In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of guarding one's heart and being cautious of desires. He explains that the heart has the power to influence the mind, leading it to come up with excuses to fulfill those desires. The speaker also mentions the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and pride of life as temptations that can lead one astray. Additionally, he references a story from Genesis where God parades the animal kingdom before Adam to show him the importance of finding a suitable partner.

We have come to Genesis chapter 2, verse 23. God, in a grand demonstration to Adam, parades the animal kingdom before him, each one with their mate. Adam giving names, obviously it seems not to every single creature under heaven, but to all of those that were immediate associated with him, it seems, and it seems to me that God's point in that was for Adam to see the animals with their partners, and then it says, but for Adam there was not a helper found suitable for him, or meet for him, so it was an object lesson. Look, Adam, you know, name these animals Mr. and Mrs. Lion, see that? You know, Mr. and Mrs. Bear, Mr. and Mrs. Cow, Mr. and Mrs., you know, and here you are, Adam, all alone. You know, God was making a point with him, because Adam was in paradise, and when it's just you and God in paradise, you don't know anything's missing, and God knew that it wasn't good for him to be alone, so he now causes a deep sleep to come on Adam, and different, if you remember, the last time we were here, from how he created Adam, which was of the dust of the ground, it doesn't say that he formed Eve of the dust of the ground, it literally says he built her from flesh and bone from Adam's side, not from the dust of the earth, and there is in that a lesson in itself of, of course, man's responsibility towards his wife, towards his spouse, that she is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, part of him, not just formed from the dust of the ground, but actually taken from him. Adam then says, she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man, and then we come to these verses, in verses 24 and 25, that are quoted four times in the New Testament. It says, therefore shall a man leave his mother and his mother and cleave unto his wife, they shall be one flesh, they were both naked, the man and his wife, they were not ashamed. Now, really, that is written to apply to us. Adam and Eve did not leave their father and their mother, they didn't have a father and mother, they showed up, and they were created. But quoted four times in the New Testament, the point is, for you and I, because God works this way, because it's not good for man to be alone, because God takes the time, I believe, if we pray, and we seek him to bring about the suitable partner for us, therefore, because God does those things, and he's intimately involved, therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, cleave unto his wife, they shall be one flesh, the man and his wife were naked, they were not ashamed. So it sets up this principle of marriage, what God is intending. Therefore, because it's not good for man to be alone, because God is concerned and cares about our marriage and our marriages corporately, shall a man leave his father and mother, the first thing that it talks to us about there is severance. Now, it's not saying that you move to another state, you have to understand that, it's not talking about a geographical move, though sometimes people find that a blessing. That is not what it's saying, because in the Bible, the groom would build an addition to his father's house, and the bride would come and live on the inheritance of the groom and of the father, it means she'd live right by her mother-in-law too, and she would just come live right there. So when it talks about leaving father and mother, the idea is of all human relationships, the relationship between a husband and a wife is most sacred. It is the only relationship compared to Christ and the church. It is more sacred than the love between a parent and a child. And I think one of the great mistakes that many parents make is they become more attached to the child than to their spouse. They end up putting more time into their kids, or living their dreams through their kids, and not making their spouse a priority. And it's very easy, I mean, you know, the husband and the wife are adults, they're busy about their business, they're doing things, and the kids are the ones who constantly need attention, so I think that's a trap that we can fall into. But it's very interesting that the divorce rate soars between 45 and 55, in the church and out of the church, across the board. Because that's the time when the kids move out of the house, and two adults look at each other and think, my God, who are you? You know? Somehow there's a connection here that goes back years, I understand, but what do we do with ourselves now? And it can be a very difficult time. So the first thing that God says is there should be the leaving of father and mother, and that severance needs to be there. And the idea is, above all other human relationships, this now takes a priority. It isn't that you move to another state or somewhere. It's the idea that this is the most important human relationship that you have. You have to understand that there's no more running home to mothers. I'm going to my moms. Well, I hope they, you know, parents, if your kids just get married, change the locks when they move out. They should not be able to run back to you. I mean, you've raised them with certain values, they make a decision, they choose a spouse, then it's the parents' responsibility to honor that. Get your nose out of their business, don't be over the house all the time, telling that wife what to do this, how to do this, Bobby loves this, now Bobby loves his socks rolled this way, and Bobby, you know, don't be a mom says, he ran away with that floozy, he doesn't come see me anymore. You know, look, the husband and wife relationship takes a priority over your relationship with your child. God honors it, it's sacred. And the first thing that's necessary for them to have a healthy home is for them both to have a sense of that we've left other relationships, all other relationships to make this a priority. I mean, with my wife at home, you know, when we first got married, she would constantly say to me, and you don't understand, like that. And I would say, yes, I do, you know, and I would even get mad and say, what do you mean I don't understand? I'm an understanding person. But as time went on, I come to realize I don't understand. Now that's okay. Because the important thing is, I will always be there. I may not always understand. But I'll always be there. And that's worth a lot today. That's worth a lot today. So the first thing that's necessary is severance, there has to be making all other relationships secondary. Then it says that he shall cleave to his wife. We like to use the idea of being glued. And certainly that is inferred. We find the word in Exodus, I believe, and I might be wrong, chapter 15. We find it in Deuteronomy 28, where God says that if the Israelites will walk with him and keep his statutes, none of the diseases that were upon the Egyptians shall cleave to them. And in that sense, a disease, of course, is interwoven with our very fiber. It becomes part of us. The problem with cancer is it takes over our cells. It becomes part of us. It is used in Job 19-20, where Job talks about his illness and his fasting and says his bone and his skin were cleaving together. They were stuck together. Or in chapter 29, around verse 10, Job says that his tongue was stuck to the top of his mouth. It was dried there in his pain. And that's the idea. It speaks of a permanence. Cleaving to the wife has the idea, and no doubt it takes time. It isn't like, you know, I get them here up on the altar and I put rubber cement on each side of them and go and stick them together and it's done. It takes time for this permanence to set in, for two lives to be interwoven and start to understand the way the other person operates. And I find that Kathy and I now, lots of times, you know, there's rough edges, but lots of times, you know, it's very smooth because I know what she's going to do in a situation. She knows how I'm going to respond. There becomes that sense of oneness. We're a team. What's going on? Very necessary. Cleaving. And then it says that they shall be one flesh. Now, that is clearly speaking about sexual union. In First Corinthians 6.16, it says, if you join yourself to a harlot, to a prostitute, speaking of sexual sin, don't you know you become one flesh with her? By the way, this concept, this phrase, one flesh, is the most common phrase used throughout the Bible when marriage is spoken of. Sexual union, very, very important in marriage. It tells in First Corinthians 17 that the wife and the husband should not defraud one another, except for a period possibly of fasting, lest Satan will come and get the advantage. Because we live in a world that is very aggressive in alluring the flesh. Even as Christians, billboards, television ads, magazines, Time magazine, everything around us, there is much that stirs the flesh. It's very important that the husband and wife understand and enjoy the intimacy that God intends them to have. And too often we see great mistake in Christian marriage where there is the defrauding, where one of the partners is using it to manipulate the other partner. And it shouldn't be happening. It shouldn't be happening. It is a great balm, a great ointment sometimes when there is difficulty, sometimes when words will not be sufficient to ease feelings and so forth and emotions. It is something that God placed in marriage. It is something that God blessed. It is something that is God ordained and God designed. And it is a necessary ingredient for a healthy marriage. There has to be severance. There has to be acceptance, that cleaving. And there has to be intimacy. They are not multiple choice. All of them are necessary or we won't see a healthy marriage. And by the way, husbands, you will never have the proper level of intimacy, that's mentioned third, unless first you work on that cleaving, that becoming one. And you can never really become one unless your spouse knows you are never running home to mom, unless there is the leaving. And if you examine these in a reverse order, you see how they all work and how they are very necessary. So God gives us this picture of the original marriage. It involved a cleaving to one another over all other relationships, a becoming one and a great intimacy. All of God's design and all very important. Then it says, they were naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed. Of course, they are in a state of innocency. Again, we talked about this last time. I believe they are clothed with light. There is no sense of nakedness. There is no shame attached with their state at this point in time. Now, all of this is setting the stage for chapter three as we move into it. And it tells us there, now, the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. Now, as we head into this again, realize this. We are going to see Eve now tempted. You know, I think in our minds, lots of times we see Eve by an apple tree. And I guess that is because men have an Adam's apple. Somehow we think the fruit she ate was an apple. No biblical evidence for that. And we see a snake in the tree. And in our minds we imagine Eve too close to the apple tree and getting in a conversation with a snake. And no wonder the world thinks we are crazy. I don't think that at all gives us a picture of what takes place. The serpent is more subtle, more crafty, the idea is, in the description of what this beast, this field, it is the Hebrew word nakash, which is the shining one. It is not a serpent. It is not a snake. Can you imagine a woman standing around talking to a snake? It won't happen. This is the shining one. It tells us in 2 Corinthians that Paul is concerned about the church lest they be deceived by the subtlety of the enemy as Eve was deceived. And he says there, in verse 14 I think, because Satan himself comes disguised as an angel of light. And here Eve is approached by a shining one. No doubt Adam and Eve in their unfallen state also have concourse with angels. There is an open fellowship with God. Adam and Eve again are not going to God saying, oh forgive me for the way I treated my wife. Oh forgive me for I was mad in traffic and what I said. None of that is going on. We understand and appreciate that God is faithful and just to forgive us if we confess our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But Adam and Eve knew none of that. They were in a state of innocency. There was no repentance. There was no groveling. There was no shame-facedness. They never hung their head. They walked in open fellowship with God in a state of innocency and no doubt had relationship, understood the angelic realm too. So one now comes to Eve, a shining one. Ezekiel 28 describes Satan in Eden in his unfallen state. Beautiful. And this shining one comes to Eve now to deceive her. Now he's fallen somewhere along the way. I don't know where. By the time he comes to Eve, he is going to deceive her with the same lie he fell for. Because in Isaiah 14 he said to himself, I will be like the most high God. And God cast him down. He lost dimension. Whatever happened to him. He is certainly still the prince of the power of the air. Certainly a powerful spiritual being. But he comes to her now either possessing a creature that is beautiful or himself disguised as an angel of light coming to Eve to deceive her with the same lie that he fell for that she could be like God. And knowing that man is the apple of God's eye, creating God's image and likeness, now he comes. It says the serpent, the shining one, was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? It infers. Is it so that you are not allowed to eat of any of the trees in this garden? Now, Satan is not asking the question because he needs to know the answer. He is setting Eve up. The woman said unto the serpent, the shining one, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. Now what God said is you can eat of all of the trees freely. Of all of them you can freely eat. She says, We can eat 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 of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Now look over in verse 17 of chapter 2. God said this, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and of evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest, thereof thou shalt surely die. God didn't say you can't touch it. Now I don't know why they would want to touch it, but God didn't say you can't touch it. He said you can't eat of it. Eve now has added to that. Well, we're not allowed to eat it. We're not allowed to touch it. I don't know if she got in a conversation with Adam because God had said this to Adam and Adam said to her, Look, just don't worry about that tree. Don't eat it. Don't touch it. You know, sometimes husband and wives do that. And maybe by this time she's thinking, Oh, we're not allowed to eat it. We're not allowed to touch it. We just stay away from it. And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die. Now he's quoting that verse more accurately than her. He had been there in 217 listening to what God said to Adam, because God had said, You shall surely die. She said, In the day we eat, we can't touch it or eat it. In the day we do, we'll die. When Satan quotes it, he says, You shall not surely die. He had been listening. And you see what he's done again is he's got her focus now on the one thing that she couldn't have. And again, you have to imagine how incredible this is, because the Garden of Eden, we don't have any idea of its exact size. Evidently, it was in Eden, in the land of Eden, in the area of Eden. And God placed this garden eastward in Eden. And God is the one who it says, planted it and dressed it. He put every, it says, every tree that's pleasant to the eye to look upon and every tree that's good to the taste. Everyone in creation, there was a species of it in that garden. It must have been incredibly beautiful. And just to have been able to wander through there and eat freely and look at all the beauty of it. It's remarkable now that the devil has her thinking about the one single thing that she can't have. Now, he never does that to us, does he? You know, all of the blessings in our lives, all of the things we got going for us, you know, with all of our gripes and all of our problems, I mean, we have food in our refrigerators, we have antibiotics available to us, we have peace in our land right now, we have heat, we have a roof, we have all of the things the Bible tells us if we have these things, we should be content. And Satan will come and he sets us up. God don't let you do anything, does he? Oh, yes, he does. He said we can do all this stuff. There's just one thing we can't do. Oh, really? And he's got our mind already on the one thing we can't do. And he may do that in your life. You see, there is no doubt in many of your lives that struggle right now going on with some particular thing. Your life is filled with blessing, but there's one thing you've been messing with, you've been playing with it, and God has been telling you, no, that one thing is not. And Satan comes and he gets your focus off of all the wonderful things that are in your life, and he gets you to focus on the one single thing that you don't have. He does it to all of us. He does it to all of us. Again, I shared on Sunday morning, just a couple weeks ago, Kathy and I spent a whole day together on a Thursday, driving, we went somewhere, it was just the two of us, we had the whole day to ourselves, great day, talking, hours on end, you know, oh honey this, oh honey that, just had fun, just a nice day, it was relaxing, the kids, just the two of us, and on the way back we decided, let's drive through Colonel Sanders, and let's buy dinner too, so then we won't even have to do dishes. I mean, it'll be a perfect day, they won't even have to cook, you know. So, as we got into the line, then she's saying, she says, well, what do you want, and we go to that, and the lady's trying to talk, can I help you, wait a second, because I didn't want to order the wrong thing, so what exactly do we want here, and then we decide, well, can we have a bucket, you know, however many pieces it is, and then she says, no legs, I said, no legs, no, she said, well, no dark meat, no thighs, no thighs, okay, the lady's now got no thighs, I'm ready to drive away, and Kathy says, no wings, I said, no wings, I like wings, what do you mean, no wings, so we're in there, so then when we get up to the window, now she's saying to me, well, ask the lady how many pieces, how many breasts did she put in, I said, honey, we should have just ordered breasts, this is a bucket, they put in all kinds of stuff, I'm not going to make her open a lid and count the breasts that are in there, greasy, you know, we'll do that when we get home, you know, and now we're at each other, we're arguing, and we forgot about all the blessings we had that day, and our focus has gotten on to the one thing that we didn't have, chicken ordered the way we wanted, now, you're laughing, and it was easily resolved, I mean, within an hour, I said, honey, forgive me, you know, I made peace, whether I was wrong or not, I knew that was what God wanted me to do, but he's a master at that, getting our focus off all that God has given us, putting our focus on a particular prohibition, something God has prohibited, and then making God seem like he's holding out on us, and that if we do this God's way, we'll never have the thing we want, we'll never have the guy, or the girl, or the job, or the money, if we do it God's way, some of you are smiling because you're getting it, but the Holy Spirit is giving it to you right now, and your mom didn't call and tell us you were coming, this is not a set up, now, the serpent then says to the woman, you shall not surely die, now he is flatly contradicting the word of God, and in verse 5, he slanders God, for God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, that was true, you shall be as God's, that was the lie, you shall know good and evil, that was true, they would know good and not be able to perform it, they would know evil and not be able to avoid it, they wouldn't be like God, their eyes would be open, they would be in a pickle, so there's a half truth here, as he's giving that to them, and now he's slandering God, now again, take note of this, because in your own study through the scripture, we hear many things about Satan, but we only hear his voice three times throughout the Bible, actually recorded, actually quoted, this is the first time we hear the voice of the devil, and he's slandering God to man, and his tricks have not changed, he is still doing that, if he's a God of love, how could he do this, and if God loves you, then why is this going on in your life, and you can't trust him, don't do it this way, you try your best to do it God's way, and what do you end up with, you never end up with nothing, you never get a date, you never get any money, you never get a job, you never get a car, you never get a mortgage, you know, he still does that today, the second time we hear his voice, Job chapter 1, there, he's slandering Job to God, slandering man to God, but he knows that Job only worships you because you bless him, you take away his blessings, and you'll see what kind of a guy he is, and we have to understand that, he's the accuser of the brethren, he comes to us accusing the brethren, now the third time we hear his voice, it's exciting, because there in the wilderness, he's saying to Jesus, since you're the son of God, turn these stones into bread, now the great thing there is, he's facing God and man in one person, and he's in a jam, and defeated, but notice his voice there, he's slandering God, now by the way, if you're in any situation, no matter how difficult it is, and in your own heart, you know, we do doubt God, I mean, let's be honest, there are times we wonder what he's doing, there are times when we examine our lives and think, well, he's letting this happen to me because I did this, or because I'm so unworthy, but the thing that you can know for sure, as soon as you hear something in your heart slandering the character of God, the devil is present, the enemy is there, not the devil himself, but one of his buck privates is there bothering you. Now, look at verse 6, when the woman saw, she didn't see, she thought she saw, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, now look at that, what she saw was this, that the fruit was good to eat, it was pleasant to look on, and would make you wise. What could possibly be wrong with that? You know, if this tree was growing near your house, in your backyard, and you examined this tree and you looked at it, and you saw this tree was good for food, it was pleasant to look on, it was pleasant to the eyes, and it would make you wise, you would think, what could possibly be wrong with this? What is wrong with any of these three things? Something that's good to eat, something that's pleasant to look upon, and something that will make you wise. What could possibly be wrong with that? Well, it's simply this, God said, don't do it. That's what's wrong with it. You're going to find out in your Christian experience, there are many things, reason comes to battle with faith. Your reasoning will come to struggle with God's word. And you will look at a situation, and you'll know what God has said in His word, and you'll go through that struggle of what could possibly be wrong with this? Well, what's wrong with it is God has given you in His word some passage or some verse that prohibits a particular thing. God does that for your safety. God doesn't do that because He's holding out on you, that's what Satan says. If God tells you to stay away from something, it's the same thing as we have kids, and we tell them not to play in the street. We tell them not to put certain things in their mouths when they're little kids. We constantly instruct our children, and our children give us this, oh, let me do nothing. We do those things because we love them. We do those things because it's for their own benefit, and they don't understand. God is asking us as adults that we would walk in faith. When His word says something to us, and we don't understand it with the intellect, He is still expecting us to trust Him, to believe, and to do what He says in faith. Because to the natural mind, what could possibly be wrong with those things? It would taste good, it was pleasant to look at, and it would make you wise if you ate it. Now, you have to understand that behind all this, the hook is set now. Once we have the word desire involved, the hook is set. Satan's done his work because the heart, the desire of the heart, you know, guard your heart with all diligence, from it flows the issues of life. Your heart will always make a convert of your mind. If you let yourself set your heart on something, an illicit relationship, money that you shouldn't have, drugs, success at compromise, if you let the desire of your heart get set on something, you'll find as time goes by, your mind will come up with the stupidest excuses in the world to do it. Because the heart always makes a convert of the mind, given time. And he's got the hook set. Now, she's saying, what could be wrong with this? I'll tell you what it is. It's the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life. Very simply that. The tree was good to eat, lust of the flesh. The tree was good to look upon, the lust of the eyes. The tree was good to make one wise, the pride of life. John tells us in chapter 2, verses 16, 17 in there of his first epistle, 1 John, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. Now, again, he's not just talking about the creation, nothing wrong with the trees and the bushes. And we have to understand the context. See, God, same author, John, said God so loved the world. So one place he tells us God loves the world, there he's talking about humanity. God so loved the world, same word, that he gave his only son. Whoever believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life. There's one point when he talks about the material world and he says whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and doesn't give to him, the love of Christ is not him. There he's talking about the material world. But when he talks about us not loving the world, he then defines it. He says because all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father. And he says there is a system of values out there, there is a system of morals and standards out there that appeal to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life that have nothing to do with the standards of God. And yes, the tree, it was good to the taste, it was pleasant to look upon, it would make one wise, but God had said don't touch it. So there are two different value systems there. You know, it says that Moses understood that it was more value to him to suffer the reproach with God's people and that he might inherit the riches of Christ than for him to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. The Bible doesn't say that sin is unpleasurable. The Bible says sin is pleasurable. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. That's the way, now, that Satan comes, but again, know this, when he comes to Jesus in the wilderness, turn these stones to bread, he takes them up and shows them all of the kingdoms of the world and all the glory of them, and then he says cast yourself down, give a grand demonstration of who you are. He uses the same appeal to Jesus, the Son of God. And he doesn't say if you're the Son of God, he says since you're the Son of God. He knew who Jesus was. He had heard the Father, the Baptist, and he said this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And you have to know this in your heart, that if Satan uses the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life against the Son of God, that's his best shot. He does not have any better ammunition in his arsenal than that. And the answer that Jesus gives is remarkable and it keeps us safe. If you're the Son of God, since you're the Son of God, turn these stones to bread. Jesus said, and very important for us, it is written, this word is important, man. It is written, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. What Jesus is saying is I don't have to be the divine Son of God with all my power to defeat you, Satan. All I have to be is a man submitted to the Holy Spirit and to the Word of God. That's our safety. It will always be our safety. And again, remember, none of the apostles were with Jesus when that happened. They weren't called yet. It was immediately after his baptism. That means somewhere down the line, you know, Matthew wrote it, but he wasn't there. Luke wrote it, he wasn't there. Somewhere along the line, Jesus sat with them and said, let me tell you a story. You know, somewhere by a campfire at night, Jesus said, before I called any of you guys, I confronted the devil and the wilderness. This is what he said to me. This is how I answered him. And if you want to stay on safe ground, that's why those things are written for us. If you want to stay on safe ground, you can use the same tools that I did because I didn't confront him in all my divine power. I just wanted to smoke him, but I didn't. I confronted him in your place and set the example for you so you can have victory. So Satan comes the same way. When she saw this good to eat, pleasant to look upon, make one wise, she took the fruit thereof and did eat and also gave it to her husband and he did eat and the eyes of them both were open. Satan told the truth there. They knew that they were naked. That's a wonderful thing to discover when your eyes are open. They knew that they were naked. They sowed or they wove fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. Now, again, man's first attempt at religion, the Church of the Holy Fig Tree. Now, again, no, no wonder Jesus cursed the fig tree as he came to religious Israel and all they were with leaves, all they were was a covering and no fruit. It was the same thing with Adam and Eve here. He comes to them. He sees the horror of the fall of man and what sin will bring in the world. And he sees them trying to cover themselves with fig leaves and what he had longed for in them. A fellowship was not there, but he would provide that they tried to cover themselves. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Now, that's what they would do is fellowship with him. Here comes the Lord. They hear his voice. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. If you get behind that tree, I'll get behind this tree. We'll hide from God. Let me tell you something. It doesn't work. I hate to tell you that if you're eating fruit that you shouldn't eat today in your life. The Bible says all things are open naked before the one with whom we have to do. You can't hide from God. You can't hide from him, not with fig leaves and not behind a tree. You can't hide from God. He will find you and he can make you miserable right in the middle of a thousand people. He can put the finger right on you. Now, let me tell you something. If you're his child, you get chastened, you get spanked. He does not punish you. He disciplines you. Again, I've got I've got four kids. They do things wrong sometimes when they do something wrong. Sometimes I can tell as soon as I come home, if my wife is at the door saying your son and if he's mine, when I get home, something happened. I don't say that kid, OK, pack your suitcase, change your last name. You are out of here. No, that's my kid. I ain't giving it up. I love him. He did something wrong. If it calls for discipline, it calls for discipline. I see sometimes we think, you know, with God that we we blow it and that's it. We're out of there like our boss at work or something that he's just looking for an opportunity to get rid of us. That's not it at all. They're hiding themselves from the presence of God. You can't hide from him. They make themselves before that. They were both naked. They weren't ashamed. They were serving each other. Now they're making themselves fig leaves. They're hiding themselves from the presence of the Lord. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And again, by the way, in the scene, you have to try to imagine, you know, the tone of God's voice. Now, God's not asking Adam, where are you? Because he's saying, oh, no, I've lost them. I just made them and I already lost them. You know, he knows where they are. You can see through trees. This is not a problem. And again, Jesus does that many times. Woman, where's your husband? I don't have one. You're right. The guy you're living with now, your husband, you've had five husbands. You're a prophet, aren't you? You know, to Peter, going down there to the lake and throwing your hook. You pull out a fish, take the coin out of his mouth, pay the tax. And Jesus knows what God knows. He doesn't have to, nothing's hid. So he asked the question for, for their benefit. Where are you? As he asks, you know, where are you this evening? Where are you with the Lord? Where are you? Are the things in your life that you know are forbidden? Do you think you can hide them? Where are you? Same God, it's the same yesterday, today and forever. This is the Bible says he doesn't change. And by the way, I don't think, as I look at this, that he comes down and says, all right, where are you? I knew you would do this. That's why the lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. Cause I knew you'd bungle things by the third chapter of this book. You know, it's not like that again. Uh, uh, Chuck at a pastor's conference, Chuck Smith told us, he said, you know, he said early in my ministry, I would show up on the scene of a crisis in the church, much like a police officer shows up on the scene of an accident, getting out his pad and his pencil. Okay. You're the witnesses. Okay. Who hit who? Whose fault was it? Who went through the red light? Who did this? Oh, you did it. Hmm. You went through the red light. And he said, I would show up in a, in a difficulty like an arresting officer and get all the information and make sure I know who was wrong. I'd get all the witnesses. I get all the facts. He says, as I've grown older in the Lord and hopefully been conformed a little more into his image and likeness, I find that I show up on the scene now, like the paramedics. And I want to know who needs to be revived. I want to know who needs life support. I want to know who needs blood. I want to know who needs to be resuscitated. I want to know who needs to get, you know, the paddles. You know, I want to know, I get on the scene and want to know what I can do to bring life again. And that is the imagery I get here with God, because you have to understand this. Christ was slain from the foundation of the world. Jesus knew God knew that Adam and Eve were going to do this. He had already made provision. And the most beautiful part of God would not have ever been revealed, except it were for the fall. You know, it tells us in Romans one that his eternal power and Godhood is revealed in creation, that we can see God's majesty in the Himalayas and the great North Cascades here in America or the Tetons or in an electric storm or in a storm in the sea or a sunset. We sense God's majesty and his power. But we have never known his grace and his forgiveness and his love and his condescending. We'd have never seen God in Christ on the cross, reconciling the world to himself if it weren't for this scene. And I think as God comes on the scene, he comes on the scene and says, Adam, where are you? You know, what have you done? I think there is a broken hearted father on the scene. He said, I heard your voice. These are the first words of man in the Bible recorded where he's speaking to God. He said, I heard thy voice in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, well, who told you that you were naked? Now he's fishing, giving Adam a chance to say, I really blew it. God, I'm sorry. Then he says, has thou eaten of the tree where have I commanded thee thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, you know, the senior, this is beautiful. Look, I want to say this, if you're if you sense God saying to you this evening, where are you? Look, hiding from God is lunacy. Hiding in God is Christianity. Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. We should flee to him to hide our fallen, imperfect, sinful self in Christ. We should hide in him. He is our hiding place. David says that you are my hiding place. We should hide in him because you can never hide from him. But because of his love, you can hide in him and find forgiveness and restoration. He says, you've eaten of the tree. I told you, you shouldn't eat, haven't you? The man says, well, the woman whom thou gave us to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat. Now he's passing the buck. Look, God, it was me and you and paradise. There was not a problem. You're the one who said it's not good for man to be alone. And you said you're going to make a helper that's suitable for me. Was that woman you made? Maybe there's a chromosome or a gene in the wrong place. Maybe something. I don't know what it is. Here I was. I was fine. Create an image and likeness in the Garden of Eden, in paradise. You made the woman. You put her here. It's been trouble ever since. That's what he says to God. This is a woman. You made her. You put her here. God turns to the woman and says to her, what is this that thou has done? The woman said, it was the servant. Now she passes the buck. It was the servant. He's the one who deceived me. He beguiled me. And I did eat. Now, you realize these are the two people who have peopled our planet. We all come from this gene pool. And the world is filled with people blaming each other. And the issue is sin. But we go through the whole process of the husband blaming the wife and the wife blaming the husband and the parents blaming the children and the children blaming the parents and the teachers blaming the students and the students blaming the faculties and the Arabs blaming the Jews and the Jews blaming the Arabs and the blacks blaming the whites and the whites blaming the blacks and the Russians blaming the Americans. Americans blaming the Russians. The dogs are blaming the cats and the cats are blaming the dogs. And, you know, it goes on and on and on and on. The problem is sin. We have lots of excuses for it. We love the point of vigor at each other. But these are the these are the the fountainhead of our race. The the first passers of the buck. And they passed it to us. The Lord says of the serpent, he's got nobody to point at. Because thou has done this, thou art cursed above all the cattle, above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all of the days of thy life. Now, the Bible tells us this important. We understand. He clearly tells us that Eve was deceived. Adam ate willingly. First Timothy chapter two, verse 14 says that the woman was deceived, but the man was in transgression. Eve was deceived by Satan and ate. Adam transgressed God's word willingly. Now, we are not sure what happened. Did Eve come to Adam already fallen? Did Adam look at her and see her in her fallen state? Was his heart broken? Did he like Christ? And as a type of Christ think I would rather take on human flesh, I would rather lower myself to be with her. And look, I think we can make the mistake of making what he did seem noble. It wasn't. It was sin. But we're not sure why. But we know this. The woman was deceived. Adam, who should have been the example and the leader, sinned willingly. Now, God deals with this shining one and this serpent and pronounces a curse upon it. Then he says in verse 15, I will put enmity between thee and the woman. So you're no longer going to have an ally in the woman. There is now going to be a hatred or a disdain between you. Not only that, I will put enmity between thy seed, the serpent's seed and her seed. King James says it speaking of the seed of the woman. It's a personal pronoun in the Hebrew. It should be he shall. Hebrew is crush thy head and thou, speaking of the serpent, shall bruise his heel. It says he there's a he and then the Hebrew reads he shall crush it. It doubles the he and it is a masculine personal pronoun singular. Now, that's important because to the Jew. Here we have the fountainhead of prophecy of the Messiah and to the Orthodox Jew, he has to wrestle with this because here's God saying the seed singular, masculine of the woman, not speaking of Israel. This has to be an individual. Shall crush the serpent's head. And they wrestle with that. Who is that speaking of? Who is it that will crush the head of Satan, the deceiver? The Jews believe in the devil. And you see everywhere else as we do our study now, as we're heading through the Bible, we'll hear of the seed of Abraham, the seed of Isaac. It's always the seed of the man because the man is the one who provides the seed in this process. The only place where we hear the seed of the woman, the only place in the Bible is this prophecy of the virgin birth. As we get to Isaiah chapter seven, we'll hear there, behold, the virgin shall conceive not a virgin, not a woman. It's not a sign anywhere in the world when a woman conceives. Our nursery is full. We have so many pregnant women. This church is amazing. It's not a sign to anybody. It's a sign our building may be too small again if this keeps up, but it's not a sign of anything else. In Isaiah, it says the definite article virgin, which implies someone who has been previously spoken of. The virgin shall conceive and bear a son. His name shall be Emmanuel. It goes through all that stuff. So here's this interesting prophecy now beginning of Jesus, the Messiah, the virgin birth, the seed that will crush and deal a fatal blow to Satan. Now, by the way, on the cross, Satan was defeated. The fatal blow has not been dealt. We are waiting for the return of Christ, where he will obliterate and destroy the enemy. As it says in the end of Romans, Satan will soon be crushed under your heels, it says of the church. So the victory is won on the cross. It's signed, sealed and delivered. But we're waiting for God to crush his head and set up his kingdom. That's coming soon. We look forward to that. The other hand, the seed of the serpent shall bruise like a snake bites at the heel, deal a blow to him, but it won't be fatal. And certainly that's happened. So we see this remarkable prophecy given here. Under the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow, King James says, and thy conception. The idea is your delivery and your pregnancy will now be a labor or a burden. What was pregnancy and delivery supposed to be like before the fall? I like to think about it, just going to pop them out. Here comes another one. Boom, you know, like instant cameras, instant on television, instant breakfast. After the fall, God says that the woman's pregnancy, her carrying of the child and the delivery would greatly be multiplied with sorrow. And it would be a difficult situation. What was it before the fall? What was it intended to be? Very interesting. For me, I'm not a woman, you know, my wife watched her do this four times. She wasn't very interested at that point in time. Breathe, honey, you breathe, stop breathing, you know, you go through those things. In sorrow, thou shall bring forth children. Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee. Now, by the way, it's the same Hebrew phrase as we have here in chapter four, verse seven. Look in chapter four, verse seven, speaking of sin. If thou doest well, God speaking to Cain, thou shalt, shalt thou not be accepted. And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And here's our phrase unto thee shall be his desire and thou shalt rule over him. Our Hebrew phrase says part of the curse is this back in chapter three. It says her sorrow shall be multiplied and childbearing. And then it says her desire shall be to rule over her husband. But her husband shall rule over her. That is what is implied in the Hebrew. That's what our phrase gives to us. There will now be this constant struggle instead of in God's perfection, the husband being like Christ, completely living for one thing, for his wife. Wives, wouldn't it be easy to submit to that kind of a husband? You know, because we hear this argument in the church today. Well, I would submit to him if he'd love me the way Christ loves the church. And husband's saying, well, I'd love her the way Christ loves the church if she'd submit to me. And we're caught in this circle somewhere. And everybody, you know, everybody needs to understand that this is a personal relationship with Jesus. You have to be what he wants you to be no matter what everybody else is being around you. It is your responsibility to be what God wants you to be. It's mutually exclusive. And then it works. Now, to Adam, he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife. Now, sometimes that's a good thing to do. In this situation, it wasn't. Instead, he should have hearkened to the voice of God. But he says, Adam, because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy sake. What was the ground like before this? In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee. Thou shalt eat the herb of the field. Now, thorns and thistles. Remember, Christ was crowned with thorns. He had come to bring an end to the curse. Thorns and thistles then are not necessarily bad in themselves. They are a reminder. Whenever you see a thistle or a thorn, be reminded, this is not heaven. This is earth. You know, Christians get that confused. Sometimes they forget. But let me give you the truth. This is earth. You understand that? This is not heaven. Don't get confused. What we're longing for is heaven. It's not here. It's heaven. Thorns and thistles are a reminder to us. They are friends. If you've read Hinds Feet on High Places, I like sorrow and suffering. The two guides. Too much afraid. Thorns and thistles are reminders of our circumstances in this life. The difficulty of it. It says, in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the ground. Everybody waits for the end of the day, the end of the week. It's always a reminder. We're all waiting for the end of this age. For out of it was thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. Speaking of the body made of the dust of the earth and Adam called his wife's name Eve, which means living because she was the mother of all the living. Now look what Adam's doing. Adam believes what God had said that through Eve would come one who would destroy the enemy and all that had taken place and that things will be rectified. So he now he calls his wife Eve, which means living because Adam says through her, through her seed, the seed of the woman. Now there's going to be life given back to the race. So in faith now Adam calls his wife Eve, believing in the prophecy we had looked at back in verse 15. And unto Adam also and unto his wife did God, Lord God, make coats of skins and clothed them. So now somewhere, somehow, God takes animals and slaughters them in front of Adam and Eve. These are probably animals that Adam named, maybe knew, because the fig leaf was not a sufficient covering. The covering of man's work was not a sufficient covering. But if God gave them the covering, then it was sufficient. There was something in it. So for those skins to be given to Adam and Eve to cover them. And, you know, a very interesting idea. The cup for the covering of sin is an idea through the Old Testament for them to be covered. It would cost the life of innocent substitutes. So God somehow teaches Adam here about animal sacrifice, their substitutionary atonement through the shedding of blood and the death of an innocent substitute. You and your wife are now covered in a proper way. So somehow he learns now of sacrifice here. And then it says in verse 22, the Lord God said, Behold, the man, again, notice the Trinity, is become as one of us to know good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever, God is now preventing man in his fallen state from eating of the tree of life and living forever in a fallen state. I mean, the only thing that makes life bearable sometimes is we know it's going to end, isn't it? And the only thing that makes life bearable sometimes is we know this present life is going to end. We're looking forward to this corruption, putting in corruption, mortal, putting in mortality, standing in the presence of God, free from the curse, from sin, from suffering, from tears, from death. Imagine if Adam and Eve would have eaten of the tree of life in their fallen state. And of all of us would just be stuck here together forever in this present circumstance. That'd be pretty depressing. Besides that, nobody that was ever born since the flood would have died. It would be real crowded and real crazy. Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth, Adam, from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken, reminding him as he works in the dust of the ground every day that he is but flesh, that he was created. God made him from the dust of the ground. So notice verse 24, our word changes. Verse 23, it says God sent him forth. Then it says he drove out the man and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, plural, at least two and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way to the tree of life. So interesting as we come here, God first goes to send Adam out of the garden of Eden. And you have to realize Adam's never known anything but the presence of God. Adam's never known anything to be as enjoyable as his open face fellowship with God with innocency, without shame. God was his father. God created him. God was his father. And he walked in that open fellowship with God. Now God says to him, Adam, you have to go. He sends him, gives him the command, Adam, you've got to leave. There must be a process because the next verse says, then God had to drive him. There must be a process where Adam says, but God, Lord, Father, I've never known anything but your presence. I'm fearful. You've always taken care of. You always watch. You've always provided. Everything's been perfect under your care and in your presence. And I know we've made a mistake and I know something terrible has changed. I don't understand all the implications, but can't we just stay? Can't we make this right? And I believe with a heart break that we can hardly imagine. God then had to drive Adam out of the garden, drove him out and then placed there the cherubim with a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life. Now, the Jerusalem Targum says that. At the east of Eden, where those cherubim were, that there was there a model of the mercy seat was the ancient rabbis. We don't know how accurate it is, but we can see the type here. And it was the appointed place where Adam and Eve would come and meet with God. It was there where they would come to sacrifice. And just like the the tabernacle and the cherubim, it says thou shalt make two cherubim of gold, of beaten work, shalt thou make them in the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, the other cherub on the other end. Even of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on the two ends thereof. And the cherubim shall stretch forth their wings on the high covering of the mercy seat with their wings and their faces shall look one to another toward the mercy seat. Shall the faces of the cherubims be and thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim, which are upon the arc of the testimony of all things which I have given thee and commanded unto the children of Israel. So in the ark was this model of two cherubim standing on either place where the blood was poured out and it was at that place God says in the ark and then in Solomon's temple that he would meet with them and commune with them. And the ancient rabbis say this was first realized in Eden, that there were the cherubim were placed there with flaming sword. They stood over the place which was the entrance to Eden. It was as far as Adam could come and it was there where he sacrificed and blood was poured out and he found mercy in the presence of God again through the bloodshed of an innocent substitute. And it was through that sacrifice where he could still fellowship with God. We find this imagery all through the nation of Israel in the veil that stood in the tabernacle between the holy of holies and the holy place. The cherubim were embroidered there. As you look at the encampment of Israel, the four flags posted on the four points were the face of a man, the face of a lion, the face of an eagle, and the face of an ox or the four faces of the cherubim. As you come to Solomon's temple, we find the veil again hanging there with the cherubim embroidered upon it. And as we come to Herod's temple, the veil there, Josephus tells us, was 80 foot high and it was woven over 10 inches thick and had two huge cherubim woven on it, signifying only the priests could go there once a year on the day of atonement behind there. But it tells us when Jesus died on the cross and he gave up the ghost that the veil in the temple was torn, and it says, from top to bottom. Now, there was no priest 80 foot tall around there. That veil was torn and it was the time of the evening sacrifice, three in the afternoon. You know those priests came shooting out of there. And it tells in the book of Acts that many of the priests had become believers by the time the book of Acts was beginning. That veil was torn from top to bottom and the way through the blood of Christ was laid open once again for us to have fellowship with a holy God. And you see, these things were taught to Adam. Adam would live over 900 years. Adam would live all the way down to Lamech, the father of Noah, and would instruct from generation to generation this truth, that through the bloodshed of an innocent substitute, man will one day return home. There will be a way back to paradise. And every time that lamb was slaughtered, Adam again found solace and peace and was reminded that the day was coming as he remembered what it was like on the other side. Now, again, for you and I this evening, there is but one way. You have to understand. Look at the picture that God's giving us. There are no religions. Muhammadism, Buddhism, none of that is going on. The New Age movement, no JWs, no Mormons, none of that. All there is, is man and God. There's no religions. That's something man makes up. And all there is, is an approach to the one true living God through the bloodshed of an innocent substitute. That's all there was. There was no confusion. Wasn't like, gee, should I go to this church Sunday? Or should I go to that church Sunday? Should I try this? Or should I try the Unitarian Church? Or should I try this? No. All there was, was approaching a holy God, the approach made by sinful man, and man recognizing that there had to be the death of an innocent substitute taking his place for him to approach that God. Now, it's the same today. The world is filled with all kinds of ideas, and many may be sincere people. But there's only one way for any of us to approach God tonight, and that's through the death of an innocent substitute. Besides that, we're all Adam's children. We're all fallen humanity. Every one of us. Sinners. Me. You. All of us. Saved by grace. And hopefully, we're being sanctified. We're being conformed. There's changes going on. But none of those things have anything to do with our approach and acceptance to God. That is solely on the basis of the offering. Again, and not the offerer. Solely on the basis of the offering do any of us have an approach to a holy God.