In this sermon, the speaker begins with a prayer, expressing gratitude for the opportunity to share the word of God. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the predicament of mankind and the need for salvation. The speaker references Luke 19:10, which states that the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost, referring to the events in Genesis chapter 3. He highlights the conversation between God and Adam after Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, emphasizing the blame-shifting and disobedience that occurred. The speaker also mentions Revelation chapter 12, which symbolically represents the conclusion of Genesis 3 and introduces the enemy in the form of a serpent.

This is the sixth study in the book of Genesis conducted by Chuck Missler. The subject of this tape is Genesis chapter 3. We have bibliographies tonight, but for those of you that have money to burn, there are 36 references here, and in looking it over I know I left out some. But I'm not recommending them all, I'm listing them just for those of you that hear me make reference to them on the tape. This will give you a detail that you can, you know, use for whatever purpose you might. Borrow the books, or here and there, there might be something that catches your eye you might want to acquire for yourself. One of the things that you'll find, I think, it's fun to do as a serious student of the scriptures is to build your own library of references you're comfortable with. Not all of these references are recommended. They're listed here for just your background. In terms of just basic references, the first few are sort of fundamental to a study. We've been leaning fairly heavy on Henry Morris, several of his books. A very large volume called the Genesis Record is an outstanding commentary, but from a technical point of view. I personally am most fond of Arthur W. Pink's leanings in Genesis, and we'll be leaning on that particular volume more and more in later parts of the study. The rest of these are pretty straightforward. I might comment on Jameson, Fawcett, and Brown. They have a five-volume set that I've had since I was a teenager and I'm in love with. It's one of the oldest, one of the most enjoyable general commentaries, and we're leaning on it in Genesis. It's excellent. Robert Jameson's, it's one of the five-volume set. The rest of these in that list are fairly straightforward. Barnhouse, who I really like as an author, I'm disappointed in his Genesis, but I list it for completeness. I then have listed some of the books we've talked about when we talk about the origin of the universe. The little paperback by James Reed, God, the Atom, and the Universe, I think is very worth those of you that are interested in those things. It's a more timely, more modern rendering of current thinking in cosmology relative to the Bible, the biblical viewpoint. Henry Morris is a pretty good one, too. The Early Earth by Whitcomb. We have a couple here. One is by Immanuel Wilikowski. If you haven't read Worlds in Collision and you like this sort of thing, he's not a Christian, it's not a biblical commentary as such, but it's a very creative, imaginative discussion of some early catastrophes and recorded in the memory of man. He has a theory that originally created an uproar in 1950, was pooh-poohed by most of the scientific community, but over the last 20 years has gradually gained more and more standing. Very independent of whether you agree with his theories or not, it's an incredibly creative, very scholarly piece of work you might find enjoying. Patton Hatch and Stan Howard are three engineers, orbital mechanics, computer programmers, that have done a computer model relating to the orbit of Mars and they deal with the long day of Joshua and six other things. And that's mentioned here because that's also, for those of you that like this kind of peripheral reading, that's one that we talked about in great length, the Spiritual State of Joshua, and the Carl Sagan edited package on the Extraterrestrial Intelligence Symposium. I recommend that only for those of you that might have a very deep engineering or scientific background. But several of you have asked me about it, so I put in the details. On the Gap Theory, it's generally attributed to Pember, which is the pro. It's a book that I like to own for lots of other reasons. And the rebuttal to the Gap Theory is also listed, Western Fields. I don't agree with Fields, but it's a very scholarly work and it's something you might find enjoying, for those of you that want to hear the other side of the story. Theory of Evolution has a long list of things. The first two are paperbacks. Walter Lamert, there's a lot of stuff on creation and evolution that may need more time than these particular ones. The Flood we haven't gotten into yet, but there's a series of references there. A small paperback by Whitcomb, which is very readable. And those of you that are more serious students of The Flood, the second reference by Whitcomb and Morris together as a joint piece is one of the most definitive recent works on The Flood. Very scholarly, very technical, it's very scientific, very readable, don't be afraid of it, but a very thorough treatment of The Flood. And the rest of these are recordings of the Ararat expeditions and some of the findings, and they're quite readable and enjoyable if you're interested in that. There are a few others here in Typology, which is studies of Genesis, particularly with emphasis on types. The little book by Dehaan was one of my first real introductions to that approach to Genesis, and I enjoy Dehaan anyway, he's very readable. I've listed a couple of scholastic references just for thoroughness, both Leupold, which is a two-volume set on Genesis, is exhaustive, tedious, dry as dust, you've got to be really interested in it. But your library would be incomplete without it if you're going to be a scholar on the book. And William Henry Green's book is perhaps the classical refutation, incidentally in 1895, originally published, which is studying the unity of the book of Genesis, and it's another approach to refuting the so-called documentary hypothesis. I took the trouble of listing a couple of other things that you may or may not have discovered. Your most inexpensive investment in books is a Bible handbook. I was raised on Halley's, which is outstanding, except it's terrible in the book of Revelation. So I've listed Unger here, which I also have, have not used it as much. I think it's as good as Halley on the other stuff, and it's not as confused on the book of Revelation. So Unger's or Halley's are both little $3.95, very compact, but quite thorough companions for Bible study, especially they're nice and small, and they're easy to carry under a pine tree in the mountains or on the beach or whatever, and they're a handy aid or help. If you're a serious student of Scripture, a copy of Strong's or Young's, exhaustive concordance is indispensable. So I listed, I happen to prefer Strong's because it's got other references that key to it. I have gone through most of the different cycles. I personally still retreat back to a Schofield reference, although I emphasize the New Schofield, the one that was revised in 1967. It's vastly superior to the original, but it's the one that I happen to prefer. I went on the New American Standard kick for a while and several others, but I just find I go back to the Schofield reference as one that I'm comfortable with. I mention this just as long as you're putting a bibliography together, and I've also got a cassette tape thing in there and so forth. One of the books that I neglected to add, because it's not directly Genesis, but if I was typing this again, under the gap theory, I might also add a book called The Invisible War by Donald Gray Barnhouse. It's actually a study of the origin of Satan and all of that, but it's a perspective, one of my favorite books, an excellent book, but he also leads in from a gap theory frame of mind, for what it's worth. Let's open with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we just praise you and thank you for the privilege of being here tonight. We're conscious, Father, that there are no accidents in your kingdom. We thank you, Father, that you've called us to this hour to share with you. We ask you, Father, to just open our hearts and minds and understanding to your word and show us those things which you have for us this night. And, Father, in all these things, we would just seek to behold and know better the Messiah of Israel, in whose name we pray. Amen. Okay, we're in chapter 3, and we touched on it last time, but I'd like to get into it a little deeper tonight. Chapter 3 of the book of Genesis is probably one of the most awesome chapters in the entire Bible because it's the one chapter from which you could probably build an entire sound theology. It's sometimes called the seed plot of the Bible. The things that are dealt with in this chapter are absolutely flabbergasting if you really try to detail it out. It is, of course, the famous story of the temptation and fall, but it lays the foundations for all the major doctrines of the Bible. It begins the drama that Barnhouse talks about as the invisible war. The peak of the chapter, in a sense, is a declaration of war by God himself against the enemy. It is also that very verse that starts prophecy. If you're going to be a student of prophecy, and again, our study in Genesis is intended, there may not be much evidence of it yet, but it's intended to be a prophetic study of the book. And in that sense, we really take our departure from verse 15 of this chapter. We're going to have in this chapter an explanation for the predicament of mankind. We're going to have an introduction without explanation of our enemy in the form of a serpent. We're going to learn something of his subtle devices. We're going to also be awed by man's powerlessness and the futility of his attempts to take care of himself. We're also going to see the origin of religion in this chapter. We're also going to see God's attitude and his provision for us. We might point out that this chapter is the ultimate refutation of evolution or Darwinism, because as Darwin would have us progress from the bottom to the top in concept, God's clear revelation is that it's the other way around, that man started in fellowship with God and has tumbled to the bottom, to the point that his predicament is hopeless as far as man's own efforts are concerned. It's also a refutation, incidentally, to most of the notions you and I grew up with sociologically. We live in a society in which we ascribe man's behavior to heredity and environment. We're just very preoccupied about that sociologically. It may never have occurred to us that that's got little to do with it in the spiritual sense, because Adam had an ideal heredity and an ideal environment, and he blew it. We're heirs to that. Someone has said, one of the writers pointed out, that what we need is a new birth spelled with an I, not with an E. In a sense, it's okay. Now, let's just jump in. I know we covered some of this last time, but to get the continuity, we'll start with verse 1. And it says, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And we covered some of those, the concept of the serpent earlier, recognizing we don't know what he really was, because we only know the serpent after the condemnation, after the curse. What he was, his form and capabilities and role, we have no insight into practically. But anyway, moving on. And he said to the woman, Yea, half God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the first step in his sequence, and this is a sequence that's really worth your study. If you carry away anything else from these studies, you might really study chapter 3 and study specifically the serpent's approach. His first step is to create doubt. That doubt, that planting of a doubt. Yea, half God said, I mean, did he really mean that? That you shall not eat of every tree of the garden. The woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Now she adds to that. And we discussed that last time, the entrance in the sense of a form of legalism or extra burden. That was not what God said. He said nothing about touching it. And you can dwell on that whole idea. She adds to that in Proverbs 30, verse 6. Comments on our adding to God's word. He strongly recommends we don't. And I'll leave that as a footnote and we'll move on. He now has gotten the woman to the point where he is at the point where he can openly contradict. He says, God hath said ye shall not, excuse me, and the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. Now there is the, we've gotten to this stage, dialogue has begun. That's the first mistake. And he openly contradicts God's word. For the God doth know that the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and the tree desired to make one wise. She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat. Now the rationalization that takes place always fascinates me. And we commented this last time. I'm just trying to get a review so as we go. But it was good for food. Is there anything wrong with something that's good for food? Absolutely not. It's pleasant to the eyes. Is there anything wrong with something that's pleasant to the eyes? Not intrinsically. Has a tree to be desired to make one wise. That all sounds straightforward. There's only one thing wrong. It was prohibited by God. That's just the only small footnote on that one. Now almost every trap we fall into, we have the capability to rationalize our way into. Never in your life, ever underestimate the capacity of man to rationalize. In a trial court, most attorneys know that what you do is you don't really try to convince the judge of your position. What you really try to do is to get him to want to render you a favorable verdict, and then give him a path of law to rationalize it, called precedent and what have you. It's human nature. If you're a salesman, what you really end up doing is getting your prospect to want to make a favorable decision to you, and then you build, whether it's economic or what have you, the justification so that it appears to be a prudent decision. There's nothing wrong with that. That's just the way man is put together. Never underestimate the ability to rationalize. The rationalization that is here is absolutely irrelevant in terms of what's happening in the sense that it's a violation of God's law. Very simple law, only one. This is the means by which man, Mr. and Mrs. Man, gained experiential knowledge of sin. That was the kind of knowledge God would have had us miss, if you will. It's interesting also that if you look at the food, it was good for food, it was pleasant to the eyes, and it was desired to be wise. You can, from Proverbs 8 and so forth, speak of wisdom as a spiritual kind of wisdom, and if that's true, then the food is for the body, the eyes for the soul, the beauty for the soul, and the wisdom for the spirit. You've got body, soul, and spirit involved in a trinity of attack by Satan here. For those of you that are mystics, I'll throw that out. And if you think that's interesting, then take a look carefully at the temptations of Jesus Christ. Satan attacked that the same way. Command these stones to be made bread. That was appealing to his need for food. Cast yourself down from the pinnacle. A spectacular show that would appear to his psyche or soul, or that aspect of it. And of course, this last final attempt was to claim worship. And we again have the body, soul, and spirit model in that temptation. For those of you that want to chase that down, you can run with that one. Now, there's one other thing. We talked last time, rather heavily, about a different twist to Adam. And I spoke typologically. We mentioned last time the possibility, or I shouldn't put it that way, the approach or the view that Adam, in a sense, was a type of Christ. And I sort of gave you the graduate course before the basics because I want to go at that the other way around. We find in the scripture that we speak of Christ as the second Adam. And while I gathered from the questions last time, I may have caused a lot of people some confusion. There's no question about that Adam sinned. I was not trying to elevate Adam. I was simply trying to show you a model, typologically, of Adam's behavior. Adam sinned. He repudiated God's authority. He repudiated his love for him. And he repudiated his truth. The second Adam, which is a title of whom? Jesus Christ. Revealed God's love, in that he came to seek and to save that which was lost. And we can think of a dozen other examples of that. He came to reveal, not repudiate, God's truth. The gospel is full of it. It is written that these things might be fulfilled. The Emmaus road, where he showed all those things concerning himself, and so forth. Not one jot or one tittle would pass from the law, that is the Old Testament, the scripture, until all be fulfilled. So Christ was here to reveal his truth. In fact, if you probe for a definition of truth, it's when the word and the deed become one. And he was that deed of God incarnate. We'll come more to that as we get to verse 15. But finally, of course, he reveals God's majesty, and he does it in a very interesting way, by being obedient as a servant. So in that sense, Christ fulfills what Adam blew. Adam blew it. He violated the law. Jesus Christ fulfilled the law. Now, and having gotten into all of that, I really got ahead of ourselves a little bit. There's another sentence in which Adam indeed was a figure of him who was to come, as Paul says in Romans chapter 5. And the whole idea that there's a parallel, mystically, not in actuality, not in the sense of Adam's motivation, because he certainly, he did sin. And in getting at the prophetic or typological aspect of the story, I may have confused some of you. And if so, good. Because, as you know, my motive is not to teach. My motive is to get you to search for yourself. He says you should be the salt of the earth, and I don't know that salt is intended to be nourishing. It's intended to make you thirsty. And so my intention is to make you thirsty. And you'll get fed by getting in the Word, and let the Holy Spirit straighten you out from the confusion I leave you with. So, okay. One other thing that I touched upon last time, and you might turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and this is just a little teaser, but Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 takes off on a tangent about a woman being covered. Okay? Verse 5, For every woman that prayeth or prophesied with her head uncovered dishonoreth her head, for that is even all one as if she were shaved. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn. For it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head forasmuch as he is the image and the glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Now just about this time, you figure you're getting sort of impatient with Paul because he's off on this kick about the proper conduct, right? Except he throws a couple of interesting little teasers in there. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have authority on her head. Why? Because of the angels. Now I'm sorry, that doesn't logically follow. Now I don't know what you gals think of when you plow your way through 1 Corinthians 11. And so I'm going to leave you with that question. But raise the question further. Would Eve have been exposed to Satan? Satan was what? A fallen angel. Would she have been exposed to him if Adam had been present? I don't know. I don't know. And I'm not saying it's a valid idea. There are those that make a big thing of the idea of the man's role as covering the woman. And you'll find Paul picks up on that, not just here but elsewhere, with the idea that a widow is to be covered by the church, the pastor or the fellowship. That as a woman, she is spiritually exposed. That's a concept you'll run into. Whether it's biblically valid or not, you can decide for yourselves. But it starts here with Eve and her stumbling because Timothy in 1 Timothy 2 makes a big thing out of the fact she was deceived, Adam was not. And it makes a real distinction in the conduct of Eve and Adam. Paul does in his letter to Timothy. And the implication you get from Paul's view of this passage is that Adam wasn't there originally but came on later. Just about, you know, maybe after she'd actually... And then he joins her in her predicament. You follow me? Now is it possible that Eve, not having Adam's covering, was thus vulnerable to Satan's attack? Is it possible that a woman, uncovered spiritually... I'm speaking spiritually, I'm not really talking about what kind of hat you choose to wear or not wear, you know, to church. That's another thing, and I'm not going to get into that. I'll just let you get Chuck's tape on those things. I'm not a sneaky copper. But the idea of being spiritually exposed is what some people point to. For example, the emergence of so many of the cults through, you know, in false doctrine, entering the body through a woman who isn't spiritually covered. Does that mean a woman should not teach? No, but it does mean that a woman is not to have the authority over the man within the fellowship, speaking spiritually. And so, women's livers will stone me on my way out after this evening, but I will consider the noble death. Okay. Verse 7. It gets worse, girls, as we go. Genesis 3, verse 7. And the eyes of them were both opened so that they knew that they were uncovered. Uncovered. Naked is the term. And that may be exactly what it means, naked. Or it may be a kind of nakedness we're totally incapable of appreciating. If they walked in fellowship with the Lord, they were clothed with what? Righteousness, and in what form might that have been evident? Light. We find passages in Psalm 104 and elsewhere, and we covered this earlier on the tapes, for those of you who want to dig into it again. Psalm 104, verse 2, and Matthew 17, verse 2, are both places where the idea of righteousness and so forth is being clothed in light. Jesus and his transfiguration, Matthew 17. Psalm 104, speaking of the Lord. And several other passages give rise to some scholars viewing Adam and Eve as losing some kind of a covering that accrued by their righteousness. And their sense of needing a covering. Not necessarily in the sense of their nudity, per se, although that may be part of it. But in the sense of having lost that righteousness because of their predicament. They knew that they were naked, and so what was their response? They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons, or coverings. Now, this, to me, is the beginning of religion. All religions, any religion, has as its goal, somehow, trying to reconcile the predicament of man to a righteous God. By some kind of act. Some religions are philanthropic. Altruistic. Most of the primitive religions are all kinds of work strips. Walking through fire, subjecting oneself to various denials. You can make a list, but the list always involves man's attempt to cover himself. And that's an idea so fundamental to us. There's just a need inside us. If we can get away from the emotional commitment to atheism, which is an attempt to avoid responsibility of a designer and a creator, the next step causes us to be very conscious of a need to somehow repair ourselves. And we go about, busily, doing whatever it is that our cultural situation suggests. But that's always religion. That's always what it is. In contrast to what God would have us do. And we're going to see that very idea, the faith works kind of idea, a contrast, in Genesis 3. And we'll see that God has a rebuttal to this. okay, let's keep moving. Verse 8. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden. By the way, did you notice the word Lord God? In the English it shows up, you notice a little different construction. This is a change in construction. Up until now we've actually been using the Elohim. In the beginning the Elohim created the heaven and the earth. Here we have the introduction of the Jehovah or whatever, however you want to treat the unpronounceable four letters. In concert with Elohim, and the Jehovah as we sometimes say, which is incorrect but we're all used to it, is the speaks of the covenant relationship. The covenant relationship. And from this point on you'll see the covenant relationship, because the covenant is going to be established here. You may not realize that. Because the evidence of the covenant relationship is very subtle. And we'll come back to that. But they heard the voice 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. That's the first step, that's the first thing sin causes you to do. Is to flee. Sin is what separates you from God. He doesn't. Sin does. And it's your response to that sin that puts the gap there. The Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? Now I love the way Chuck puts it. That's not the interrogation of an arresting officer. That's the plea. The broken hearted plea of a loving father. Broken hearted. Where is it calling attention to the predicament that his children have gotten themselves into. I have in my Bible, Luke 19.10 penciled in. Which in Luke 19.10 it says the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. And what he is seeking and attempting to save is that which was lost in Genesis chapter 3. Verse 10. And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou was naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree? Where have I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? Verse 12. You girls have heard many times. And man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave of me of the tree and I did eat. So you girls realize you haven't got a chance. That started way back here in chapter 3. Verse 12. The woman whom thou gavest to be with me. Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me and I did eat. You know, we call that today buck passing. And we could spend a lot of time getting into this, but I don't think it's necessary. Most of you are married and you've seen this process occur first hand. Verse 14. The Lord God said unto the serpent, Notice now God does not fool around with these feeble, lame excuses. He doesn't even bother dealing with Adam's passing it on to his wife. In fact, Adam really isn't passing the buck to his wife. Adam's trying to pass the buck on God. That's usually our first step. Is to somehow, you know, pin the rose on him. But in any case, God doesn't even respond to that one, apparently, doesn't respond to Eve, turns to the, in a sense, first cause of it, to the serpent. God says unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly thou shalt go and dust thou shall eat all the days of thy life. Now, from this verse on, is what we're familiar with serpents as. And one thing that we should try to bear in mind, well put this way, Genesis to me gets easier the further we get into it because more and more, especially after chapter 6, we're dealing with a world that we can perhaps relate to a little bit. What we fail to appropriate to these early chapters is the realization that the universe, the world, the ecology they're in, the whole dimensionality of what they're in, could be quite different than anything we're really acquainted with. And the serpent being cursed really gives us no insight as to what he was like before the curse. So another observation that's kind of interesting, there is a period forthcoming called the millennium. And those of you that study the millennium from Isaiah 65, Revelation 20 and 21, and so forth, realize that in that period in the millennium, it's not eternity. It's not a period for eternity. That comes after the second resurrection and after the thousand years are finished and all of that. In fact, most of what we know about the millennium does not come from Revelation. All Revelation contributes is the duration of the period from which it gets its name, 1,000 years. Most of what we know about the millennium, we glean from Isaiah 65. And most of you that have studied that know that in that period, it appears that much of what we think of as the curse is relieved. The lion and the lamb lie down together. A child can play in a den of adders and not be hurt. And we have the whole world ecology under the reign of Jesus Christ return to a environment that we seem to relate to the pre-fall Eden. For reasons that please God, he apparently is going to put the world under the reign of the second Adam under ideal conditions. And lest we and in some respects the millennium may be a final rebuttal to Adam's attempt to pin this rose on Satan. Because after 1,000 years of the rule of Jesus Christ, we discover there is enough residual evil in man that when Satan is loosed at the end of the 1,000 years, he blows it again. There is a rebellion and the final act closes. But it is interesting that even in the millennium when all these certain things are made right, the curse is relieved in large measure. In fact, the Lord himself, instead of being honored with gold, myrrh, and frankincense, it is only gold and frankincense, no myrrh and so forth. There are a lot of interesting things about the millennium, but the one thing, at least, that is not lifted out of the curse is the serpent. It is interesting to discover that the serpent, even in the millennium, is going to bear this curse. Going on the dust of the ground, etc. You can find that in Isaiah 65, 25, if you are interested. But now we get to what is regarded by most scholars as one of the pivotal verses in the entire scripture. Genesis chapter 3, verse 15 Very, very key verse. And this verse is, in fact, the origin of all prophecy, because all prophetic themes and threads can start from Genesis 3, verse 15. It is a declaration of war by God himself against our enemy. The Lord God said unto the serpent, verse 14, and he is continuing now, verse 15, and I will put enmity, and that is the same word, and it is used that way in the Septuagint version of the Greek word translation, as the word enemy. The word enmity and the word enemy is the same essential root and idea. I will put enmity between thee and the woman. That is kind of strange, isn't it? A very special enmity between the serpent, who is the serpent? Satan. And the woman. And between thy seed and her seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. What a fascinating riddle. It speaks of the enemy and the woman, and it speaks of two seeds. And it is from this verse that we have a title, one of the first titles in the Scripture of Israel's Messiah. The seed of the woman. You will hear that expression again and again and again. The seed of the woman. Where does that term come from? From this chapter, this verse. The seed of the woman. We will come back to that. I want to get into that a little further, but you will also notice that there are two we will get into this whole seed of the woman thing, and of course, who is the seed of the woman? Jesus Christ. But we forget that there are two seeds mentioned here, and the seed is a person. It says so by the amplifying phrase after this. Thy seed and her seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. You see the personal pronoun used there. Who is the other seed? The seed of the serpent. The Antichrist is a term we use, and as many of you know, it's a common term, it's an unfortunate term, because it's not descriptive. But the idea of a person, there are 50 different titles of this character in the Scripture. The seed of the serpent could be the first one. Man of sin, 2 Thessalonians 2. Little horn of Daniel 7 and 8. The prince that shall come of Daniel 9. The one that comes in his own name of John 5. And son of perdition. You can actually make a list of 50. 50 of them. And we'll talk more about him as we go. Between thy seed and her seed, he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. This is incidentally, I want you to notice that the promise, correction, the declaration of war by God against the enemy includes a commitment for victory. Satan will succeed at bruising his heel. And you can take that figuratively or literally. In Isaiah chapter 53 it says that he was bruised for our iniquities. It says it pleased the Lord to bruise him. And where is he bruised? His heel is one, if you understand the medical geometry of the cross and so forth. It's not the only place, believe me. He was obviously bruised, and his heel was bruised. The concept here is the heel is an injury less than being crushed the head, the head being bruised or crushed. But there's another idea that's very, very important to start to dwell on. And that's this idea of the seed of the woman because that's a contradiction. It's a contradiction biologically and it's a contradiction in Hebrew usage. The seed is of the man, not the woman in exactly the sense that you think of it biologically. It's also in terms of genealogies and what have you. It goes through the male. But here it speaks, you'll notice, interestingly enough, Adam is not even mentioned. Adam's not part of the action, girls. He's not mentioned. A second Adam is very important. You know, and it's very interesting. Someone pointed out to me last time in the discussion after class, we talked about last time how Adam was put into a deep sleep and the woman was taken from his side. We went into that last time and it was interesting, it was pointed out to me that Joseph and Mary, Joseph was going to put Mary away because of her being pregnant. And the Lord, while Joseph was sleeping, gave him a message which caused him to take care of things. And it's interesting that after that he also disappears from the scripture. I mean, he just sort of evaporates from the record. You know, after we get through Egypt and all of that, you know, where's Joseph? Joseph evaporates. You know, Joseph hasn't got a principal role once the Lord is, you know, 12 years on, whatever. It's interesting anyway, but let's get back to this. That may be significant to you, maybe not. This idea of the seed of the woman is amplified by Isaiah in chapter 7, verse 14. We might turn to Isaiah 7, 14. In Isaiah from chapter 7, verse 10 on, Ahaz, God challenges Ahaz to give him a sign, and he declines to rise to that one. Verse 13, he says, Hear ye now, the house of David is a small thing for you to worry men, but which shall you worry God also? Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel. And I don't want to spend tonight getting into the whole dialogue of the Alma, Bethul, and all that issue, although that's covered on the Isaiah tapes. When we went through Isaiah, we went into this in great length, perhaps tedious length, but this is the verse that Matthew himself points to relative to the virgin birth of Mary. Now, most of us probably assume that the virgin birth was one of those things that was a sign of the Messiah, terrific, as Isaiah mentioned here, and we're all, of course, familiar with the Gospel record of the birth of Jesus. What some of us may not realize is that the virgin birth is originally not prophesied in chapter 7 of Isaiah, but Genesis chapter 3. God's foresight is fantastic. You need to understand, what I mean by that, I didn't mean it flippantly, what I meant was all the little details, and I'm going to show you some that occurred, God anticipated. Very, very strange ones. But first of all, let's go and realize that Jesus Christ, our Messiah, had to be a man. Now, that's a strange thing to point out first, but as you, one of the things that's sort of flabbergasting to try and comprehend, in my personal development, I sort of went through two stages, one of the first wild things to sort of absorb and comprehend in my personal spiritual growth was the realization that God became man and walked among us. That took me a long time to get used to that idea, that God, the infinite God, the creator of the universe, became man and walked among us. But as I progressed spiritually and understood what the righteousness of God really means, and the predicament of God trying to deal with sinful man, the inability for man to approach God, the gulf that's between sinful man and God, the really mind-blowing thing is not that God became man. The mind-blowing thing to me is that right now, tonight, there's a man on the throne of God. That's heavy to me. We tend to think of Jesus Christ as being a man between the time he was born in Bethlehem, went through his ministry, hung on a cross, died, buried, rose again, and we sort of visualize him in some kind of ephemeral thing. We don't realize that from his incarnation onward, he is forever a man, albeit in a resurrection body, fine. When he met with his disciples, they thought he was a spirit after his resurrection. It says, the spirit does not have flesh and bone, handle me and see. He's tangible, live, real, palpable. He's a man, and he's on the throne of God. That's wild. Now, we get some insight into this when we study the role of the kinsman redeemer. God ordained a structure, a legal structure for land and what have you in Israel, and we cover this eloquently, I think, when we get to the book of Ruth, where we see Boaz in the role of the kinsman redeemer, redeeming both Naomi to her land and Ruth, taking Ruth as a Gentile bride. And in that one act, Boaz operates as the kinsman redeemer, restoring Naomi, a type of Israel incidentally, to the land, and takes a Gentile, a Moabitess, Ruth to wife. And we have a model of what's going on in the book of Revelation, where our kinsman redeemer is restoring Israel to the land, but the land in this case is in effect the title deed to the planet Earth, not just a few acres in the east of the Mediterranean. And secondly, bringing to himself, redeeming to himself a bride, the bride of Christ, the church. The model is very, very complete. So the first point is Jesus Christ had to be a kinsman. In Revelation chapter 5, when John is at the throne of God and in the right hand of him who sat on the throne is a seven-sealed book, and the word goes out, who is worthy to open the book to loose the seven seals thereof? John breaks up, sobs convulsively because no man was found worthy to open the book and loose the seals thereof. Right there in the language is the implication that he had to be a kinsman of the original forfeiture, who was the original forfeiture, Adam. And he's, everybody's really upset, John's starting to break up, and the elder says, hey, weep, don't weep. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seals thereof. And of course John turns and sees the lamb as it had been slain, and of course he steps forward and takes the book and we have the possession of that which he paid for. An analogy that in revelation, in cosmic terms, that we see modeled in a small way in the book of Joshua, where another Yahoshua leads his people to possess their inheritance. And the model of the two is a study in its own right. But now let's get back to this virgin birth and notice something else that I think is just too fascinating to miss. We know that, well, in fact, let's back up. Let me give you the conclusion first because it will help put in context some of the details I want to show you. If we get to Revelation chapter 12, we see the conclusion in a sense of Genesis 3. And I won't try to cover the whole thing in Revelation 12, but I'd like to touch on enough of it so you can get the flavor of what I'm doing here. Revelation chapter 12 speaks symbolically or graphically or idiomatically if you like, of some personages. There appeared a great wonder in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. Got nothing to do with the zodiac. That's none other than Jacob himself. It explains that to us as to what that's all about in the dream of Joseph. You remember when Joseph had his dreams and so forth. The woman here is whom? Israel. Many commentators try to make her the church, but if it's the church she's got a problem because in verse 2 it turns out she's pregnant. She being with child, cried travailing in birth, pain to be delivered. The church did not give birth to Jesus Christ. It's the other way around. But Israel did. In fact, the woman here mystically speaking is the woman in the sense that she's Israel but in the sense that Israel started with Eve. The means that God chose from the seat of the woman to provide the Messiah. And there appeared another wonder in heaven and behold a great red dragon. Now who's the red dragon? Skipping down to verse 9 A great red dragon was cast out. That old serpent Which old serpent? The serpent from Genesis 3 called the devil and Satan who deceiveth the whole world. Not just Eve. The whole world. He was cast out to the earth, into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. He had access to heaven to a certain time then he's cast out and he's confined to the earth. And and there's a big thing because he has just a little bit of time left verse 12 and he persecutes the woman and so forth. Now the woman incidentally in verse 4 speaks of Satan or the devil and says in his tale drew a third part of the stars of heaven that's where we get the inference that a third of the angels fell with him in the rebellion. And it cast him to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered to devour her child as soon as it was born. Now on the one hand you can regard that specifically as Satan conspiring to have Herod slaughter the babies in Bethlehem. And that's certainly an application of this except I would argue the application is far broader. And for those of you who might be interested in this I suggest you do a study of Revelation 12 carefully from the tapes or some other means and then go back and re-read the Bible from Genesis through Revelation and you'll discover that the entire chronicle from Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 until the cross at Calvary is a war between Satan and the woman in attempt to thwart the purpose of God. And it starts with Cain and Abel. God promised Eve that it was her seed that was to be the redeemer and what's the first thing Satan tries to do? Knock off her seed. The faithful half. And as we go through the scripture again and again and again, every major episode can be modeled as a symptom of the conflict of Satan attempting to thwart the purpose of God. You want to talk about Pharaoh slaughtering the Hebrew children in Egypt? Trying to wipe out Moses so they can't be delivered? You want to talk about Pharaoh's army at the Red Sea? Trying to wipe them out there? As God progressively reveals more and more details of the royal line Satan is allowed to focus his attack. As God reveals, as he calls Abraham, Abraham can be the target. As it becomes Isaac. As it becomes Jacob. As it becomes his twelve sons and it's the tribe of Judah. Is revealed. Incrementally. Gets to be the house of David. David's singled out for some special attention. And in the councils, in Satan's councils, as God progressively reveals better insight as to what thread the Messiah will come, Satan's able to focus his attention. And you can see that happen. Now, and there's a whole thing as to why Satan still has a special animosity. A special attention to the woman. When I say the woman, who am I speaking of? You girls? Not necessarily. Who am I speaking of? Israel. And when you understand Revelation 12, you will have a totally different insight into what's behind anti-Semitism that goes a total order of magnitude different than simply racial prejudice, simply those other kinds of things that we as a humanistic culture tend to abhor. That there's something very specific going on and this has to do in part with a precondition of the return of Jesus Christ to the planet Earth. And if Satan can wipe out the remnant, he can thwart that. And that's what he's going to try to do. And from the Scripture we know that he won't succeed. That's a whole other thing. And if you're interested in that, get the tapes on Zechariah chapters 12 and 13. We went into that to some length there. But let me show you something else that I think is awfully interesting. As you know, from this summary, God revealed incrementally more and more and more about the family tree of Jesus Christ in advance. And he, as you know, David, when he gets to be king, he is hot to build God a house. And God won't let him. You know, Nathan says, he says, yeah, I'd like to build God a house. Nathan says, that's terrific. But God says to Nathan later, hey, hey, you spoke too soon. David can't do it. He says, that's not my plan. And so Nathan breaks the news to David that I know you want to but you're a man of war and it's your son, Solomon, that will build my house. But because you love me, I'm going to build you a house, David. And what he's speaking of of course is genealogy, so he promises him that the Messiah is to be the house and lineage of David. Terrific. Now, as we study, of course, the kings under David, the royal line, things go from bad to worse. Now and then there's a couple of exceptions but if you really study the chronology, it's pretty grim. Right? And I'd like to call your attention to just how grim it got because it's going to be interesting for us to examine a particular king by the name of Jeconiah. And turn with me to Jeremiah 22. There's many ways we could dig into this, but the simplest thing is just to read what God says to Jeconiah. And we're going to read Jeremiah chapter 22. And we're interested in the last half a dozen verses of the chapter. We'll start at about verse oh, we can start verse 24. As I live, saith the Lord, though Jeconiah, for our purposes equivalent, son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and it goes on yet would I pluck thee from here, and so forth, I would and I will give thee into the hand of those who seek thy life, and into the hand of those who face the even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. And that, of course, would happen to Jeconiah. That's the easy part. Let's read on. Verse 26. And I will cast thee out, and thy mother who bore thee into another country, where ye were not born, and there ye shall die. But to the land to which they desire to return, there shall they not return. Is this man Jeconiah a despised broken idol? Is he a vessel in which is no pleasure? Why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land why they know not? O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. Verse 30. Thus saith the Lord, Write this man childless. Incidentally, he wasn't childless, but he could just as well have been, or worse. Write this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days, for no man of his seed shall prosper sitting upon the throne of David, ruling any more in Judah. Now, when God said that, I suspect they probably had a celebration in the councils of Satan, because they had God over a barrel. The Messiah had to be of the royal line. Jeconiah was the royal line, and there's a blood curse here pronounced on the descendants of Jeconiah. So if you want a Messiah to rule on the throne of David, you've got a problem. He's either subject to the blood curse of Jeconiah, or he's not in the royal line. Isn't that interesting? And I imagine Satan scratching his head saying, I wonder how this is going to work out. You want to know how it worked out? Have you ever wondered why there were multiple genealogies in the New Testament? Have you ever studied the genealogy, first of all, let's take the genealogy of Matthew. Matthew is a Levi. He was preoccupied by the issue of Jesus Christ being the Messiah. And he actually starts his genealogy from Abraham. Why would he go any earlier? Son of Abraham. And he goes from Abraham through to David, through the royal line, Solomon, right on through, and he comes to Joseph, the husband of Mary, in whom was born Jesus Christ. What's interesting about that is that in so doing, Jesus is the legal son, the legal son of Joseph, through the royal line. But is he subject to the blood curse? No. Now Luke, incidentally he was also probably a Jew, but also a Greek by training and a physician. His interest in Jesus Christ is as the son of man. His humanism, his genealogy, incidentally, if you study the Gospels, you'll discover their structure, the selection of issues they talk about, the order they're placed in, the subtleties, all argue for a particular purpose. You have the visualization of Jesus Christ in quadraphonic, four different viewpoints. But Luke's preoccupation is as a son of man, and he starts naturally with the first man, Adam. And his genealogy, if you compare it, goes from Adam, obviously through Abraham, obviously through David, but in David he does a strange thing. He doesn't go through Solomon. He goes through Nathan. And he tracks it down, and he comes to Heli, who is the father of Mary. Okay? And Joseph is the son-in-law of Heli. So, Luke takes the bloodline, also a son of David, but not through the line that carries the blood curse. Right? We worship a God who is the master of the loophole. And I think that's fantastic, because I don't think that's accidental. I don't see God really responding to an adversary. I think he just anticipates all of this to his glory. Now, incidentally, there are three genealogies in the New Testament, in three different Gospels. And your assignment for next time, should you choose to accept it, is to find the third one. Now, I shouldn't really send you on a fool's errand, so I'll tell you the answer. There are two genealogies. One is in Matthew that we've mentioned. One is in Luke. The third is the first three verses of the Gospel of John. And that deals with Christ's genealogy, and it's the most important of all. It's the genealogy of his pre-existence, if I might use that term. And that's exactly what John's point is. These things are written that you might believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name. And he starts, like all the others, with a genealogy, but he chooses what is really the most important one, in many respects. Now, those of you that are, like me, addicted to the obscure, might be fascinated to explore carefully the daughters of Zelophehad. Remember back in Numbers 27, there were these daughters that had no... that were promised by Moses an inheritance. Even though the inheritance goes through the men, there's one group that were daughters only, and so they go to Moses, and he makes a special provision for them, right? And in Joshua chapter 17, when they get into the land, Josh is reminded by this, and they're given an inheritance. And it's interesting that those of you that are interested in this can track this down on your own, we won't take the time now because it's more important stuff for us here, but the daughters of Zelophehad are promised an inheritance in Numbers 27, the first 11 verses, and that's climaxed in Joshua 17. And because of this, there are two verses that are interesting. In Numbers 27 verse 8, there is the concept that if a man has no sons, his inheritance can pass to his son-in-law through the daughters. And that's what's going on with the daughters of Zelophehad. Secondly, in Numbers 36 verse 6, the principle is established that they are to marry within the tribe of their own tribe. And the scholars give reference originally to C.I. Schofield for having noticed that on those technicalities the claim of Jesus Christ hangs. Because of what I just went through with Mary and the legitimacy of Joseph, the son-in-law of Heli, laying claim to that. So it's an interesting thing how in the little nits and nats and subtleties of the law, not one jot or one tittle shall pass until all be fulfilled. Not all be observed or obeyed. That's what it says. All be fulfilled. It's speaking prophetically. So that's a little thing for those of you that might find that fun. Okay. Back to Genesis 3. You cynics probably didn't think we'd ever get back there. There's more than we can talk about. We can talk about Genesis 3.15 and we will throughout the rest of the book of Genesis. But you just might mark Genesis 3.15. It's one of those anchor points that you really want to command as your own. But let's go on. We're still not through with the curse. We've just dealt with the primary adversary and the primary confrontation. And it's not between God and Adam. God's whole effort is to save Adam, not condemn him. God's animosity and antagonism is aimed at the enemy and it ain't Adam. How easy we forget that. It's Satan. Adam is in a sense a victim. And it's God's effort and energy and compassion and program to reach so far. In fact, he's reaching to an infinite degree for a righteous God to become man and to put himself in man's place even to the death of the cross. In fact, to show you just how extreme the cross at Calvary is, remember in Numbers when the plague of serpents and God commanded Moses to take a brass serpent and raise it up and everybody that would look to the serpent, the brass serpent, the brazen serpent on the thing, would be saved. And you look at that and if I were to, as a New Testament expositor looking at that saying, well, that's a symbol of Jesus Christ, you could say, oh, come on, you're getting way out there. Except none other than Jesus Christ says to Nicodemus in John 3, when he comes back, as the son of, I think that's where he said it anyway, where there's a son of man, just as Moses raised the serpent in the wilderness, so shall the son of man be lifted up. Now what's bizarre about, yes, okay, Jesus is pointing to his crucifixion, but it shocks us to think of a serpent being a symbol of Jesus Christ. And that sort of rubs us the wrong way. I mean, we can buy a lot of other images, the rock, living water, you can make a list of hundreds. But a serpent pointing to Jesus Christ, a brass serpent, brass Levitically is the metal that holds fire and therefore it's the metal that speaks of judgment. The brazen altar, and so forth. The brazen serpent refers to, the serpent referring to sin, the brazen serpent, sin judged. But the whole idea that the serpent, the judgment of sin, is to be idiomatically congruent with Jesus Christ, that's a heavy, heavy image. And that's exactly what the writer Hanson Clashon says, that he was made sin for us. We can get used to the idea of him being punished in our place. We can get used to the idea of him taking on a great deal on our behalf. But we probably do not have the capacity to comprehend what it means for a righteous God to be made sin. Those words carry more weight than you and I have any capacity to apprehend. And that's what was planted as an idea in Numbers with the brazen serpent. So we'll talk more about Genesis 3.15 impurably throughout the rest of the study in Genesis, but let's move on at this point and pick it up, verse 16. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Now if you girls are looking for a lib movement, I suggest the first step you might pursue is to get the dress removed. And now tonight when your husband's here, your wife's saying, Lord Jesus, come quickly, you realize what they're going for. I shouldn't really be that flippant, but I did want to make the point that this whole idea of the woman-man relationship that was developed in chapter 2 is in a sense intensified in chapter 3 and is amplified by this curse that Adam is to rule over Eve. And unto Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying thou shalt not eat of it, curse it as the ground for thy sake, and in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life, and so on. Let me pause right here to make one thing very clear. It's often misunderstood the argument is made that Adam shouldn't have listened to the advice of Eve. Wrong. It was the advice she gave him, not that he listened to it as such. Example, David listened to the advice of Abigail and was blessed for it. So don't let anyone put you girls on a trip in terms of the validity of counsel. That's a whole other study that I'll spare you because of the lateness of the hour. What God is indicting here is the advice he responded to. You with me? That's an important idea. Make sure you get that. Because I was hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree. Don't pause too long at that comma. The ideas go together. Of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, curse it as the ground for thy sake, and in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and also and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee, and thou shalt eat of the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. Now, it's very, very interesting how as we analyze this curse, and you can take your own meditative time to diagram this, but you can probably find at least seven issues. The ground was cursed, right? Jesus Christ, in every which way, fulfilled the curse for us. Adam bore the curse temporarily, in a sense. Jesus Christ really bore the curse. The ground was cursed. In Galatians 3.13 we know that Jesus Christ was made a curse for us. Man was to eat of sorrow, and Isaiah 53.3 speaks of the title of Jesus Christ as a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Thorns and thistles infested the ground, and that, as a symbol of the curse, is carried throughout the scripture. We obviously remember right away, in John 18.8, where Jesus, in his crucifixion, bore a crown of thorns. Did the Roman soldier, who sort of added that little tidbit, know he was fulfilling prophecy? I doubt it. I really don't think that that Roman soldier would know anything about what you might call Jewish mysticism or something, in terms of its fulfillment of what was mentioned in the Torah way back. However, the use of that, I might go on further, the burning bush. We all know the story in Exodus. Burning bush. The bush was the acacia bush, sometimes called the thorn bush of the desert. The bush that attracted Moses was the fact that the bush was on fire, but not being consumed. Our God is a consuming fire. The thorn is a symbol of the curse, or sin. And you're saying that you have sin in the fire, but it's not consumed. Idiomatically, that's a model of grace. To be in the hands of a living God, but not being consumed by that. And it's interesting that that was what attracted Moses, and it's always God's grace that attracts man, not his righteousness. We can talk theologically all day long about righteousness, but we're not attracted by it, we're frightened by it. Or we certainly should be. What attracts us to our Savior, to our God, is his grace. And that's exactly what attracted Moses, albeit in an idiom, perhaps, rather than in the conception that we think of it. The curse involved the sweat of the brow. And we all think of Luke 22, where the Lord Jesus Christ in Gethsemane also bore that symbol in sweaty drops of blood. Dust to return, and of course, Jesus exclaims that he's been brought to the dust of death. He does so in Psalm 22, verse 15. And you have to, if you read, if you haven't yet, you should certainly read Psalm 22. And as you read it, you will be fascinated because it sounds like a first person testimony of the Lord while he's hanging on the cross. In fact, he calls our attention to that psalm in his first exclamation from the cross in which he quotes it. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And onward. But the details in Psalm 22, which includes piercing his hands and his feet and all that, is fascinating since the capital punishment, Daniel predicted that the Messiah was to be executed for a capital crime, but the form of capital punishment in Israel was stoning. Crucifixion was invented by the Romans about 90 B.C., long after Psalm 22 was written, hundreds of years later. In fact, it was translated into Greek two centuries before the Romans invented crucifixion, and yet the description of the crucifixion in the Old Testament is flabbergasting. And onward, anyway. There's a sword we're going to get into, and there's a Waco sword passage in Zechariah 13.7. It's a little technical for right now, so let me go on. And there's also this whole question of death and the Lord bearing death for us. I might add one thought. I can never pass Gethsemane, the sweating drops of blood, without pointing this out to you. That Jesus Christ really didn't want to. Do you know that? Three times he pleaded with the Father. Let's find another way. I really don't want to go this way. If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. Why do I make this point? Because if there were any other way for the curse to be lifted from man, then God allowed Jesus Christ to go to the cross in vain. If there was any other way, through humanism, through works, through some eastern religion, through any other mechanic, then Jesus Christ died in vain. Because he pleaded with the Father, if there's any other way, take this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. The only way Genesis chapter 3 could be fulfilled was at the cross at Calvary. That is the way. The Lord tells us a straight and narrow way that leads to righteousness. Broad is the gate, wide is the way that leads to destruction. So if you're in a path with lots of other people and universalism, and there's lots of different faiths going through the gate you're going through, you got the wrong gate. Okay, I'd also like to share with you again, I think I mentioned this last time, but it kind of intrigues me to talk about two trees. God planted the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden. It was planted in the garden, and it was a knowledge of good and evil, and it was good for food. It's interesting that the cross of Jesus Christ, several places in the scriptures refer to it as a tree. They hanged him on the tree. In Acts 5.30 and 1 Peter 2.24 are two examples where the cross is spoken of as a tree, and I believe the Holy Spirit doesn't do anything accidentally. I think it's alluded to as a tree, partially in fulfillment, I think it's in Galatians 3.13, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Quoting an Old Testament idea. But I also believe that the Holy Spirit would have us make a contrast between two trees that involve the knowledge of good and evil. One in Genesis 3 and the other in the New Testaments, the cross of Jesus Christ. Both of them were planted in the garden. Both of them had the incident occur in their midst. Both of them, in effect, involved the knowledge of good and evil, and I'm going to also argue that the curse in scripture is linked to a tree in Galatians 3.17 also in Genesis 40.19 that's where the baker gets hanged after three days but we'll cover that when we get there. Esther 2.23, that incident with Haman is another example, and of course climax in Galatians 3.13 which I quoted. But you should be aware of the contrasts of the trees. One tree was planted by God, Genesis chapter 3. The other tree was planted by man. Matthew 27. One tree was pleasant to the eyes. The other tree had no beauty that we should desire it, Isaiah tells us. One tree was forbidden by God, the other tree we were commanded to eat thereof. Just as Adam was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 3, we are commanded to eat of the tree I'm referring to. One tree, in Genesis 3, Satan enticed them to eat the other tree. Satan will do everything he can to keep you from it. One tree brought sin and death, the other tree life and salvation. One tree turned man out of paradise. The other tree was the path to paradise, in fact where the Lord hung on. He promised that to the thief on one side. So it's an interesting view you can look at. Let's move on a little bit. The next two verses are very interesting. Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Now it's very interesting, that's a title not a name. As an aside, she's the mother of all living. Now you may wonder, now wait a minute, how can Eve be the mother of all living? Adam named all the animals before Eve was even on the scene. He had the commandment of God about this tree thing even before Eve shows on the scene. Right? Why is Adam giving Eve this title in verse 20 and the answer is in verse 21. For Adam also and for his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothe them. And that little verse is something that if you're just reading Genesis you'd miss completely without an awful lot of background and insight. Um I'm going to argue that Adam named Eve prophetically because Eve was to be the mother of all living because it was through the seed of the woman that all that was living would be redeemed or the redemption would take place. I shouldn't say it quite that way, the redemption would take place. Now this whole business of the coats of skin is where the sacrificial system is introduced. This is God's rebuttal to the fig leaves. The fig leaf aprons, the fig leaves consists of church going, religious exercise ordinances, philanthropy, altruism you make your own list. Now the coats of skins are teaching Adam that by the shedding of blood he'd be covered. That the substitutionary death would be made and the offering was being made on a basis of faith. We're going to talk more about this next time as we get into Cain and Abel. You can't really understand the relationship of Cain and Abel without understanding what in fact was at issue. One is an offering of works the other of faith and the offering of faith is a bizarre one and it's prophetic in Genesis 3.15. We're going to see that same thing instituted by Abraham in the substitution of the heifer in Genesis 22 when he offers Isaac you know the ram or the heifer or whatever it is is substituted the Levitical system is going to amplify this in great detail in both the tabernacle and subsequent temple sacrifices and all of this points to Calvary. And I'm going to argue to you that Adam knew that that was prophetic because that's the name, that's the reason he named Eve the mother of all living. If you really digest this you discover that the coats of skins were killed by God. He's teaching them that innocent blood is required for them to be covered but it isn't just a practical question of giving them hides. It's installing a sacrifice which will appropriate by faith the work that God was to do and I'm going to argue that Adam understood that. That's why he names Eve the mother of all living because she is to become the mechanism through which the seed of the woman is to make the real sacrifices that these other things point to prophetically. And we'll amplify that further next time. The main theme through here also, the other idea I want you to carry away, is that God is always seeking man. Man is trying to flee God but God is always seeking man. He does it with of course Adam here. He does it with Abraham when he calls an idolater into his program. He reaches Jacob at Bethel when he's fleeing and he reaches Moses when he's a fugitive in Midian. It's the shepherd seeking the sheep, not the other way around. And that's the whole theme here. Running short of my time here, let's just finish up the chapter. God said, Behold the man has become one of us, as one of us to know good and evil. Now let's he put forth his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore and so forth. No predicament would be worse for Adam to have been eternally committed into his predicament. Okay? There's a whole redemptive thing to get into there. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from where he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Now why did he put cherubim at the garden? To keep Adam out? I submit to you, angels would have been sufficient. Why cherubim? That's an overkill. Those are pretty heavy, that's a heavy bunch. Okay? Alright? The cherubim are reproduced on the ark, in Gex 25 and Hebrews 9. They symbolize the place of meeting where man was to meet God. Him that dwelleth between the cherubim it's spoken of, and idiomatically it's correct in the tabernacle, between these two cherubim on top of the ark of the covenant. And in Yom Kippur, the high priest described in Leviticus 16 and Hebrews 9 that's the whole idea, he approaches God who dwells between the cherubim through that whole procedure that we speak of in Yom Kippur. Cherubim are, have the role we discover from Ezekiel 9, 10, chapter 1 Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4 the cherubim are associated with the throne of God they're the protectors of his majesty. They're related to his holiness in some very special way. Now, there is a translation problem in chapter 3 verse 24 and I won't, I'm neither competent to nor I don't want to take the time to defend an alternate rendering of the Hebrew for Genesis 3 verse 24 and it gets into some technicalities and James and Fawcett and Brown's commentary is an example if you want to chase down all the details but an alternate rendering of this is and he that is God, dwelt at the east of the garden of Eden between the cherubim as a shekinah that is a fire tongue or a fire sword, to keep open the way to the tree of life. Now, Satan's attack is to destroy our path to the tree of life by way of the cross so that we may live in fellowship with the Lord forever. A mere angel would have been perfectly sufficient to keep Adam and 185 thousand Syrians or whatever else away from the tree that isn't the problem, but why cherubim? Who was the anointed cherub that covereth? So maybe the cherubim there are to protect the way to the tree in another sense. And as we get into next week's discussion with Cain, we discover that the problem of the offerings is by faith from Hebrews 11.4, they are brought some particular place as implied by the language, the question is where. It is also at a certain time, as Fat mentioned, which implies an altar. From the language not obvious, there is apparently a specific altar in a specific place that they were ordained to go and present their offerings. And there are some scholars that believe that what was the occasion there was to go to that place where God himself still dwelt between the cherubim in a more literal sense than is modeled, if you will, in the tabernacle. And there is a whole subtle suggestion there that we don't have good visibility of and the textual issues are clouded with a lot of different controversies. I share it with you just as a point that as you always see these pictures of the cherubim with their flaming fire sending a cowering Adam and Eve down the road, well that's backwards, I believe. While on the one hand they shouldn't have direct access for their own good I argue to you that the cherubim are really there to guard the way to the tree of life so that they can make it as it shows up in Genesis 22 where the tree of life shows up again. We've been perhaps a little superficial on a number of these things, I realize that. It's past our time. Next time we'll jump into the story of Cain and Abel, which is the second murder in the Scripture. The second murder in the Scripture. The first, who was a murderer from the beginning? Satan. Who did he murder? Adam and Eve. We often think of the first murder as Cain and Abel, it's actually the second one. Anyway, let's stand and close with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we just praise you that you have gone so far as to redeem us. We thank you, Father, that you loved us so much. Father, we would just ask you as we go forth this week to increase in us a hunger for your word. That you would just draw us closer to the second Adam. The last Adam. The one that you have given that we might live. Father, we thank you that you've provided a way to the tree of life that's free of any burden on our part, but that it's all been taken care of and can be appropriated by faith. Father, we're also conscious that that faith is a supernatural gift from you. And we would just ask this evening that you would just increase our faith, increase our hunger for your word, walk with us this week, that we might be drawn into fellowship with you. And in all these things, learn the glory of Jesus Christ. In whose name we pray. Amen. This concludes the sixth study in the book of Genesis.