Answers In Genesis - Sunday School - Week 23

Well, good morning. And we'll go ahead and, and get started. Even though we have, it seems a lot of us going to the parenting class, including my wife, But it's good to be here with you and we'll just get going and people come in as they do. Let's start with a word of prayer.

You, oh God, are the one that. has said all these things in order for us, and you have placed us here, and it's by your hand that we exist. So Father, we come here to, to learn about that, to discuss these issues of our origin and, and, and even our purpose of why we're here. And Lord may, this time be blessed by your spirit that you would guide our minds and our words and, and help us as we, go through these, things from your word, so that we might have more light.

With which to walk and, and more truth, which with, with which to discern your will for us. So we do ask for your blessing on this time. In Jesus' name, we ask this. Amen.

All right. before we get into our particular, lessons, we do have a couple of, events that we want to, to remind you of. first one is, next Sunday. Here at Cornerstone, we, I'm sorry, it's not next Sunday, it's next month.

Oh, it's on March 20th. I thought this was coming up sooner. I guess I was getting too excited for it. geologist Matthew McLean will be here, March 20th, and, so I'm really looking forward to this.

I think it's gonna be a, a great, time for us, for learning. He, is a PhD candidate in Earth Sciences at Loma Linda University. And You can see his, his accomplishments and so on there. So, this is something we, we wanna be, aware of and, and even maybe, thinking of people that we can invite for it that might be interested in this that don't normally come to our Sunday morning events.

Another event is going to be taking place. It's the 22nd annual creation symposium called Sands of Time. And this will be, by Doctor John Whitmore, the end of the month, yeah, Master's, up at Masters. Is that at Master's Seminary?

I should have. I thought we would have that information there. I'm not sure. We'll find out before this, I guess, and it announce where exactly it's gonna be, but I do believe it's up at, at, Master's College.

And And that, that is the website if you do want more information yourself on that. So, To encourage you. Today, we'll be getting into Corruption, sin entering into the world. What is normally called in Theological circles, the fall.

The fall of mankind and, and we'll be talking about that today. First though, we do have to review and I wanna go through the review rather quickly if possible, because this is stuff that we've gone over and over again quite a bit, and, so I'm sure we're all pretty familiar with this, but I do want to get through this because this really does set the stage for, our, our lesson for today. and the first one is, the first item that we covered before is the order of Genesis compatible with the, the evolutionary view of the origin of the universe.

And so we have talked about how that there are differences, whoops, went too fast here.

There are differences in order. And the reason why we point this out is, just as I was talking with Brian a little bit, a few, a few minutes ago, To try to take a theistic evolutionary view, or try to take evolution in the Bible and put them together, is impossible. They don't work. They don't work together.

And so if, as a Christian, we want to, we want to believe the Bible, but we want to maybe have a different method of interpretation for Genesis 1 and 2. And try to fit it in with what the scientific community is trying to tell us and, and marry the two together into a belief system. we, we are talking apples and oranges. These are just two different things and, and you really can't put them together.

And that's the reason for, for bringing out this comparison. they just have a different order. And this picture, shows that too. So we've looked at that, we've looked at, some reasons for embracing a young Earth, belief.

one of them is that God's miracles. Include creating things with the appearance of age or maturity. when God made, the trees, God made the rocks, God made the mountains, God made the seas, all that, he made with the, the, the appearance of maturity, that it wasn't just developing, but he made it to be already fully developed. Also, the genealogies indicate a young Earth from the scripture.

The scripture gives us, the line of, of people all the way from Adam to, to Christ. Those genealogies do indicate a young Earth. And so we've looked at that. We've looked at, reasons that we might give for embracing the young Earth.

Other, other reasons that the creation account testifies of a six-day creation. And we've gone through the, the language there and how it, it does give that clarity that the evening and the morning were the first day, the evening and the morning were the 2nd day, and so on. We've talked about how that there's the scientific data that, that can be looked at from the Young Earth presupposition is a reasonable way to look at it. that, and we've talked about how, the, the things that we look at in geology and so on.

is just as reasonable to look at from a younger Earth point of view, particularly in factoring in the flood, Noah's flood. There are reasons I think to question millions of years. We've looked at these items in Genesis 15 and 11. and as we've just talked about, the, the, the language of the night in the, in the morning, evening and the morning, and also the chrono genealogies and the 10 Commandments.

we have the commandment on the Sabbath day and, and, God is, telling Moses and inscribing in stone really. that, the 7th day was the day of rest, that even God rested on the 7th day and, gives, gives that sense of there being 7 literal days. We have Noah's flood, we have Jesus' view. That's expressed in Mark 10:6, when he's asked about divorce.

And, and so Jesus gives the, the statement on marriage, what marriage is, and he uses this phrase from the beginning of creation. Man and woman, were created. And so, the, the, the cre that the creation of, of Adam and Eve. can be ascribed to be at the beginning of creation.

That it's, it's a short time, as, as it were, a week of creation. we find the biblical origin of death in scripture being that it comes by man, the sin of man, and we looked at that and, we also looked at science that has not proven millions of years scientifically. It's speculation, it's conjecture. And so there's that idea, and by the way, consensus is not proof.

Just because a bunch of people agree on something doesn't make it so. But consensus, that idea of consensus has become such a, a dominant part of our, our thinking and, and it's as if, if we get enough people to agree on something, then that must be the truth. And I don't know if you saw this news item. It was 2 or 3 weeks ago.

There was a A, a, a celebrity. I, I forget who it was because I didn't recognize the man's name. He might have been a rapper, a rap artist or something, but anyways, he was a, a famous person in his particular area. Of, endeavor.

And he came up with this idea saying that the world is definitely flat. And so, of course, he's getting a lot of, of feedback on that. But the, the, one of the statements I read that, that argued against his view that the world is flat is that, that scientists have, have had consensus for a long time that the world is round. Well, it made me laugh because.

Is that all we've got to say that the world is round is consensus? Don't we have more than that? Can't we say that we actually have hard evidence that the world is round, that our planet is, is, more round, it's not flat, but there's this seeming, desire to rely on consensus and, I think hard evidence would be a, a much more secure thing to go for with this. So, the other next item is that radiometric dating is not foolproof.

that, and we, we talked about that, how that they get wildly different, numbers of years for, for testing things and, and even for, testing of, of rocks that we know are very young, like from, volcanic eruptions and how they, they are very inaccurate. We've looked at, arguments against the evolution of mankind, that there is a lack of proof in the fossil record, a lack of support from the biblical account, and that there's this requirement of too much faith for too little evidence.

And we've talked about those items. we had this quote from, From Philip Johnson, who says the Darwinist approach has consistently been to find some supporting fossil evidence and claim it as proof of evolution and they ignore all the difficulties.

We also have looked at the idea of man consisting or living at the same time as dinosaurs do. And so we looked at, at these three different, Ways of, of saying yes, of affirming that they did coexist at the same time in the Genesis account. We know that Adam named the animals, didn't he? In the, in, in the Genesis account of creation, we see God creating all of the animals in that week and all of those animals being brought before Adam.

we have in Job, the account of the Leviathan, and this, this description of the Leviathan. is, very much a description of this, of a large, dinosaur. We also have non-biblical records, the historical accounts of, of dragons that we looked at and how these dragons, would have been, what we would now call dinosaurs. We looked at the idea that the word dinosaur is, is a relatively young term, that's been around for about 150 years or so.

And so, prior to that, they would have been called, dragons or large lizards. We've also looked at, the lifespan of man in Genesis, it, it gives us lifespans and, and they're extraordinarily long. So how are we to interpret those literally? So we, we dealt with that and we dealt with the fact that there have been differences in lifespans before the fall.

the lifespan was eternal. The man was, was not expected to die, that, he was to continue to live, to eat of the tree of life, and he, there would be no death. But after the fall, whoops. After the fall, before the flood, death was introduced into the world and man did die, but there were still extraordinarily, compared to what we experienced, long life spans.

And so then we see it changing then after the flood. And this, this graph shows how that when the flood happens, the, the life spans severely drop off and comes down to what we currently experience. And it's believed that, that the best explanation is has to do with genetics. And we talked about the, the genetic load.

We talked about also the fact that the environment changed and the environment had apparently something to do with the shorter lifespans. Then we've talked about, last week, the, the different Christian theories or views of the beginnings. And, so we've talked about, the gap theory. That sees a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, that a cataclysmic event such as the fall of Lucifer from heaven destroyed the original creation, and in verse 2 and onward describes a recreation and should be interpreted literally.

That, so the gap theorists do interpret from verse two on literally, but they do believe that there is a gap there that would explain the old Age appearance of what we see today. The next one is theistic evolution. We talked about that life evolved from simple organisms that God created, that God created the elements, God created the structure, and even created life to give it its beginning, but then those organisms evolved according to what, the evolutionists of today would say, that they believe in a day and age view that there's no flood.

That there was survival of the fittest from the beginning.

And then we talked about this view, this has gained a lot of popularity. in the last, couple of decades, progressive creation embraces a Big bang, rejects biological evolution of life. Days of creation were long and overlapping periods. Pre-humans did not have a spirit, and death, disease, suffering prior to Adam and Eve was present.

And that the, the flood was a local flood, the flood of Noah was a local flood. That's, those are the positions that they take. and so we talked about those last week. So what is at stake?

And one of the, the concerns or reasons for even, even covering these things and talking about the differences is we do believe that there are some things at stake here. We're talking about the authority of scripture. Does the scripture speak for itself and say what it means to say? And that also goes with the clarity of, of scripture.

is it clear? Is the historicity reliable? are the miracles real? And what about the gospel?

Is the gospel impacted from some of these views? And we would argue that the, that's, that it's very possible that they're impacted and these are very dangerous views to take. And just because they're dangerous doesn't mean it's an argument against them, but it should make us think, should make us be careful. We should be cautious before just buying into it and say, well, it doesn't matter.

It always matters what our views are and that's why we get into the debate of, of what is truth in, in these things. And so, In summary, if we, if we abandon a literal, grammatical, historical hermeneutic regarding the Genesis account of creation, and we open the door for such abandonment in other parts of scripture. Our worldview is rooted in assumptions and presuppositions, as are all worldviews that must be called into question whenever they lead us away from biblical teaching.

And what we are, the position that we're taking is that the scripture is, is where we go to first and, and last week, Pastor Mike talked about The sixty-seventh book and which is all of creation and how it has validity and, we just, want to add on to that a little bit, and that is this.

Revelation from God has, has layers. And if you think about it, in a pictorial way, this is how I was thinking about it last Sunday. As Mike was, was talking about this is, when I was a kid going to, to school, we had what's called overhead projectors. And so in overhead projectors, the, the instructor could put, put down a, a, a slide and then he put another one on top of that that brought more or added to what was being projected up and, and maybe even a third one to, to bring more clarity.

And, and I would argue that's what, how revelation is from God. In Psalm 19, The psalmist writes that the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows his hand to work. And that, that, that day after day, The creation is calling out the glory of God, and that man can look at, at creation and see the glory of God.

And, and so David is amazed at, at, at what he sees and how it is declaring the glory of God. And that is revelation. And as we look at it, we see that it is true, and we should accept it as being true. But there is another overlay that helps us understand that first level of revelation.

And so in that same psalm, He, he goes into the law of the Lord is perfect. Converting the soul and he goes in to do, to express his, his reverence for the revelation of scripture to him. That, that would be the Old Testament, the law, the prophets, the writings that are there for us to, to learn our theology and give us clarity over that, that first revelation. So that's the next overlay.

the writer of Hebrews, then the very first two verses of Hebrews, adds to that because now, we're in, in the, in the post, Christ time period. And so the writer of Hebrews starts off with that second level of revelation. In times past, the prophet spoke to us, but now, We have that 3rd level, that is Christ has appeared, the 3rd level of revelation. So Christ gives clarity to the, the Old Testament, to the prophets.

And so we have these 3 levels of revelation and, and they should be seen in that order. If we flip those over, we're gonna get a completely different picture. We're gonna see things in the wrong way, have a, have a skewed perspective. And so, that, that's something that we need to, evaluate in the way we're looking at what is being revealed to us by God.

As we look at the world around us and we're trying to determine things from it, learn from it as we should be. We should be curious about the creation, the world around us. we should be looking at it, through the overlays. of Christ and then his written or special revelation.

Those, those are the lenses that we should be looking at. And so that is how we should be seeing it. And that becomes more clear as we look actually in today's lesson. OK.

Right. The debate between gap theorists, theistic evolutionists, progressive creationists, and the young Earth 6A creationists is not necessarily a salvation issue. But it may be illustrative of the type of attack we see on God's word in Genesis chapter 3. And because hermeneutics, our, our, our method of interpretation.

has to follow a consistent pattern. So if we're gonna interpret Genesis 1 and 2 a certain way that needs to follow through Genesis 3, There are a lot of Christians who, who, think that we shouldn't have disagreements, that we should, that our first, level of importance should be, getting along with each other and agreeing with one another, but there is value in disagreement. The one of the values that I see is that it keeps us searching, keeps us studying, keeps us having to take a look.

It helps us to stay sharp intellectually and, and, scripturally.

It keeps us looking into God's word. if we never disagreed with each other over, these scriptural issues, we would become intellectually lazy. That is our nature. And we would quit looking, we quit studying.

We quit trying to find the truth. We must always be seeking the truth. And this applies to other areas as well. I have a, I had a friend who called me this week that I haven't spoken to in, in, quite some time, but he called and one of the things we talked about is he invited me to this, special event at Viola University, next month.

That's going to be dealing with the issue of, of, the promises made to Israel by God and whether they have been transferred to the church or whether they're still, still to Israel. And that's been a theological argument for, for centuries. and so, why do we have to argue about that? Because we need to find the truth.

God expects us to find the truth. God expects us to keep searching, keep dealing with those things. and so we need to keep, trying to find that. another issue that I, I had thought of, and Mike has talked about this before too, is the idea of, of trying to be cool, that, we need to, to fit in and, and, and maybe, present our message in a way that is acceptable to the outside world.

I've already mentioned consensus does not prove theories. But also we need to realize that the gospel is never gonna be cool to the world. And by the way, cool is really overrated. I, I found that out when I went to my 20th anniversary or reunion for high school and saw how overrated cool was.

Because all the cool guys were just as beat up by life as everybody else. you, we all take the hits and, and the cool doesn't predic prevent any of that. it's just, it's way overrated. I really like the way Wody Baum says this.

He says, we do not need to make the gospel cool. We need to make the gospel clear. That's what we need to do. And that's what the world needs to hear from us, a clear presentation of the gospel.

So we don't need to make the world like our message. We don't need to make the world think that we're fitting in with their, with their schemes. We just need to be clear with what God has said. And so that is, that are, is our gonna be our pursuit.

So then we get to Genesis chapter 3. Now, some of you, I'm sure have experienced the the same thing I have. I, I started reading when I was very young and I love to read. It was the only reason why I wanted to go to school.

After I learned how to read, I didn't need school anymore. I was done with school, or at least I wished I was. But I love to read and, and, so read, you read books and you, you come to a place in the story, you can feel it coming because the author is building up to that, that time, that crucial time. Where the main character.

is going to have to make a hard decision. And you have this fear that you're gonna make the wrong decision. And if the author does take you down to where they make the wrong decision, At least my reaction is, I'm done with this book., that's, that's just all it is. That's all of it for me.

And I remember the first time I read In 2 Samuel, reading the life of David, David was a powerful figure to me. And being a 1011 year old, reading through that and, and he is so compelling and, everything he does is right and he has the right spirit. He's a great leader, and, and, and people just want to follow him and, and I was just so taken with the person of David and Got to chapter 11. In chapter 11.

is it, it, it just dashes it all to pieces. And I remember reading that and feeling the heaviness, the disappointment. The tragedy that's there. And, and from, from that time forward, from that time forward, I've never gotten over this.

Whenever I'm reading through 2 Samuel, I wanna skip that chapter. I just want to skip it. because it's, it's, it's so painful. In Genesis chapter 3, Even though Adam and Eve are not people that.

That we're told a lot about and so we don't really get to know them very well. In the reading of it This is even a greater cataclysm. This is huge because it affects not just their family. But it's, it impacts all of us.

We're all there with them. That's right. And, and so we, we, we are, impacted with it. So we get to Genesis chapter 3.

there are times where I wish we could skip that chapter too, where, do we really have to have this as being part of our story? But yeah, we do. So let's look at Genesis chapter 3. And actually, I'm gonna begin with the last verse of chapter two.

This is, Adam and Eve have been installed in the garden, and this is, this is how God, installs them. It says the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, indeed, as God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden.

The woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. But from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, you should not eat from it or touch it, or you will die. The serpent said to the woman, you surely will not die, for God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. 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, 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. 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. Then the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you?

He said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself. And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.

Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And 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 more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field. On your belly, you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. To the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children.

Yet your desire will be for your husband. He will rule over you. Then to Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying you should not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you.

In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles, it shall grow for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face. You will eat bread till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Now the man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. And now he might stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever.

Therefore, the Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden. To cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So he drove the man out. And at the east of the Garden of Eden, he stationed the cherubim.

And the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life. There was a Songwriter from the 70s who wrote about this and I'd like to read. Part of the words to his song. Because I like the way he, he frames Genesis 3.

Unashamed and naked in a garden that has never seen the rain, rulers of a kingdom full of joy, never marred by any pain. The morning all around them seems to celebrate the life they've just begun. And in the majesty of innocence, the king and queen come walking in the sun. But the master of deception now begins with his dissection of the word.

And with all his craft and subtlety, the serpent twists, the simple truths they've heard. While hanging in the balance. is a world that has been placed at their command. And all their unborn children die as both of them bow down to Satan's hand.

And just before the evening in the cool of the day, they hear the voice of God as he is walking. And they can't abide his presence, so they try to hide away. But still they hear the sound as he is calling. Adam.

Adam, where are you? Adam, Adam, where are you? In the stifling heat of summer, now the gardener and his wife are in the field. You see, they went from being king and queen.

To be in the garden or in the field, and it seems that thorns and thistles are the only crop his struggles ever yield. He eats his meals in sorrow till he sinks into the dust whence he came. But all down through the ages, he could hear his Maker calling out his name. Adam.

Adam, where are you? And there's more to the song. That's written by Don Francisco and you can Google Adam, where are you and find it and you can hear the song. It's a very powerful song.

I've, I've loved that song for many, many years. I like the expression there and I, it, it, it is so clarifies. The, the, ramifications. Of what we, what we experience because of what happened here.

We find here that Adam and Eve are in a perfect Creation. God has created a perfect universe. There is no sin in this universe. There is no bloodshed in this universe.

even between the animals, we find that the animals are all eating vegetation. They're not eating one another. God gives a clear command. Of this one tree, you shall not eat.

And the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. There's a punishment for disobedience. By the way, If a law doesn't have consequences, it's not really a law, is it? And There are consequences for this.

It's also likely that Satan's fall occurred. After day 7. And then, of course, prior to this deception. the, the reason for thinking that is that, God looked at his creation and declared everything to be good.

Everything was good. Everything was right. I was reading. Yesterday, got curious, so I downloaded a, a, a book.

It's actually a really long poem. You've probably, you're probably all familiar with it. It's called Paradise Lost by John Milton. It's been around for many, many years.

But he has a perspective. He, he, he's, at least the first part of the book is about the fall of Satan from heaven. And the attitude. that, that the devil has, he captures, I think, really well.

And this is the attitude that the devil brings into the garden to tempt Eve. And this is what we are seeing, but the attitude is this. He so hates God, so angry at God. He says, it's better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.

And I, I think John Milton gets that. By looking at the rebellion in inhumanity. The the the the natural man. Pushes back against God and, and that is our natural.

attitude toward God, that it's better to reign in hell. than to serve in heaven. Haven't you ever had a friend or a co-worker, somebody that you, you've shared your faith with, have that response or, or a very similar response? I have.

And you probably have too, that there's just this defiance. And that is what Satan is bringing into the garden. And is throwing at Eve in a very clever way, a very seductive way, but nevertheless, it is behind his words. And so he gets Eve to doubt God's word.

To devalue the word of God, to distort it. And then to deny it, to denounce it, to distrust it. And so, she gives in, succumbs to the temptation. And then we have the results of the fall, that we, that we read about.

We have the confrontation. Prior to the confrontation, we have Adam and Eve see that they're naked. They're ashamed, they hide, especially they hide from God. And.

Then there are the curses that are laid out, the future that will be, they're cast out of the garden. And they will have to live east of Eden. God's perfect universe is undermined and we find that death, disease, and decay are introduced into the world. We've looked at in the past at Romans 5:12, by one man, sin entered into the world and death by sin.

And so By this, this act here, the eating of the fruit. Destruction comes upon all mankind. In Romans 820 to 22 talks about the whole creation groaning. Because of sin, that all of creation is underneath this curse.

And And so we find that, that there's a huge change. The, this one act which It can seem so small. To us is much, much bigger than we think. And it's because defiance is like that.

For Adam and Eve in particular, We find that their eyes were opened. They now know good and evil. But what the deceiver Did not tell Eve. Which surprise, surprise, he doesn't ever tell the whole story in Temptation.

See, Temptation never tells you What the real consequences are. What the deceiver did not tell them that knowing Things Knowing for them would be experiential. See, if you're gonna know, yeah, they're gonna eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To no evil for them.

Would, would, would mean that they would be entering into it. They were going to experience evil. For us, we don't just know things from afar. We know things that we experience.

And that's how it would be for Adam and Eve. They did not know that. You did not know that they were going to be going into a different world. That they were going into a world of pain and suffering.

And aren't our temptations very much like that? Our temptations come with the same deception. But then, After we sin, we give in to the temptation. We have the bitter aftertaste.

That comes with it And as James says, if we continue in it, it brings forth death. When it's finished with us, it brings forth death. The, the the temptation is a lie. It always is a lie.

It was a lie here for them. Their eyes were opened. And now they walk into the realization of what they have done. And This, this idea that Satan brings with him that it's better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.

is a philosophy that has turned upside down the natural man, his thinking toward God. Because our freedom. is not getting to do what we wanna do. Our freedom is comes from Christ, comes from God.

He's the one who sets us free. We're no longer slaves to sin, but we are free in Christ, and that's where real freedom is. The bondage comes from the sin, but this temptation puts our thinking completely upside down. That's what we truly then experience.

They experienced nakedness and shame. They attempted to cover their shame. They attempted to hide from God. They shifted the blame.

they experienced difficulty in life after this. Their life then, it was completely changed. But we have God's gracious response to the fall, the proto evangelism, that's the beginning of the gospel, the seed of the woman. the beginning of the gospel.

And so the gospel is set into motion. The, the plan of rescue, that God isn't gonna just leave humankind there. That God is going to set about a plan of rescue. We have the first death.

The death of the animals. To for God to take the, the skins to clothe Adam and Eve, to cover their shame. And in Hebrews 9:22, it talks about without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. And it goes all the way back to this place, to the beginning.

We also see the gracious exile. God said In the morning, in the day that you shall eat of it, you shall surely die. That was the law. God chose to show grace.

And Instead of death immediately. At least a physical death immediately. He just put them out of the garden. And even though they're now in their bodies are now going to begin to deteriorate, things are gonna go wrong.

with their bodies, they're no longer going to live forever. At least in that state. they do get this, this, gracious act of God, and he sets them away from the tree of life. That was a, a very important part of this story that, that God doesn't want them to continue eternally in this broken state.

that God was going to instead have a different way of bringing eternal life to mankind. But one of the things I was thinking about with this is when, when Adam and Eve are, are cast out of the garden. I think it's been part of The subconscious of every Child of Adam and Eve ever since, is to try to find a way back to that garden. And we see it even today.

Even today, people trying to find a way back to the garden. You see it in, in so many of the public policies and things that are going on in our world. Think about that idea of finding your way back to the garden and mean when you think about some of the public policies that are happening. But we live in a world that's broken.

We live in a world that's under the curse. And. And we, we're not going to get back to the Garden of Eden. But we do have a hope to get to a new creation.

See, God's gonna destroy all of this, and we have a new creation to get to. Some key points, Satan attacks God's word. did God say? Did he really say?

Oh, he didn't say that, or he doesn't mean that, or you can't rely on that. he attacks God's word and so that's what he does even today. And in our pursuit of truth, our pursuit of, of, of understanding of, of God's word, let's understand that, that those attacks continue today. They have always been around.

Satan has always tried to lead man astray through this, this means of attacking God's word. That's what God has said. death did not enter the world until after the fall in which sin entered the world, and God responded to our sin through the sacrifices of, through the sacrifice of his son. Genesis 3 is critical for us.

And one of the things that it helps us to understand. is the origin of human suffering. probably about 120 years, somewhere around the 1900s, liberal theology began to really expand and grow. And one of the things that they, created was what was called the problem of suffering.

It's trying to understand God. And human suffering. How can those things go together and they come up with all kinds of schemes and ways of trying to bring those things together. The plain fact is that human suffering has come into the world because of sin.

It's the origin of human suffering and it is with us. Their question is, if God is good and almighty and all knowing, why is there suffering? And some use suffering as a reason to disbelieve in God. Or at least to disbelieve in a God that is involved.

In creation personally, That's one of the, the objections that they have. And yet, The fact is that God is a gracious God. And the fact, and the reason, the evidence for that is that we exist at all. it is an act of God's grace that we exist.

In debt Our existence has any beauty or pleasure, proves that God is a gracious God. When I get up in the morning, go to work, I walk out, I open the garage. And I'm facing the east and there's the sunrise. I look at that.

I can take a deep breath. And say, thank you, God. I don't deserve this. I don't deserve another sunrise.

I don't deserve any of that. I don't deserve anything good from God. God has given to me way more than I deserve. RC Sproll has, has, put forth this, this, idea that I, that has really helped me in, in, in the thinking on this.

we're all familiar with the song Amazing Grace. He gets sung as from what I understand, the most popular hymn in the, in the world today. But I wonder, and in fact, I, I'm pretty sure. That most people are not amazed at his grace.

The The reason why is because of how he gets questioned over things like this. Over human suffering. What we are is, in generally speaking, resentful that we don't get more of his favor. When things go wrong in our life, We get angry at God.

We, we are frustrated with God. We say, God, don't you care? We're not amazed at his grace. We're resentful that we don't get more of it.

And What we need to to realize. In the words of that song. Is the, the pure gospel. That we are wretches.

And that God is not obligated to us in any way. But it's only because of what he has chosen to do. That we have anything good. And so that is one of the applications that should come out of, of what we see here in Genesis 3.

God's amazing grace. We must ponder what was lost in that pivotal failure, and we'll be looking at that more next week. That we should be thinking about that and be amazed at the lengths God would go to to restore us to a place of blessing. And then in a few minutes, we'll be singing songs and worshiping God.

And how appropriate is our worship that erupts from the gospel message that God, in spite of our cosmic treason, has pursued us, has looked for us, has redeemed us from our pit of despair, and has adopted us to be called children of God. God has gone to great lengths for us. And we have much to rejoice in because of that. Let's be filled and consumed with the idea that His grace is amazing.

And what he has done for us is really awesome. And let's be appreciative and thankful of that. let's close in prayer. Father You are good to us.

Thank you for Not leaving us alone. And not walking away. When our parents sinned. And brought despair upon the human race.

Thank you that you have instead searched us out. That our name, our face, who we are, and that you care about us, you love us. And Lord May we be able to rejoice in the impact of all of your goodness, of what the gospel brings to us. And be able to see our place in this epic story of rescue that you have.

brought upon humanity. Thank you for loving us so much that you sent your son. You are good for us and may our rejoicing be real, be deep and abiding. In all of this, our worship of you be true.

Amen.