The first and last Adam looking in

I'd like to read with you in the first book of your Bible, please, the book of Genesis and chapter 3. Genesis and chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3 and verse number 22. And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us to know good and evil now lest he put forth his hand and takes also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground for whence he was taken.

So he drove out the man. Now you notice there's a change there. And he placed it east of the garden of Eden and cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.

Now to the last book in your Bible, the book of Revelation for a final reading and again in chapter 3. Revelation chapter 3. Revelation 3 and verse number 20. I want to apply this verse. Revelation 3 verse number 20.

Behold I stand at the door and knock. And if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me. People who read their Bible understand that the Bible speaks about two Adams.

The first Adam and the last Adam. What I want you to notice just at the close of the meeting today, what we have in Genesis chapter 3 is the first Adam standing on the outside and he's looking in because of one sin. What we have in Revelation chapter 3 and verse number 20 is the last Adam and he's standing outside the door and he's looking in for the very same reason because of one sin.

The Bible makes it very very clear. Wherefore is by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin. So death is passed upon all men and that all have sinned or all have sinned if you like in Adam.

When it came to Genesis chapter 3 Adam had no choice in this. Up till this moment he had different choices. Whether it was the naming of the animals, he was at full liberty in that garden.

That God had literally given to him to dress and to keep. But now comes a point because of sin he no longer has a choice. He has to go.

It would almost seem from the verses that we read between verses 23 and 24, there's a little hesitancy, maybe a drawing back on Adam's part. I'm not just certain about that, but it obviously becomes a little stronger in the last verse when it says this, so he drove out the man. That must have been so hard for God to do.

When he had built it with him in mind, just as we've been hearing about heaven prayer. What littler, I don't know about heaven I know this, that it was built, if you'll allow the word, with you in mind. Hell was it.

It was built for the devil, made for the devil and his angels, never for you. And let me make it clear, you miss Christ, you die your sins, and you will forever be on the outside looking in. I'm sure that like men today when it comes to Adam, maybe he just didn't get it.

He obviously didn't see the ramifications of that one sin. He obviously didn't see a planet littered with graveyards, covered with hospitals, all kinds of institutions, all kinds of things incorporated into society because of sin. And let me speak and make it clear to you in this meeting today, not saved.

As you look around and watch the movement of the Christians today, whether this may kind of bore you or whatever it might be, take note. If you die in your sins, this is the closest you'll ever be to heaven. To be among people that know their sins forgiven.

To be among people that love to sing of the Savior. To be among people that love their Redeemer. That are so thankful that God ever looked upon them, because all of us friend, all of us in our experience were once at that point.

To realize that we are lost. That we are on the wrong side. And that's your condition today.

You're outside the door. If not saved, you're outside. All you can do is look in.

Remember one time in Florida, Bradenton, Florida. Last minute there was some of the ladies wanted to go shopping over at the outlet mall in Bradenton, Florida. We were over in Madeira Beach, so myself and other brothers drove them over.

Never forget, we pulled up to that. Oh, they were so pleased. The doors were open.

In they went. You know, they thought, once we're in the store, we can do our shopping. Yeah, we'll hear the announcements.

It was plenty late, really. They're doing their shopping. While I was sitting there, a car drove up.

It was much different than what I was driving. I was driving somebody else's car, really. I have no idea even the make of it.

But the ladies that go to that car obviously could afford it. Just the way they were dressed, and they just kind of went up to the door. They pulled on that door.

It was locked. And the lady pulled on it again. And there was a cashier in there.

She was scooping out the till for the day, and this other lady started frantically knocking on that door. In other words, for us, you open it. They could have bought the store.

It didn't change it. The only thing that changed was for me. I shut her, as I tell you outside the window down, the language that came out of their mouths.

Because that door wouldn't open. It never opened, and they went home. What a horrible thing it would be for someone in this audience today to find themselves on the wrong side of a closed door, and that door is not going to open for you.

To prove to you that there is no way that Adam could go back into that. No way that he could go back into that. The proof of it is this.

Those flaming swords were placed there. They were positioned there. And there was no way, no absolute way that he could go back into that garden.

Never again. Imagine taking your children, your two boys, and they say, what was it like in there dad? Would it not break his heart to tell him? And now we're outside here. It's interesting.

Here's a man now with sweat on his brow and thorns in his feet. It reminds us of the last Adam at Calvary. And there he had thorns on his head and sweat that fell to his feet.

So you could be saved. So you could go inside that door. So you could be safe and saved for all eternity and no longer be on the outside looking in.

Must have been a solemn moment. Must have been so hard. Just, you know, this is not a ranting landlord that's given an eviction notice that he isn't paid up or paid his dues.

It was the last thing that God wanted to do. The last thing that God wants for you is to perish. He has made every way possible from the very home in which you have been born to the very seat that you're sitting in this out of turn this afternoon.

God has done that so that you might be saved. So that you wouldn't be on the outside looking in. Because, my friend, that is where you will be apart from salvation.

So from that day from now mankind is on the outside looking in. Luke's gospel chapter 13. What's it saying? Once the master of the house has risen up and is shut to the door and ye begin to knock, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us.

He says, depart from me. I never knew you. I never knew you.

When ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob all in the kingdom of heaven, and you yourselves dressed out. Then he describes the directions from which they'll come, people that they didn't know. They knew Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

It's interesting that people knocking on the door were obviously the people who knew that was the way in. And you likely could tell people today if they ask you, you're a push. You could tell people the way to heaven, how they could be saved.

How they could know their sins forgiven. But you're not saved. For one simple reason, you don't want it.

You don't want it. It's not a case of priorities or a list of priorities. It's just not something for some reason that doesn't interest you.

That's sad. I find that pathetic. Because it had to be with, like I say, with stooped over.

I almost pictured him and said, oh listen. And he would tell them of what happened that day in the garden. He had to.

But he'd tell them of something better. He would tell them of a provision that God made. So he could enjoy fellowship with God.

Animals that were slain. Life that was given, so that they could have life. That's what we're here telling you today.

There's a life given at Calvin, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he gave his life, shed his precious blood, you might be saved, and know your sins forgiven. But you know the truth of it is this.

You shut yourself out. I preached a lot with a man by the name of Mr. Peter Orszak. And some of you here would remember Peter.

Very interesting man to work with and to preach with. Very capable, very intelligent man. I took his funeral.

I always remember a story he used to tell. Peter was never a man that worked with a clock. I don't think he wore a wrist watch, but just couldn't work with a clock.

I would be the opposite. So maybe that's why we got along. He always told the story of saying to his father, who is a military man.

He was captain of the Canadian Navy and he was, that's just the way Frank Orszak operated a little different than his son. He said to my dad, he said, you know, I was wondering if I could bring Liz home for supper tomorrow night. I said, ask Mavis, ask your mother.

So he said, hey, I'd like to bring the girlfriend home. Sure, she says. Peter, that'd be fine.

We'd like to meet her. That'd be okay. Frank pipes up and he says, what time is supper? Oh, she says, I guess the usual time, 5.30. Peter, she says, did you get that? He says, 5.30. Yeah, I did.

Oh, yeah. On the way up the next day, pretty soon, Peter comes along with the girlfriend, comes up the driveway there in Halifax, and he looks in the, in those, just in the window there where the dining room was on the side of the house, the other side were the French provincial doors, and he saw dad and mom sitting at the table. I said, here now, might as well go, you know, might have to face a little music, but here I am.

So he went in and, you know, nothing's wrong. He's putting on the real act like he could do, and he opens the door and Frank looks out and he says, Frank Orszag, your name is, and she told her name, was my wife Mavis, and he says, Peter, close the door. That's the dining room door.

So Peter sure stepped back. No, no, no, he says, from the other side. He says, can I tell you? He said, listen out.

I said, dad, from the other side. He spent the supper time outside. Why? Did he not hear it? Did it not register with him? Did it not sink in? Did he just not get it? That's a supper in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

My friend, I'm talking about something far greater, more vast than that. I'm talking about coming into the joy of sin-free heaven. Christ is your Savior.

Heaven is your home. So again, Luke chapter 15. We've got the same thing.

We've got an elder son. He's not interested in going in. No, he's got better things to do.

But something that rankled and that bothered him was this young brother of all people, he goes in and there's all this celebration that he couldn't enter into, and he calls the servants out. He can't call the father because he doesn't have a relationship with him and says, hey, what's going on? And so they start to tell him about it. But he doesn't say, you know, let's, yeah, I'm changing my mind.

I'm coming in. No, no. Didn't matter who entreated him.

Didn't matter who invited him. He was not going in. As a result of that, his passage closes as it began of the outside looking in.

Solemn. Solemn to think of that, you know, when he could have been. There's a man in Luke chapter 16.

Whenever he had a faculties, I'm not sure. I know what the Bible tells us. But from where he is, unfortunately, he could see someone they could relate to and he wanted that beggar to come.

He wanted a drop of water from somewhere on his tongue. Never got it. Never will get it.

It's not because his request was too great that it was denied. It was an impossibility because of what separated them, which the Bible calls a great gulf fixed. Do you know what that great gulf is composed of? Sin.

It always is, friend. What separates man from God has always been the same. Sin.

So what about you today? That's what's keeping you up, my friend. You don't see, you don't understand it. For some reason, it's not clear to you because you don't want it to be clear.

But you are on the outside looking in. I've never been to Yankee Stadium in New York, driven by it. Different times.

The man that built that stadium is gone now, George Steinbrenner. Wealthy, wealthy man built one of the most wealthiest baseball clubs in the world. Yankee Stadium is known worldwide.

People come all over to Yankee Stadium. However, while Mr. Steinbrenner owned it, there was a problem. And that was there was people coming in these big limousines, black limousines, darkened windows.

And they would cruise up to the down at the VIP area. They just put the window down a little bit. The driver would look very professional.

He said, listen, we're friends of George. And they just kind of would coast in. And so the attendant went, well, if they're friends of George, what can he do? But the problem was the people that were invited, that George did know, that had paid all kinds of money to have those preferred seats or places, couldn't get in.

Steinbrenner heard about that. He's to look after that. He put a raincoat on one day, NYC cap on, and he went down to that gate.

He waited. Pretty soon, sure enough, along comes a big black limousine. Cruises up, just about to cruise by, and they're saying, you know, we're friends of George.

He says, stop. Stop! He took his cap off. He said, I'm George Steinbrenner.

Do I know you? I don't know you. Out of here. Out of here.

Listen, my friend, there's no fooling God. Adam couldn't do it in the garden. And you won't do it in the coming day.

So let me ask you, are you content just to stay as you are outside, looking in? There's a man in Luke chapter 14 that made a great feast, a great supper. He was not content. He was not content until that place was filled.

It didn't matter who it was. He was not content until it was filled. Now just stay with me.

Why? Why was he so insisted on that? Well, I'm glad tonight, friend. The heaven just isn't like this auditorium, a place of seats, but it's a place of position and places. He's gone to prepare a place for me.

If I could liken it to the auditorium here today, and suppose the whole of this auditorium was packed, and there was just one seat empty, I had to spend the evening, the weekend, or this evening looking at an empty place my boy or my girl could have filled. It would cease to be heaven for me. Thank God that those of us that are saved, that have loved ones that are not saved, but we get anything to see them saved, we will not spend eternity looking at where they could have been, looking at where they could have been, but you will, you will.

Down in hell, unfortunately, you will be made to recognize people you once knew, maybe preachers you once heard that even despised. Didn't want to listen to them. Glad when the meeting is over.

Just a snarl of the thing. All that will come flooding back into your memory. Whatever you do friend, not because I'm preaching this, okay, not because I'm preaching this, but just think for a minute of being in hell on the outside, looking in, and remembering a time when in the Ankeny Christian Academy Auditorium you heard about it, and you never dreamed it would happen to you.

It will. Revelation chapter 3 verse number 20. I love the words.

Just let me apply them in the gospel. And because of sin coming into the world, he is outside the lives of men and women. That's why he's outside your life, because of sin.

Here's words. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Many men will hear my voice and will come unto me.

I will sup of him, and he with me. And he is on the outside, and he's looking in. Longing to come in.

Doesn't force it. Doesn't push his way. The choice is yours.

The choice is yours. Let's do a verse. First Peter.

What shall the end be? If judgment must first begin at the house of God, what shall the end be of them that obey not? Obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Your option. Your choice.

No, you don't have to. This is amazing. When it came to the winds and the wave, they didn't have a choice.

They had to obey. When he said to them, peace be still, they had to obey. When it came to lions in a den, he closes their mouths.

They have no choice. They had to obey. I could go through different pictures and creation like that.

You know something? He's left you the choice. You don't have to obey. You can pass this all off.

You can push this off to the other person. Say it's not for me. It's not what I want.

But my friend, this is what the verse says. What shall the end be? What shall the end be? No preacher's tongue can describe it. No preacher's tongue can define it.

My friend, all we can tell you tonight, whatever you do, whatever you miss in life, don't miss this. Because the wonderful truth that has to thrill every preacher's heart is that that door is open. It's open.

And you can go in. Okay? You're standing out the outside, but you can go in. This isn't a door you have to knock at.

This is a door that's open. You can go in. And the moment that you go in is a result that you have received him at.

To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even them to believe in his name. So whatever you do, whatever you do, don't stay on the outside looking in, shall we pray.