Hello, and welcome to this
message from Pastor Skip Heitzig of Calvary Albuquerque. We pray that this message
strengthens your relationship with the Lord. If it does, we'd love
to hear about it. Email us at
mystory@calvaryabq.org. And if you'd like to support
this ministry financially, you can give online securely
at calvaryabq.org/giving. After Satan crashed and
burned, he took his evil scheme to the earth in order to
ensnare the first people. When he succeeded, sin
spread to all the world. In the message, Falling
Hard, Recovering Strong, Skip gives us five
practical lessons we can use to deal with
life in a fallen world. Now please turn in your Bible
to Genesis, Chapter 3 as he continues the series,
Crash and Burn. You and I grew up with
nursery rhymes, specially Mother Goose nursery rhymes. They seem innocent
enough, but if you ever stop to look at the
words, when you do, you discover that some of
them are macabre, downright disturbing. Jack and Jill went up the
hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and
broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. Now little Jack was not a king. This was not a king's
crown that he broke. That's an old English
word for his head. So you're singing about a
kid who had a skull fracture. It's raining, it's pouring,
the old man is snoring. He went to bed with
a lump on his head and didn't get up
in the morning. He didn't get up. Why didn't he get up? I'm guessing he
died in his sleep. Some intracranial bleeding,
some hematoma, some bad thing happened to him. Rub a dub dub,
three men in a tub. I don't even want to go there. Then there's a nursery rhyme
about an egg that turns into scrambled eggs for a king. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. And all the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't put Humpty back together again. That was a great fall, but
that is a sort of a set up for something
I want you to look at that is not a nursery rhyme. It is not a fairy tale. It's a real story
about a real fall, and the repercussions
of that we are still feeling to this very day. It's the story of Adam
and Eve in Genesis 3, and it's a real story
about a real man and a real woman with
a real experience. It is a biblical history. And I want to underscore
that because whenever you get to the first
few chapters of Genesis, in the New Testament whenever
it's spoken of or treated, whether it's Jesus or
Paul or anyone else, they always refer to it not as
mythological or allegorical, but always as literal,
historical reality. Jesus referred using
marriage as the topic, and went back to Genesis
3 and went through what happened between Adam and Eve. So if this isn't right,
then Jesus isn't right. If Jesus isn't
right, then you're believing somebody who
didn't tell you the truth. Also, Jesus' own genealogical
records go back to Adam. In Luke, Chapter 3, there is
name after name after name, and it goes all the
way back to Adam. His genealogical record
is traced to Adam. Then you get to
the book of Jude, that single chapter book
in the New Testament, where in Jude, Verse 14, it talks
about the biological record of Enoch-- listen
to what it says-- who was the seventh from Adam. So we are dealing with the back
story behind why everything in the world is so bad. It's because of the
fall that happened. It wasn't Humpty Dumpty
who sat on this wall. It was Adam and Eve
who sat on this wall. And they had a great fall. They fell hard. You might say he bombed. This was the first Adam bomb. Adam really, really bombed out. And we're bummed
out because of it. Paul refers to this in the
fifth chapter of Romans, when he wants to just kind of
show everyone why it's so bad, he goes through one man, sin
entered the world, and death through sin, so that
death spread to all. The one man he was referring
to was this man, Adam. And he makes a contrast
between the one man, Adam, and the one man, Jesus,
who came to fix it all. So the entire world
and all of humanity was affected ever since. Now we're doing a
series, Crash and Burn. And the premise of it is
we want to learn to fly by looking at those who fell. We want to get good
lessons from bad examples. So you know those story so well. You know it so well. And typically when
I teach this, and I have taught it on many
occasions, I outline it. You always want
to give an outline to hang your thoughts on. I typically outline it
according to the people involved or the plot that unfolds. But what I want to
do is jump right in and outline it based upon
the principles that we find. I want this to be
very practical. And there are warnings
that are written about in Genesis, Chapter 3. I'm going to give
you five of them. I'm going to give you five
useful lessons, five warnings to keep us from
falling like these two. And here's the first. Choices will be challenged. Whatever good choice you
make will be challenged. Verse 1, now the
serpent was more cunning than any beast
of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to
the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat
of every tree of the garden? And the woman said
to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of
the trees of the garden. But of the fruit
of the tree which is in the midst
of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat
it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the
woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that in
the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened
and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Eve is immediately
challenged by Satan. Shortly after they are created
in the garden, Adam and Eve, they're now enjoying
this new relationship of marriage in the garden. And she is questioned. She's alone, obviously. Adam has gone off somewhere
naming animals somewhere or exploring the
garden God has made. But he's not there,
and he'll be back. We'll see. But Eve is questioned
by Satan, by this being we looked at in part last time. And she tells the reason why
she has chosen to obey God. Because God said something. This is what God said. This is what, I'm obeying
because God said this. To which he counteracts it,
in saying God didn't say that. So just look at this a
little more carefully, because the Bible tells
us in Second Corinthians that we are not ignorant
of Satan's devices. I wish that were
true of all of us. We are not ignorant or we are
not unaware of his schemes. So let's look at some
of these schemes, because this is the
conception of deception. This is where it all begins. And you will notice
that, first of all, Satan challenged God's love. Verse 1, has got indeed said
you shall not eat of every tree? Now in that question,
there is an implication. This being, Satan, is
implying if God loved you, why would he keep you
from enjoying yourselves? Why would he dare keep away
from you something that would bring to you happiness? Sound familiar? You've heard that. If God is a God of
love, why would he not allow you to have joy? Why would he keep
you in this marriage? You're not happy here. Go get out of it. Whatever makes you happy. He tried the same
with Jesus Christ when he took him to a high
mountain and tempted him. He said, hey, since you're the
Son of God, why are you hungry? How can your father be
so loving that he would neglect the needs of his son? Turn these stones into bread. Man, you could make
a bakery right here. You could put a Panera
bread stand right here in the wilderness. Why would your father
keep you from that? So he challenges God's love. Notice in Verse 4, he
challenges God's word. As soon as Eve says,
listen, this is why. Because God said this. He says in Verse 4,
you're not going to die. You're not going to, God
said you're going to die, but you're not going to die. In other words, he's
calling God a liar. This is a direct
attack on God's word. Satan gets you to
question God's blueprint, God's word, the Bible. This thing's outdated. This won't work in my situation. The Bible won't
work in real life. You have to go to the secular
world to get real help. It's good to believe
on Sunday, but phht. I'll never forget a couple who
came to one of the services some years back. I know about this
because somebody who attends here all
the time was there that day, right behind them. And he overheard her turn to
her husband as I was teaching and said, oh my
goodness, he actually believes this book literally. I said, well, I'm glad she
got that message, because it's true. I do. But it was such a shock. Satan challenges God's word. Third thing I want
you to notice, he challenged God's truth. Verse 5, he says
well, you know, God knows that in the day
that you eat of it, your eyes are going to
be opened and you're going to be like God,
knowing good and evil. Now Satan is suggesting
something here. You're going to be like God. God knows that. God doesn't like competition. Actually, he's sort of
speaking autobiographical. His own experience is he said,
I will be like the most high. And he is still sort
of reeling from that. Saying God doesn't like
anyone to be his equal. He won't tolerate that. God knows if you eat, you're
going to be just like God. Now let's just cut
to the chase here. Satan is a liar. That's what Jesus said. John, Chapter 8, Satan is a
liar, and the father of lies. And he lies about two things
principally, God's character and God's word. Who God is and
what God has said. And his strategy is to get you
to think that what God said isn't the truth, but that
he, Satan, will tell you the whole truth. God can't be trusted. His word can't be trusted. And if his word
can't be trusted, then you might as
well replace the Bible with whatever you feel is
right for you at that time. Make it up as you go along. And so we'll take and
we'll change terms around. And our culture has become
very good at taking old sins and giving them new names. Even the word sin
that I just mentioned, try seeing if that's tolerated. Want a fun little experiment? Talk about sin tomorrow at work. Just bring that up. Just say, hey, I
just want you to know that God says that's sin
and you shouldn't do that. Just try, try that out. See how far that
conversation will last. There are new
terms for old sins. There's a book that's been
put out a few years ago-- I grabbed a little
snippet of it-- called The Officially
Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook. Some of it was written
tongue in cheek. Some of it was written
based on just pure research. The term promiscuous or immoral
is now simply sexually active. When is the last time you
heard anyone being referred to as immoral or promiscuous? They're just sexually active. Instead of dishonest, a person
is ethically disoriented. Differently honest. A drug addict is a person with
a pharmacological difference. Ooh, that sounds
like you earned that. If you're drunk, you're just
chemically inconvenienced, sobriety deprived. Stealing and looting is now
nontraditional shopping. What are you doing? Shopping. A serial killer is somebody
who is socially misaligned, one with difficult to meet needs. Well, that puts a whole new
spin on the Ten Commandments. Instead of, thou
shalt not kill, it's thou shalt not be
socially misaligned. Instead of thou shalt
not steal, it's do not be a nontraditional shopper. Listen, we're all
going to be challenged. When you put the stake
down in the ground that says who you are and
what you believe, your faith is going
to be challenged, your positions are going to be
challenged, your love for God will be challenged, God's love
for you will be a challenged. Jesus in the Bible
says, don't marvel if the whole world hates you. So you just got to
know that going in and you have to be
prepared for how you're going to deal and manage
that kind of challenge, how you're going to meet it. Like the old saying, if you
fail to plan, you plan to fail. So when you are challenged, what
are you going to do to meet it? The Bible says in
Proverbs 22, it's the prudent man that sees
danger and takes refuge. So what you do going in is you
take on the full armor of God, it says. You cling to the truth. Jesus said, you
will know the truth, the truth will set you free. Satan will say, oh no, God
wants to puts you in bondage. I'll make you free. Just know that he'll
do that going in. And when you get
up in the morning, put on the full armor of God
before you go out the door. So choices will be challenged. Here's a second warning,
comes from our text. Allurement does not
mean entitlement. In other words, just
because something looks good doesn't mean you should have it. Verse 6, so when the woman saw
that the tree was good for food and it was pleasant
to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise--
what's wrong with any of that-- she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her
husband with her and he ate. This forbidden fruit,
whatever it was-- and we don't know
what it was-- Well, I thought it was an apple. That's just an old
kind of a legend that comes from a few Latin words. And so people think
it's an apple. And there's even
a legend that says that Adam choked on his
apple, that's why men today have an Adam's apple. I mean, I kid you not. This is, it gets nuts. So we don't know what
kind of fruit it was. But whatever it was, I wouldn't
be tempted by an apple. A mango, yeah. Well, whatever it
was, to Eve, it was attractive in
every conceivable way. It was attractive physically,
nutritionally, educationally. It's good for food,
pleasant to the eyes, desirous to make one wise. That is what I want. It looks good. I want it. Now listen to this and see how
closely these verses parallel. In the New Testament, John
writes, in First John, Chapter 2, love not the world. Neither the things
that are in this world. If anyone loves the world, the
love of a father is not in him. For all that is of the
world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride
of life, is not of the father but is of the world. And the world is passing
away and the lust thereof. But whoever does the will
of God abides forever. Now look how closely
those parallel. She saw it was good for
food, lust of the flesh. She saw that it was pleasant
to the eyes, lust of the eyes. She saw that it was
desirous to make one wise, the pride of life. I mean, it was just kind of
like, check, check, check. Firing on all cylinders for Eve. It just looked good, and
she felt, it looks good. I ought to have it. It's like the woman I had
told you about, I think, in previous times
about-- this gal, she was married to a cheapskate. Her husband said, whatever
you do when you go out, you are not allowed
to buy anything for yourself unless you
ask my permission first. Some men still sort
of do that today. But this guy was
just a miser, right? So she went out and she
said, I'm going shopping. And her husband reeled around,
said you're going what? I'm going shopping. It's not nontraditional
shopping, don't worry. I'm not going to steal anything. Just going shopping. He says, you're going
window shopping. You will look but
you will not buy. You got it? She goes, I got it. I know, honey. So she comes back a couple hours
later with a bag and a brand new dress. Husband said, I thought I said
you're not to buy anything. She goes, honey, I know. But I tried this dress on
and it looks so good on me and I was tempted. He said, you were tempted? You should have said, get
thee behind me, Satan. She goes, I said that,
but when he got behind me, he said, you know,
from the back, it really looks good, too. I'm just saying. Eve's cravings blurred
Eve's convictions. What she saw, and she looked at
it, and she kept looking at it, and she gazed upon it. And in so doing, she ignored
God's warnings about it. So Eve's look offset God's law. She thought, I have to have it. Proverbs 23 says, do not look
on the wine while it is red, when it sparkles in the cup,
when it swirls around smoothly. At the last, it bites
like a serpent and stings like a viper. In other words, there's lots
of pretty things in this world that will hurt you. They look good. They seem good. They feel good, but they're
not necessarily good. And before you think,
well, I'm entitled to it. I deserve it. Let me tell you
something, we are entitled to whatever God gives us. Whatever God, God
knows what you need. He knows your needs. He also knows your greeds. And he's promised to meet
your needs, not your greeds. He knows what you need. And you are entitled to
whatever God, in his grace, decides you ought to have,
nothing more, nothing less. Paul the Apostle
might have thought, I'm entitled to a healing. After all, I'm the
great Apostle Paul. I do more to spread the gospel
around this world than anybody else. I'm right in the chunk
of the New Testament. I deserve for God to heal me. Because he had a
physical affliction. And he said, I asked God
to heal me three times. And God told him this,
my grace is enough. My grace is sufficient for you. And my strength will be
manifest in your weakness, not in the absence
of your weakness. So you and I are entitled
to whatever God gives us. Allurement doesn't
mean entitlement. Here's a third warning. Disobedience is
worse than deception. Now I'm stating it this way
because Eve, we will find out, was deceived. Adam knew what he was doing. In Verse 6, it says the woman
saw the tree was good for food. She's checking it out. It was pleasant to the eye. She's scoping it out. A tree desirable
to make one wise. She's thinking about it more. She took its fruit and ate. She also gave to her
husband with her and he ate. Now that's all it
says about Adam. He ate it. That's all we're told here. Eve is a little different. She's listening to the devil. She's having a
conversation with him. She's reasoning this thing out. When it comes to Adam,
he's just like a guy, grabbed it and ate it. Done. It's over. When you get to
the New Testament, you know who to blame for
this whole fall falls on? Not Eve, Adam. He's the guy responsible. And here's why. Paul the Apostle, 1 Timothy,
Chapter 2, verse 14 tells us, Adam was not deceived. But the woman being deceived
fell into transgression. All of that to say,
Eve was tricked, Adam knew what he was doing. He rebelled. So deception is one thing,
disobedience is another. Both of them are bad. What they both did was wrong. But one is worse than another. Disobedience, flat
out, I'm going to do what I want when I want
it, is much worse than being tricked into something. This is why the prophet
Samuel said to Saul, to obey is better than sacrifice, to
heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as
the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness as
iniquity and idolatry. Now we got to ask this
question, why did Adam eat it if he knew it was wrong? She didn't. Yeah, maybe you're right. No, OK. But Adam comes along,
knowing it's wrong, says, I'm going to do it. Why did he do that? If he knew it was wrong,
why did he eat of it? Well, we don't know for sure,
but perhaps, some suggest, it's because he loved
Eve so much that he wanted to share
in her punishment, didn't want her to be alone. We're in this together. Now that might sound
noble and chivalrous, but I got to tell
you, it's dumb. In fact, it's idolatry. Whenever you place your
wife or your husband or your child or anyone else
above God, that's idolatry. So that was not a smart move. Now I don't know
what he was thinking. He could have thought, but
we love each other so much and our love will get us
through this hard time. Disobedience is
worse than deception. There's a fourth lesson
I want you to notice, and that is a hard heart
will bring a hard life. Or put another way, life
gets harder when you decide not to do what's right. I'm sure Adam and Eve had
no clue how bad things were going to get after this. Do you? You think they knew
all the repercussions? Uh-uh. But what are some of them? Verse 16, to the
woman he said, I will greatly multiply your
sorrows and your conception. In pain, you will
bring forth children. So every time you go
through labor pains, women, when you have those wonderful
babies and it hurts so much, just say, thank you, Eve. Your desire shall
be for your husband and he shall rule over you. Then to Adam he said,
because you have heeded the voice of your wife and
have eaten from the tree which I commanded you saying,
you shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground
for your sake. In toil, you shall eat of it,
all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it
shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the
herb of the field. In the sweat of your
face, you shall eat bread until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to
dust you shall return. And Adam called his
wife Eve because she was the mother of all living. Now let's just say that
Adam made the decision to join his wife,
knowing it's wrong. But he said, you know what? I don't know what's going to
happen but whatever happens, our love will be
able to take it. We can sustain it. We love each other so much. I bring this up
because, you know, I've met so many couples
over the years who are in a marriage, things
aren't going right. And then they see somebody
else and they start swearing, that's my soulmate. And we're together and
boy, we have a love and we have a spark when
we enter the room together. And I know that if
I have this affair and maybe leave
my wife or husband and have this person that
it's going to disrupt things and my friends and my kids. But our love is so strong,
it's going to carry us through whatever storm we face. I've heard that. What I want you to
know is this, whatever price you think you'll pay is
not the price you will pay. The price that Adam
and Eve actually paid is not what they
thought, otherwise they wouldn't have done it
had they known how bad it's going to get. Now just think for a moment how
good life was for Adam and Eve in the garden. They had it made in the garden. They didn't pay any rent. They didn't have
to pay any bills. Every need was met, every meal
was provided, life was good. But when they crossed the line
from obedience to disobedience, from compliance
to noncompliance, everything in life,
everything in life changed and became much harder. Now they're no longer pure. Soon they will no longer
be kept in that garden. They will be cast
out of the garden. Now, no longer can they get
low lying fruit already hanging there, already
provided for them. All they have to do is walk
by and take it and eat it. Now they have to
work the ground. Now they have to sweat and earn
and work the ground themselves. So I think it's summed up nicely
when Paul, in Galatians 6, says, do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows,
that will he also reap. And if he sows to the
flesh, he will of the flesh reap corruption. If he sows to the spirit,
he will of the spirit reap everlasting life. Adam and Eve had no clue. But here is the truth, a hard
heart brings a hard life. Life now gets much
harder for this couple. Now not only for them, but
this marks the darkest day for the human race. What happens to the
human race after this, in fact, this is where
all the trouble begins. Up until this point, innocence
was flowing through the blood veins of Adam and Eve. But now a fatal contaminant has
entered, the contaminant that was first seen last time
when we were together and we studied the fall
of Lucifer in heaven. And he said something
in his heart. He thought something
in his mind. I will, I will, I will, I will. That contaminant is now
on earth in Adam and Eve. That sin contaminant will
flow through every human being throughout history, from
that time till our time. You see, when Adam
sinned, he generated what theologians call
a constitutional change of character. He acted as the federal
head of the human race, so that he did something
that affected all of us. It's like a kid
standing in front of a lake in the mountains,
early in the morning. A pristine reflection can
be seen of the mountains in the distance on that lake. Everybody's enjoying
the reflection. It's a perfect moment until
one kid decides to take a rock and throw it in the lake. And the image is marred. Adam was the kid who threw
the rock in the lake. And the image is marred. The image of God that
we're created in, the image of God, the image is
marred and has been ever since. In fact, not only does it affect
Adam and Eve, not only will it affect their children and
their children's children and children's children's
children and our kids, all of creation is affected. Did you know that? All of creation, Romans,
Chapter 8, the whole creation groans and labors with birth
pangs together until now. That can be seen geologically
in earthquakes and mudslides, landslides,
volcanoes, avalanches. It could be seen
meteorologically in floods, tornadoes,
hurricanes, cyclones, droughts. It can be seen morally in
the breakdown of marriage and family, in rampant
sexual practices, and it can be seen culturally
in the tyranny of government, in economic injustice and
in business practices. It can be seen with the
deprivation and decadence seen in art and music, year by year. And it can be seen individually
in physical disease, mental disease,
separation from God. That's how bad it got. That's how bad it got. Don't believe the hype, folks. Satan pulls something out and
dangles it in front of you and you go, ooh,
that looks good. Look a little closer and notice
underneath that little thing is a hook. That's just the bait. Don't believe the hype. He'll tell you the
pleasure of drinking. He won't tell you the
result of alcoholism. He'll tell you about the
pleasure of illicit sex, not the result of a sexually
transmitted disease. He'll tell you the
pleasure of drug use, but not the result
of an addiction. In other words, he'll dangle
before you the immediate. He'll keep from
you the ultimate. Ooh, that looks so good. I'm going to eat that fruit. Life gets harder when you
don't do what's right. I want to close with a fifth
lesson, a fifth warning, a fifth principle that
comes out of this chapter. And that is a covering is
always better than a cover up. Immediately, they try to
cover up what they did. Verse 7, then the eyes of
both of them were opened and they knew that
they were naked. That's just a funny
little sentence to me. And they sewed fig
leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound
of the Lord God walking in the garden in
the cool of the day. And Adam and his
wife hid themselves from the presence
of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. And then the Lord called to Adam
and said to him, where are you? So he said, I heard
your voice 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 which I commanded you that you should not eat? Then the man said, the woman--
we always do that, men. We want to pass the buck,
it's the chick, it's the gal. It's called passing the buck. But he's not just
passing the buck to her, he's actually saying,
God, it's your fault. Notice what it says, the
woman you gave to be with me. This is your idea. I went to sleep single,
I woke up married. This is the wife you gave me. She gave me of the
tree and I ate. And the Lord God said
to the woman, what is this that you have done? She sort of does the same thing. It's the serpent. He deceived me. And I ate. Hiding is the
instinctive reaction to guilt. When we
have guilt, we hide. Where is that person that
used to come to church all the time with you? Why don't they anymore? They want to hide from you. Why? They're uncomfortable
being around you. They don't know
what you're going to say to them or now what
they're going to say to you. So they hide. I remember when my
son was a little kid. He got one report card
that was particularly bad and I was looking
for the report card. He had hid it. And he goes, that report
card, where is that? I don't know what
I did with that. We finally found it. And I understood why
he wanted to hide it. But when I looked
at it, I smiled, because I remember I also would
hide some of my report cards from my parents,
that weren't so good. Now where do we learn
that behavior from? Adam. Adam. He did it first. They're not even comfortable
being around God anymore. God used to hang out with
them and walk with them in the cool of the day. They're not even comfortable
in God's presence. And notice, they become
very self-conscious. There's a new awareness. Hey, we're naked. I laugh at that
because you mean, you guys just now
figured that out? You don't think like a
week ago or a day ago that the cool air on your skin
sort of was a dead giveaway that you have no clothes on? The point is, they never
thought about it before. Now they become self-conscious. Now they're very self-aware. Guilt does that. It makes a person
very self-oriented. When they're around people,
they think about themselves. What do they think of me? And that's what happens. So look at Verse
21, also for Adam and his wife, the Lord
God made tunics of skin and clothed them. And the Lord God
said, behold, the man has become like one of
us to know good and evil. And now he has put out his hand. Unless he put out his hand and
take also from the tree of life and eat and live
forever, God didn't want him to live in that fallen
state, that's why he kept him out of the garden. Therefore the Lord God sent
him out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground from
which he was taken. So he drove out the man,
and he placed cherubim to the east of the Garden
of Eden and a flaming sword, which turned
every way to guard the way to the tree of life. So this whole fig leaf
ensemble they were wearing was just not working. First of all, have you
ever felt fig leaves? They're very rough. I can't imagine putting
them on the tenderest parts of your body. But they put figure leaves on. Now something happens whenever
you pick a fig leaf or any leaf and you try to wear it. You know what happens
to it eventually. It dries, or it
dies, it falls off. And then you're naked again. So it's a very temporary fix. It won't last very long. So God clothes them
with animal skins. This is the first
instance of innocent blood shed to cover human sin. They want to make a cover up. God wants to give
them a covering. And so an animal dies. In order to be clothed
with animal skins, animals have to die. Blood has to be shed. That's what sin does. Sin kills. Now when this happened,
I can only imagine Adam and Eve going, what? What just happened? You know why? Because God made a
promise back in Chapter 2. In the day that you eat of that
fruit, you will surely die. So I got to tell you, when God
came to the garden that day and said, Adam, where are you? Adam going around,
oh, goodie, it's God. He was turning to Eve
going, we're dead. We're going to die. God said we're going to die. This is God coming after us. Only to discover
that they didn't die, that something died in their
place, for them, to cover them. It's anticipating the gospel
of Jesus Christ, the covering through the gospel. God is showing that it's
possible for a substitute to die for a sinner. You may want to cover up. You need a covering. You always have two choices
in dealing with sin. Here they are, ready? Whenever there is
sin, you can do one of two things, run
from God, run to God. Run from God,
that's instinctive. That's guilt. That's hiding. That's separation. Run to God, that's redemption. God, cover my sin. Well, Humpty Dumpty
sat on a wall and Humpty Dumpty
had a great fall. And all the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't put Humpty back together again. Humpty needs a better king. The King of Kings can do
what Humpty's king cannot do. The King of Kings, our
King, is in the business of taking broken lives and
putting them back together. And he does so by a
covering, by sending his son to die on a cross. As predicted also in this
chapter, in Verse 15, the proto evangelium
of the Old Testament. Don't have time to
get into it, but it speaks about someone who
will be born to crush the head of Satan, eventually. Beautiful promise. Adam and Eve are experiencing
that covering in this moment. Father, we thank you
for incredible truths of people who fell, and
this fall, this bomb affected us all. This isn't like other
sins that we read about, or other people's
activities we hear about. This is something
that affects us all. Lord, I just pray that
we would walk away remembering that it never pays
for us to make our own get up, our own covering. Because it's our own works,
and they're inadequate. They bring temporary, at
best, relief, but not eternal. But what you offer in sense of
a covering for sin, like John the Baptist, he
said, look, there's the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world. One man by one man's
sin entered the world, but by a second Adam, another
man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the God man, we can know life,
forgiveness, and covering. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for the
gospel, even in the fall. In Jesus' name, Amen. In the Garden of
Eden, Adam and Eve went from flying to
falling pretty quickly. How will you use the lessons in
this teaching to navigate life as a follower of God? We'd love to know. Email mystory@calvaryabq.org. And just a reminder, you can
give financially to this work at calvaryabq.org/giving. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from Calvary Albuquerque.
