and that's the Hebrew word Shama, you listened to and obeyed the voice of your wife. So Eve would have brought the fruit to Adam and instructed him to eat of this fruit.

Apparently, Eve does not leave it to Adam to pull fruit from the tree for himself. She doesn't lead him to the tree and try to persuade him to pluck its fruit. She doesn't do that. Instead, she plucks the fruit from the tree for him, and she brings the fruit to Adam and she gives it to him, and all Adam needs to do is take the fruit from her hand.

This is the mindset of many today who try to make sin as easy and accessible as possible. Sinners do not want to sin alone. They want others to join them in their sin, and they will do everything they can to accommodate you while they'll, they'll pluck the fruit from the tree themselves, and they'll wash it, and they'll cut it, and they'll peel it, and they'll dress it up, and they'll bring it. To you.

How can we make this more convenient for you? This is what Eve is doing. Notice the phrase at the end of this clause, she gave also to her husband with her. That phrase with her has a lot of significance.

This could mean that Adam has been with Eve the whole time while the exchange with the serpent was taking place. If this is true, then it means that Adam was passive when his wife was being deceived. It would mean that he did not intervene when he had the opportunity to do so. It would mean that he was not looking after his wife.

When he should have been. And I'll let you guys make your decision about that. At the very least, all this phrase has to mean is that Adam was with Eve when Eve gave to him. Of the fruit.

At the very least, this means this is modifying the verb gave. Eve eats of the fruit. She's giving the fruit to herself, as it were, and then she gives it to Adam and is asking him to eat it with her. She is serving both herself and Adam.

Eve's temptation was to take from the tree and to eat from the fruit of the tree. Adam's temptation came in the form of a beautiful woman that he cared about, bringing him the fruit and asking him to eat it together with her. How does Adam respond? Would he dine together?

With her. This brings us to the 4th development in the passage, and that is her husband eats of the forbidden fruit. It says, and he ate. And he ate.

He ate from the fruit that she brought to him. He ate with her. He joined her in her sin. Nothing is said here about Adam's thought process, making it difficult for us to speculate about what was going on in Adam's mind.

We do get some help from 1 Timothy chapter 2 where Paul tells us that it was not Adam who was deceived. Hang on, let's see. Yeah, that it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived fell into transgression. What this means is that there was a sense in which Eve was tricked into believing lies about becoming like God and about not dying and about having their eyes open.

However, it seems that Adam really was not deceived in the same way that Eve was by these lies. He seems to know that this fruit is not going to make him like God. He seems to know that this fruit is not going to open his eyes in the way that the serpent has promised. He seems to know that death, according to what God has said, will follow.

All Adam knows is this, God told me not to eat of this tree, yet my wife has eaten of this tree. She's telling me to eat it together with her. Will I obey the voice of God or will I obey my wife? And Adam Not really being deceived in the same way that Eve was, chooses to obey the voice of his wife, even though he seems to know that the fruit is not going to produce the benefits.

That the serpent promised. As one writer says, the woman is listening to the serpent and the man listens to the woman and no one listens. To God. What's striking about this though is the absence of any hint.

Of hesitancy or resistance from Adam. Perhaps there's more to this than what we actually see in the text, but what we're told here is all we need to know, which is the fact that Adam ate the fruit. It doesn't matter why he did it, his reasons make no difference. Perhaps Adam could give us a list a mile long of all the reasons.

He did so. He could have said, let me help you understand all the layers of reasons why I made the choice that I made, but all that really matters is that Adam partook. Whether he had one reason or a million reasons, his sin is the same and his judgment. And the consequences will be the same.

The same is true for you and, and for me in our lives from day to day. It doesn't matter our reasons for sinning. It doesn't matter if a man has 1 reason or 1000 reasons for committing adultery. The damage is the same.

The sin is the same. It doesn't matter if a woman has one reason for being bitter or a 1000 really great reasons that go back to 3 decades of history for being bitter. Her sin of bitterness is the same, and the damage. is the same.

So Adam joins Eve in partaking, and once he does so, something immediately happens, which brings us to the 5th development, and that is their eyes become opened and they know that they are naked. Their eyes become open and they know that they are naked. Verse 7, then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew. That they were naked.

Eve ate of the fruit, motivated by the promise that their eyes would be opened. And that they would gain. Knowledge. She gives the fruit to her husband, motivated by the promise that this will open his eyes and this will give him knowledge just like she has attained to, and he partakes with her, and that's exactly what ends up happening.

Both of their eyes are opened and they both gain an instantaneous knowledge, a certain knowledge about themselves that they never knew before. The knowledge that they were Naked I love writers just pile on right here and just beautifully describe what the dismay must have been for Adam and Eve. One writer says this is hardly the knowledge for which they had bargained. Another writer says it was a grotesque anticlimax to the dream of enlightenment.

Another writer says their first knowledge they acquired was the wretched and grieving realization. That they were naked. Turns out the serpent was telling only a partial truth when he told them that their eyes would be open, which is the way sin so often operates in our lives. Sin holds out so much promise for us, but it never fulfills its promise, and that's true.

How many times have we been seduced by the promise of sin and we have engaged in that sin, and not only does the sin not deliver on its promise, but it leaves us more thirsty, more unfulfilled than we ever were before. Send promises fulfillment, but it does not only not deliver on that promise, but it delivers conditions to us that then require Remedy. Adam and Eve didn't even know they were naked before. They were so self unaware and innocent as, as children, it never crossed their minds that anyone would think a less than noble thought about them in their nakedness, but now they know evil.

They know evil, and now they know there is such a thing as evil in themselves and in the other person, and they are afraid now to be naked in front of the other, and they immediately feel that their nakedness requires remedy. Keep in mind that this is a married couple. They have the whole planet to themselves, and yet they feel right now that nakedness inside their marriage is intolerable. And so they immediately seek to remedy the problem and that leads us to the 6th development, and that is they hide themselves from each other.

They hide themselves from each other's view. It says, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They don't run to God for a solution to their shame problem. Instead, they seek to solve the problem themselves and create their own remedy.

They sin and then they basically seek to manage the consequences of their sin on their own. As one writer says, rather than driving them back to God, their guilt leads them into a self-attoning, self-protecting procedure, they must cover themselves. And the text says they sewed fig leaves together. Why did they choose?

Fig leaves Well, incidentally, fig leaves or fig trees. in Israel, produce the largest leaves of any tree that grows in Israel. So obviously, they're picking the largest leaves that they can find. These are strong and sturdy leaves also, they're choosing the leaves that will provide the most coverage so that they can hide themselves away from their spouse.

The word translated loin coverings can mean aprons. one writer says that it speaks of clothes that are worn around the hips. in 2 Samuel, this word is used to speak of a belt or a girdle of a warrior. The idea here is that they are making a type of garment that is covering up their sexual organs.

The very organs that God gave to them to be a means of achieving oneness with each other, they are now hiding from one another and keeping from one another. This is so sad. Again, Adam and Eve, we all get the instinct to put on clothes, right? so in some ways, this resonates with us, but again, just keep in mind this, Adam and Eve are husband and wife and they have the whole planet to themselves, and yet this husband and wife inside the context of their marriage are feeling ashamed to be naked in each other's presence and so they immediately get to work in sewing fig leaves together in order to hide.

Their body parts from their spouse. This is like a slow motion tragedy that's unfolding here. Apparently they feel. That fig leaves are the way to go.

They sew these garments for themselves and put them on. Apparently, they feel that wearing these fig leaves makes them not naked anymore, at least to each other, but all that changes in a heartbeat when God shows up. And that brings us to the final development. In this passage entailed in the fall of man into sin, and that is they hide themselves from God.

They hide themselves from God. It says and they 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. They heard the sound of the Lord God. Walking in the garden.

As an aside, I, I love, we'll unpack this more next week, but I love what this says about God. God knows what has happened. He knows that Adam and Eve has sinned. They have rebelled against him.

And yet he still shows up. As one writer says, Adam and Eve have broken away from God, but God will not and cannot leave them alone. Maybe you're here this morning and you are in sin. You're in sin, but what?

God comes to you in your sin. He shows up. He will not leave you alone. If he has set his love upon you, he will not abandon you and leave you alone in your sin.

God is not finished with Adam and Eve. They've rebelled against him, but he's not done with them. Even on the other side of their sin, he's got something really amazing and cosmic. That will span human history that he is going to do, and it all begins with him showing up after they have sinned.

This is an amazing God of grace. The text tells us that They hear the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, in the cool of the day. This expression is found nowhere else in the Bible, just literally means the breeze of the day, the wind of the day, the breezy part of the day. The general consensus of commentators is this is the afternoon, probably the late afternoon, as the day is moving towards evening.

But however you understand this expression, I would encourage you, if you don't mind marking your Bible, underline the words the day. The cool of the day. The writer here is wanting to fix the time in which God appears so that we know. That it happened on the day that Adam and Eve transgressed.

God had promised them that in the day that you eat from the tree, you will surely die. And here the writers wanting us to know that the very day that Adam and Eve ate, God shows up and the following events will take place. They ate, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the cool of the day, the very day. That they send is the idea.

Before this day is over, God will have confronted Adam and Eve. He will have pronounced curses. He will have expelled them from the garden and he will have cut off their access. To the tree of life.

Their dying will commence on this very day. But God will also have provided them atonement and given them words of hope, and we'll see that in the weeks to come. How did Adam and Eve respond? The text tells us that They hear the sound of the Lord God walking in the cool of the day in the garden, and the text tells us.

That The man and his wife hid themselves. From the presence of the Lord. The, the Hebrew word translated presence is the Hebrew word face. They're hiding themselves from the face of the Lord.

They're hiding from his face. This means that they're not only trying to position themselves in a way to where he cannot see them, but also so that they cannot see him looking upon them. They cannot bear to see his face and they cannot bear to be seen by him. They can't imagine looking into his face while he is looking upon them in their sin.

They are feeling the way a child feels who won't make eye contact with his parents because he, the child has done wrong and he can't bear to look into the face of the parent as the parent is looking. At him in his sin. So they hide from the face. Of Jehovah God, that's the last thing they wanna see.

And what? God knows, he knows he's the last person they wanna see. And he shows up anyway. Where did they hide?

They hid among the trees of the garden. They're hiding among the trees that earlier we learned are good and pleasing to the eyes. They're hiding behind good things. They're hiding behind beautiful things, just like we do today.

It's so easy to hide from God and to hide behind good and pleasant things. Sometimes we can even hide behind a Bible. We can hide behind right doctrine, we can hide behind good theology, we can hide behind good works that are pleasing to the eye. It's easy to hide behind a smiling face.

It's easy to hide behind church attendance. Some of you are here this morning because obviously you love God and you just want whatever God has to give to you. There might be some here this morning, you are intentionally here to hide. to hide.

You're hiding behind church attendance. But you're thinking, man, if people knew the truth about me. People knew the truth about me. It's easy to hide behind church attendance, why it's even easy to hide behind the pulpit.

It's easy to hide behind righteous denunciations of other people. We're all very good at finding good and pleasant things to hide behind. But God says it's all filthy rags, and it doesn't work. The irony here is so profound and sad.

Adam and Eve are hiding from God behind trees that God had provided for them to feast. Upon and now they're using what he gave them to feast upon and enjoy themselves with. They're using that now as a shield to hide. Themselves from his sight and to hide him from their sight.

Think about that. God gave them these trees to feast upon, and they're using them as a shield. A barrier between themselves and God. The other irony is that they're placing themselves behind trees in order to conceal themselves from God, and one day, One day Christ will be hanged in full view on a tree in order to bring man out of his hiding.

And to open the way to God. We'll stop the narrative here for now. Adam and Eve had sinned, and as a consequence of their sin, they start hiding from each other and they begin hiding from God. We're gonna leave them this morning in their hiding.

This is what sin always inevitably leads to. Sin always leads to brokenness, to fracture, to hiding ourselves from God and from other people. There's so many things we can take away from this passage this morning and I hope, that we've all just let God speak to us and challenge us as we've gone along this morning. But here's one big takeaway.

Moses is telling the Israelites this story here, not just because it's factual history, which it is, but so that they, the Israelites, about to enter into the Land of Promise, which will be their garden, as it were, that God is providing for them, that flows with milk and honey. he is wanting them to know the importance of clinging to God's words and obeying what God says. Genesis is simply the first volume. Of a 5 volume set that Moses is giving to the children of Israel, and he's telling them what happened to Adam and Eve so that they will learn the importance of holding tightly to God's word and obeying it.

In Deuteronomy 6, Moses says these words that I'm commanding you today shall be on your heart and you shall teach them diligently to your children and talk of them. Get it right. Know and learn what God's words are, memorize them and let them be on your heart and teach them to your children. If you exclude at the end of Deuteronomy, the postscript about, about Moses, these are essentially the last words at the end of this five volume work.

That Moses is giving to the children of Israel, and listen to his final words to them in Deuteronomy 32. Take to your heart all the words which I am warning you today, which you shall command your sons to observe carefully, even all the words of this law, for it is not an idle word for you, indeed, it is your life. What God said to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:16 and 17, that was no idle word, it was their life and they disregarded it and they died. And Moses is saying, I want you, God's people, Even in a fallen world, to love God's word, to read God's word, to memorize God's word, to talk God's word, to obey His word, to hold tenaciously to his word, it is your life, and to do otherwise will lead to death.

And just as we wrap this up, guys, we can't, we can't stop here. There's no way we can look at Adam and Eve's sin and giving in to temptation without pondering the opposite extreme, and that is Jesus Christ, thousands of years later, who himself will be tempted in the wilderness. Adam and Eve were tempted in a lush garden full of abundant provision, and they did not trust God. Christ was tempted in a wilderness without food for 40 days, and he trusted God.

And resisted temptation, and he didn't just resist temptation, but he did so in a way that modeled adherence to God's word. Jesus quotes in response to one of his temptations from Deuteronomy 8:3, Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, and he resisted temptation. Christ is saying, I don't just obey God's word, I feast on every word of it, and my life is sustained by it. And it was because of Christ's obedience.

In his times of temptation that he was able to be a pure sacrifice for our sins and give us atonement. It was because of his obedience that we have salvation and atonement for our many sins wherein we have done exactly what Adam and Eve do in our passage today. My challenge to all of us is that we would find shelter inside the obedience of Christ. May his obedience be our boast, may his obedience be our shelter.

Eve looked at this tree and she took and she ate, but Christ, the obedient one comes to us and he offers himself to us and he says, take And eat of me. And we look at him We look at Jesus and we see that he is good for food. And he is a delight to the eyes. We see that he is desirable.

As the very wisdom we need. And so we happily take And eat. Let's pray together Lord, I, I just pray that you'd work in all of our hearts that we would take and eat of you today. stir in our hearts, if there's any here who have never Come to you, Jesus, and Seeing that you are good and delightful.

And desirable May they see you as you really are and may they reach out and take and eat. And be saved And I ask that you would help all of us, Lord, to be feasters upon you and your provision, namely the provision that is in you, Christ. Deliver us from feeding on other things that destroy the soul. There are people in this room, no doubt, Lord, that are in bondage to feasting upon garbage that is ruining and wrecking their souls, their lives, their relationships, their marriages.

Lord, lavish your grace upon them and deliver them. Bring them out of hiding into your grace and your love. Deliver us from the garbage that we partake of and, and then teach us to come to you and not just sip. Not just nibble, but just a feast.

We thank you, Lord, for the opportunity that we have to give up our offerings to you. Receive. These funds, you've given us so much and we are blessed to be able to respond by giving to you a portion of what you have blessed us with and an offering like this. Receive these funds, Lord, and do much with every penny that is given for the glory of Jesus and the spread of the good news of the gospel of his amazing grace.

In his name we pray, and all God's people said.