SPEAKER_01: Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter three.
SPEAKER_01: You're reading verses one through fifteen in our Advent sermon series.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be camping out in this part of God's Word for the next several weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Here are the reading of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
SPEAKER_01: He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You should not eat of any tree in the garden?
SPEAKER_01: And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
SPEAKER_01: But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
SPEAKER_01: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
SPEAKER_01: Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
SPEAKER_01: And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
SPEAKER_01: But the Lord God said to the man and said to him, Where are you?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Who told you that you were naked?
SPEAKER_01: Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?
SPEAKER_01: The man said, The woman you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is it that you have done?
SPEAKER_01: The woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field.
SPEAKER_01: On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
SPEAKER_01: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.
SPEAKER_01: He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
SPEAKER_01: This is the reading of God's holy, infallible, and errant word.
SPEAKER_01: We have been given God's word, but we've also been given God's Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The same Spirit who inspired these words illumines our hearts with these truths.
SPEAKER_01: So let's ask Him.
SPEAKER_01: Father, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for giving us this world-changing event for our edification, for our benefit.
SPEAKER_01: So now help us to not only understand the concepts, but to understand the truth, but Lord, to be changed by this truth as your spirit works in us.
SPEAKER_01: This we ask.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_01: This is Advent, yes, it is.
SPEAKER_01: This second week of Advent, the candle of peace.
SPEAKER_01: We just read the turning point in history, is it not?
SPEAKER_01: God had created Adam and Eve, and they were perfect.
SPEAKER_01: There was no blemishes physically, there was no disturbance inwardly, relationally.
SPEAKER_01: Everything was good.
SPEAKER_01: Just the way God created them.
SPEAKER_01: And then something happens.
SPEAKER_01: Theologians talk about it.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never been in church before for Christmas, and I know for many of you that's the case every year.
SPEAKER_01: I don't assume that everybody here grew up in church, so we don't assume that.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you the story, the big story, the big broad picture, as theologians describe it.
SPEAKER_01: In four words, really.
SPEAKER_01: Creation, there's the history of creation in the Bible, and then there's the fall of man, we just read about, and then there's redemption, we're gonna talk about, and then there's consummation, how this world is gonna end, how it's all gonna come out in the end, and it's gonna be good for Christians.
SPEAKER_01: That's the backdrop.
SPEAKER_01: Here we see the Bible recording this fall, and yet we find the promise of redemption right here as well.
SPEAKER_01: God had put Adam and Eve in paradise, but paradise is now lost.
SPEAKER_01: When they sin, they rebel.
SPEAKER_01: The serpent, that is Satan, approached Eve with a question.
SPEAKER_01: Did God actually say, are you sure that you heard it right?
SPEAKER_01: The prohibition that God gave you in the garden.
SPEAKER_01: And she fell for it, and Adam fell for it.
SPEAKER_01: The first point this morning is simply how peace was lost by succumbing to temptation.
SPEAKER_01: How peace was lost by succumbing to temptation.
SPEAKER_01: The serpent approached Eve with a question.
SPEAKER_01: It was really a suggestion more than an argument.
SPEAKER_01: Because, notice that word, the serpent was crafty.
SPEAKER_01: He's sneaky.
SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes he doesn't make frontal assaults toward us.
SPEAKER_01: He likes to come in through the side door or maybe the back door where our guard is down.
SPEAKER_01: He's good at that.
SPEAKER_01: He's good like that.
SPEAKER_01: What was the suggestion?
SPEAKER_01: Oswald Chambers put it like this, and this is really a good summary.
SPEAKER_01: The suspicion that God really is not that good.
SPEAKER_01: That's really the essence of sin.
SPEAKER_01: That God is not good as he claims to be.
SPEAKER_01: And you really can't trust him because he's holding back.
SPEAKER_01: He's just holding something back that you deserve.
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what he did with Eve.
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what he does with every one of us.
SPEAKER_01: We know that.
SPEAKER_01: As it's been said, sin looks good when God looks bad.
SPEAKER_01: Sin looks bad when God looks good.
SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
SPEAKER_01: It's true.
SPEAKER_01: It's how he works.
SPEAKER_01: Satan loves to plant seeds of doubt in the minds and the hearts of God's people.
SPEAKER_01: And so immediately, as Satan approaches Eve, she starts to backpedal.
SPEAKER_01: Wait a minute, I thought I knew what God said.
SPEAKER_01: I thought I got that right.
SPEAKER_01: But now the tempter is trying to throw her off her balance.
SPEAKER_01: Did God really say that?
SPEAKER_01: And now we see, because she's on her heels, now she's going to extravagate uh exaggerate what God actually said.
SPEAKER_01: Did God say you don't even touch it?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Now she's adding to.
SPEAKER_01: God said you should not eat of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's like a child.
SPEAKER_01: And the parent says, you know, hey, look, Johnny, you're not going to go outside to play until you do your homework, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And what does Johnny say?
SPEAKER_01: Man, I can't do anything around here.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's not true.
SPEAKER_01: Do your homework.
SPEAKER_01: And then you can go out.
SPEAKER_01: The Hebrew scholar Derek Kidner puts it like this.
SPEAKER_01: She over-corrects the error, magnifying God's strictness.
SPEAKER_01: And we've all done that.
SPEAKER_01: Magnifying the error.
SPEAKER_01: Magnifying God's strictness.
SPEAKER_01: And so it feels like God is overly restrictive.
SPEAKER_01: It feels like God is just asking too much of us.
SPEAKER_01: He's asking the impossible.
SPEAKER_01: Who could do that?
SPEAKER_01: And so, as we read in the text, in verse 8, we read and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden after they were deceived and ate of the fruit.
SPEAKER_01: And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
SPEAKER_01: But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, What?
SPEAKER_01: Where are you?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the title of the sermon.
SPEAKER_01: And I was afraid.
SPEAKER_01: Fear overcame me.
SPEAKER_01: Fear overwhelmed me.
SPEAKER_01: Because I was naked.
SPEAKER_01: So I did the reasonable thing that naked people who are aware of their nakedness do.
SPEAKER_01: I went into hiding.
SPEAKER_01: And we've been in hiding ever since.
SPEAKER_01: God was not asking Adam for information.
SPEAKER_01: God did not need a locating device like I've got on my phone.
SPEAKER_01: If I want to know where my family's up to, all I've got to do is click on that, and at least I know where they are.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, God was not clueless.
SPEAKER_01: He knew exactly where Adam was.
SPEAKER_01: He's not asking for information.
SPEAKER_01: No, he's asking for a different reason.
SPEAKER_01: Adam, I know where you are, do you?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't it interesting how often in life we really don't know where we are?
SPEAKER_01: Emotionally, spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: Of course we know where we are physically, geographically.
SPEAKER_01: But where's my heart?
SPEAKER_01: You know you can go through Advent, you can go through the whole season of Advent and not know where your heart really is.
SPEAKER_01: Adam, I know where you are.
SPEAKER_01: Do you?
SPEAKER_01: Are you aware of what is controlling you right now?
SPEAKER_01: Adam says, he confesses, I was afraid.
SPEAKER_01: Fear is his core emotion.
SPEAKER_01: And ever since he fell, fear has been the core emotion of all of us at some times.
SPEAKER_01: At some times, aren't we painfully aware of our fears?
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we're not.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we can mask our fear.
SPEAKER_01: A comfortable life can do that.
SPEAKER_01: If God so happened to bless you by living in Washington, D.C., in a city with many resources, many opportunities, education.
SPEAKER_01: We know.
SPEAKER_01: We know that we are what, in the top 1% of the world, in terms of these comforts?
SPEAKER_01: The minds, the blessings, the education that God's given us, the resources, the opportunities that He's given us.
SPEAKER_01: He's given us so much.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we can mask fear.
SPEAKER_01: Because we look at our bank account, maybe.
SPEAKER_01: We look at our career, and we think, okay, I think I'm on a good path.
SPEAKER_01: And yet we all know what fear is, if we're honest.
SPEAKER_01: Fear cannot coexist with peace.
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about peace today.
SPEAKER_01: Fear cannot coexist with peace.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's much easier to find our bodies than it is our souls.
SPEAKER_01: Fear is a familiar emotion ever since the day in the garden that the innocence was lost.
SPEAKER_01: This is why the Word of God has so much to say about fear.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't do my study in the concordance all the times that fear appears, but a lot.
SPEAKER_01: But I do know this.
SPEAKER_01: What was the number one command that Jesus spoke in his day?
SPEAKER_01: Fear not.
SPEAKER_01: Why was that the number one command?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he could have said all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01: Stop committing adultery, stop stealing, honor your parents.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's so many commands that are applicable, but the one command that he comes back to more than any other is stop fearing.
SPEAKER_01: I see your fear.
SPEAKER_01: And you don't need to live in fear because I've done something about it.
SPEAKER_01: What we fear, we often try to control.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about that a lot at APC.
SPEAKER_01: It seems as though we want to not believe that.
SPEAKER_01: What we fear, we often try to control.
SPEAKER_01: In fear, Adam goes into hiding, trying his best to control what he could, including, by the way, maybe our number one favorite sport, blame shifting.
SPEAKER_01: That's what fearful people do.
SPEAKER_01: Shift the blame, shift the focus off of us, and put it elsewhere.
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what he did.
SPEAKER_01: He throws Eve under the bus.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the woman, the woman you gave me, who's he blaming?
SPEAKER_01: He's blaming God.
SPEAKER_01: God, if you hadn't put me in this situation, if you had given me a better wife, who was wiser and smarter, and didn't fall into the temptation.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, the Hebrew seems to suggest that Adam was present when the serpent came to Eve.
SPEAKER_01: What does that suggest?
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a whole other sermon.
SPEAKER_01: How passive men can be.
SPEAKER_01: Why didn't Adam do something?
SPEAKER_01: Why didn't Adam say something?
SPEAKER_01: Why didn't Adam protect his wife?
SPEAKER_01: And most men, most men have struggled with this ever since.
SPEAKER_01: Being passive when God calls us to be courageous, when God calls us to stand in front to protect our family, when God calls us to shield, to protect our wife.
SPEAKER_01: But that's another sermon.
SPEAKER_01: Blame shifting, blaming Eve, blaming God.
SPEAKER_01: Fear makes us do crazy things.
SPEAKER_01: After the fall, perfect in paradise, they were naked and they felt no shame.
SPEAKER_01: And that really is the goal of life.
SPEAKER_01: But since Adam and Eve fell in an original sin, we all fell with them.
SPEAKER_01: I think as Jim Boyce put it one time, we're all connected to the same root, excuse me, rope.
SPEAKER_01: You know, like a like a rock climber.
SPEAKER_01: We were all attached, and when Adam fell, we all fell with them into sin.
SPEAKER_01: We're not sinners because we sin.
SPEAKER_01: We sin because we're sinners by nature.
SPEAKER_01: With all this going on, all this going on, there's two things that ever since the fall that we're we're good at, relatively good at.
SPEAKER_01: We're good at covering ourselves so that people don't see the blemishes of our life.
SPEAKER_01: And then we we don't feel shame.
SPEAKER_01: Or when we're exposed, when people see through us, and then living with shame.
SPEAKER_01: Only God can restore that.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about that in the coming weeks.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about how it is possible to be naked before God and not ashamed.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about that.
SPEAKER_01: We either try to cover up so we are not exposed, or we struggle with shame because we are exposed.
SPEAKER_01: Fig leaves don't make for good covering, do they?
SPEAKER_01: It just so happens that our fig leaves are much more expensive than our first parents.
SPEAKER_01: Our fig leaves are much more devious in some ways.
SPEAKER_01: We fear exposure.
SPEAKER_01: We fear rejection, as theologian Cornelius Plantinga says, sin has to spend a lot on makeup.
SPEAKER_01: You get that?
SPEAKER_01: Takes a lot of makeup to hide the things that we believe if were known.
SPEAKER_01: If the things that were true about me were known, my darkest thoughts, my worst fears, if those things were known, I don't know what I would do.
SPEAKER_00: Except probably fall apart.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's true.
SPEAKER_01: Sin has to spend a lot of money on makeup financially, emotionally.
SPEAKER_01: We fear exposure, we fear rejection, whether it's rejection by a parent.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us are still really struggling years later.
SPEAKER_01: We're struggling because we felt rejection by parents.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us know the rejection of a spouse, which just feels like impossible to deal with sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: Rejection by a friend, rejection by an employer.
SPEAKER_01: The list goes on.
SPEAKER_01: It's been said that fears are like cancer cells.
SPEAKER_01: They intensify and multiply.
SPEAKER_01: The garden, before a place of peace and joy, now became a place of fear and hiding, hiding from God and hiding from others.
SPEAKER_01: To protect ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: I've long believed that the 11th commandment is the sin of self-protection.
SPEAKER_01: The sin of self-protection.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how many times over the last 30 years I've had this conversation, and Christians have told me, are you sure that's in the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: Are you sure that's in the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_01: You could call it idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: I will arrange my life to protect myself so that nobody gets too close.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm not sure they could handle if they knew what's really inside of me at times.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna live to protect myself, and that means I'm going to learn how to put up walls around me so people can't get too close.
SPEAKER_01: And I know I know you understand this.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you really understand this, I know.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do everything I can to keep my world intact, at least how I see my world, so nobody gets too close, including God.
SPEAKER_01: And as a pastor, I know that for many of us, it becomes a heartache of your spouse.
SPEAKER_01: It becomes a heartache of your children and your grandchildren.
SPEAKER_01: Because they really want to get close to you and they don't know how to do that.
SPEAKER_01: They just, they, they, they can't they can't.
SPEAKER_01: You'll only let them get so far.
SPEAKER_01: And then the walls go up.
SPEAKER_01: And that's not for you.
SPEAKER_01: God has something better for us.
SPEAKER_01: The governing emotional energy of the flesh is fear.
SPEAKER_01: Yet we cannot control what matters most in life.
SPEAKER_01: And when we try, it exhausts us.
SPEAKER_01: We can exhaust ourselves trying.
SPEAKER_01: The sins of self protection.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about this a lot in this church.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about this in the leadership class every year.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about this in many other contacts and forums.
SPEAKER_01: The fig leaves come in many varieties and shapes.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's a very controlling dominant personality.
SPEAKER_01: You know, somebody that really won't let you get a word in.
SPEAKER_01: Control the conversation.
SPEAKER_01: Just kind of be in control of the conversation.
SPEAKER_01: That's one way you can protect yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Another way that you can protect yourself is never speak up.
SPEAKER_01: It's very different, right?
SPEAKER_01: Just don't put yourself out there.
SPEAKER_01: Because what if you say something that's wrong?
SPEAKER_01: What if you give the wrong answer?
SPEAKER_01: Just stay quiet.
SPEAKER_01: Just stay in the background of your life.
SPEAKER_01: But that's not what God wants for you.
SPEAKER_01: God wants you to be known.
SPEAKER_01: Satan has so many ways to tempt us to stay in hiding and not be fully alive.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that what Irenea said?
SPEAKER_01: The glory of God in man is to be fully alive.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you want that?
SPEAKER_01: This Advent season?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you want to feel like you're fully alive?
SPEAKER_01: You are your truest person.
SPEAKER_01: You're the best version of how God created you?
SPEAKER_01: I think so.
SPEAKER_01: So I have a question for you.
SPEAKER_01: This Advent season.
SPEAKER_01: Where are you?
SPEAKER_01: That's a question not only for you, but for me.
SPEAKER_01: As many of you know, Sharon and I have been living that life for the last 35 years, literally.
SPEAKER_01: Asking God to give us the courage.
SPEAKER_01: Give us the courage to actually ask the question: where are we?
SPEAKER_01: Do we really know who we are?
SPEAKER_01: How could we change if we don't address where we are?
SPEAKER_01: You're not going to move on.
SPEAKER_01: Personally, spiritually, if you don't figure out where you are now.
SPEAKER_01: Most people choose that option, and that's a bad option.
SPEAKER_01: You'll never be fully alive if you settle for that.
SPEAKER_01: You'll just be less of who you are because you're trying to play it safe.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm telling you, as your pastor, your spouse and your kids and your friends don't want you to play it safe.
SPEAKER_01: They want the real you.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, why the peace was lost.
SPEAKER_01: How the peace was lost was through the temptation, succumbing to the temptation.
SPEAKER_01: Why the peace was lost, that you were challenging God's authority.
SPEAKER_01: Satan comes to Eve and says, has God actually said?
SPEAKER_01: Satan is doing everything he can to, again, rise arise suspicion that God is holding back, God is not good.
SPEAKER_01: Who says that God gets to decide what's true?
SPEAKER_01: Boy, is that the world that we live in today?
SPEAKER_01: Who says God gets to say what is truth?
SPEAKER_01: Who says God gets to define truth?
SPEAKER_01: We live in a world, we live in a city that contests that every day.
SPEAKER_01: We will decide what is true.
SPEAKER_01: The majority of us will decide what is right.
SPEAKER_01: It's the serpent's word versus God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Eve listened to a creature's word rather than the creator's word.
SPEAKER_01: Is that not weird?
SPEAKER_01: She listened to a creature's word and said, I think I believe the creature more than the creator.
SPEAKER_01: Very illogical.
SPEAKER_01: And it's the root of all of our disobedience ever since.
SPEAKER_01: The serpent has many different voices.
SPEAKER_01: Many different voices.
SPEAKER_01: His lies come from many different philosophies of life voices.
SPEAKER_01: Anything that questions God's authority over us.
SPEAKER_01: His voice comes from many pulpits in this city.
SPEAKER_01: I know.
SPEAKER_01: As I've talked to a lot of pastors in this city.
SPEAKER_01: His voice, the tempter's voice, comes from pulpits where the word proclaimed is we're all God's family.
SPEAKER_01: God's already loved us and saved us.
SPEAKER_01: We're all together.
SPEAKER_01: We're just one people.
SPEAKER_01: Let's learn to get along and let's make that the focus of the rest of our life on this earth.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just all get along.
SPEAKER_01: That's a lie.
SPEAKER_01: That's a lie from the pit of hell.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible doesn't teach that anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: And yet I know as your pastor, many of you grew up in churches like that.
SPEAKER_01: You've told me.
SPEAKER_01: You grew up in churches where what's the big deal?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, aren't we all Christians?
SPEAKER_01: Don't we just worship God from a different perspective, a different religion, a different way, a different route?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, there's one way.
SPEAKER_01: There's one way.
SPEAKER_01: And no one comes with the Father but by the Son.
SPEAKER_01: And the Son is Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's the only way.
SPEAKER_01: Many ways where the serpent's voice is heard.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, from pulpits, soft peddling sin, but also from majority opinions.
SPEAKER_01: It seems in our culture the majority determines truth.
SPEAKER_01: We put ourselves in the position of judging our Creator, which is cosmic treason.
SPEAKER_01: To shake our fist at God.
SPEAKER_01: And to say, God, I deserve better.
SPEAKER_01: And so I've learned that I can't really trust you to take care of me.
SPEAKER_01: So I'll take care of myself, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Some people do that by going to church.
SPEAKER_01: Some people do that by being religious.
SPEAKER_01: Other people do it by being irreligious and saying, I don't want any of this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm out.
SPEAKER_01: It's all the same.
SPEAKER_01: This disobedience, this defiance against God's word.
SPEAKER_01: God, do you really have the right to tell me how to live my life?
SPEAKER_01: He says, actually, I do.
SPEAKER_01: Because I created you.
SPEAKER_01: I made you in my image.
SPEAKER_01: I know exactly how to give you your best life.
SPEAKER_01: If you'll listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: What's going on in the garden after the fall with Adam and Eve is autonomy.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what that word means?
SPEAKER_01: Autonomy.
SPEAKER_01: Auto self.
SPEAKER_01: Nomas.
SPEAKER_01: Law.
SPEAKER_01: Self-law.
SPEAKER_01: That's what autonomy means.
SPEAKER_01: Autonomy means I'll figure out what's best for my life and the rules that I'll live by.
SPEAKER_01: We claim to know good from evil.
SPEAKER_01: The prophet Isaiah told us in chapter 5, verse 20: woe to those who call evil good and good evil.
SPEAKER_01: We come to the last point.
SPEAKER_01: How true peace is restored through the promise?
SPEAKER_01: The promise had been made here, right here in this garden, right after the fall.
SPEAKER_01: I have a question for you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: After Adam and Eve totally blew it, rebelling against the word of God, why did God not just walk away from them?
SPEAKER_01: Can anybody answer that?
SPEAKER_01: I can't, except by his mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Why didn't he just walk out?
SPEAKER_01: Look, I gave you everything.
SPEAKER_01: I put you in paradise, literally.
SPEAKER_01: And you defied my word, you rebelled against my authority.
SPEAKER_01: Fine.
SPEAKER_01: Have it your way.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't do that, did he?
SPEAKER_01: He didn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: He covered them, and again, we're going to talk about this in the next couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_01: He covered them with skins, garments of animal skins.
SPEAKER_01: He clothed them.
SPEAKER_01: He fed them.
SPEAKER_01: He provided for them.
SPEAKER_01: And then he spoke to the serpent, verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word the Lord had to say to Satan.
SPEAKER_01: Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all the beasts of the field.
SPEAKER_01: On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
SPEAKER_01: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.
SPEAKER_01: He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
SPEAKER_01: I am amazed.
SPEAKER_01: The more I live, the longer I live, the more amazed I am that God didn't walk out.
SPEAKER_01: He had every right to.
SPEAKER_01: He came back and he met Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I have a word for you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to bring Shalom back into your life.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to bring real peace back into your life.
SPEAKER_01: And watch how I'm going to do it.
SPEAKER_01: Astounding how he did it.
SPEAKER_01: We sang about it this morning already, didn't we?
SPEAKER_01: So we uh we in the context, in the context, chapter 3, it's not in your printed text.
SPEAKER_01: It's verse 21, and the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man is now become like one of us and knowing good and evil.
SPEAKER_01: Now lest he reach out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to work the garden from which he was taken.
SPEAKER_01: He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
SPEAKER_01: Oh my.
SPEAKER_01: Adam and Eve at that point say, We're out.
SPEAKER_01: It's done.
SPEAKER_01: It's over.
SPEAKER_01: The gate is closed, and there's no way to get back into that garden.
SPEAKER_01: There's no way to get back into that paradise because there's cherubim, there's angels of the Lord with swords, literal swords, flaming swords that will cut you, that will kill you.
SPEAKER_01: If you try to get back in on your own, this is what's waiting for you.
SPEAKER_01: Until God acts.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis 3.15.
SPEAKER_01: He, and I know sometimes it's confusing.
SPEAKER_01: Who's talking here?
SPEAKER_01: This is referring to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: God says, I am going to get you back into the garden.
SPEAKER_01: And the way I'm going to do that, Adam and Eve, is you're going to bear children, and they're going to bear children and children and children and so forth and so on for generations.
SPEAKER_01: And one day, out of the tribe of Judah, is going to come a child.
SPEAKER_01: But he's not going to be like any other child.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to be the child.
SPEAKER_01: And he is going to bruise your head, Satan.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to crush your head.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, he's going to bruise your heel.
SPEAKER_01: You think, well, okay, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: The pronouns here in the Hebrew are singular, so that the seed or the offspring refers to an individual who will come to do battle with the seed of the serpent.
SPEAKER_01: There's going to be a titanic clash between Christ Jesus and Satan.
SPEAKER_01: The seed of the woman is bruised on the heel, which is not ultimately fatal, but the seed of the serpent is bruised on the head, and that's a fatal blow.
SPEAKER_01: A knockout to the head is going to take out this evil one.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we see it through the pages of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: We see it one place in Romans, in Romans chapter 16, verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: The God of peace, isn't that what we're talking about today?
SPEAKER_01: The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
SPEAKER_01: And that's in the plural.
SPEAKER_01: This is amazing.
SPEAKER_01: Adam and Eve, hold on.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to have to wait a while.
SPEAKER_01: And centuries later, we're still waiting.
SPEAKER_01: But it is going to happen because God promised it.
SPEAKER_01: It is going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Because God sent a seed.
SPEAKER_01: He sent a child in particular.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Christmas is about, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: If you've never celebrated Christmas before, this is what Christmas is about: that God sent his own son to be born as a baby.
SPEAKER_01: And that baby would grow up to be a warrior.
SPEAKER_01: But he would not only be a warrior, he would become a victim.
SPEAKER_01: His bruise would be healed, meaning he would suffer for our sin.
SPEAKER_01: He did.
SPEAKER_01: He did suffer for our sin.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah talked about it.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah chapter 53 talks about promising what's going to happen one day.
SPEAKER_01: But he was pierced for our transgressions.
SPEAKER_01: And that's literal, isn't it, as well as figurative, because there was a sword that pierced his side on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: But he was pierced for our transgressions.
SPEAKER_01: He was crushed for our iniquities.
SPEAKER_01: Upon him, the Son of God, was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
SPEAKER_01: All we like sheep have gone astray.
SPEAKER_01: We've turned everyone to his own way.
SPEAKER_01: You know that's you.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know that?
SPEAKER_01: You've turned to your own way.
SPEAKER_01: You've shaken your fist at God.
SPEAKER_01: We've all done that.
SPEAKER_01: Does God really have the right to rule my life?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, he does.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord has laid on his son the iniquity of us all.
SPEAKER_01: The day's coming, wait for it.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Advent is.
SPEAKER_01: We live between the two Advents.
SPEAKER_01: The first coming of Jesus Christ, 2,000 years ago, and the second return, the second coming of Jesus Christ, he's coming back.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says he's coming back with his body.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming back personally.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming back visibly.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming back.
SPEAKER_01: And when he comes back, he's going to make everything right that's wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Can you wait for that?
SPEAKER_01: Or have you given up hope?
SPEAKER_01: Have you lost peace?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's just too hard to wait.
SPEAKER_01: Wait for it.
SPEAKER_01: The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot we don't understand about that.
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: That we are somehow going to participate in the crushing of Satan?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, is what it says.
SPEAKER_01: How it's going to happen exactly, we don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But we are going to let out cries of victory and triumph when we see Satan crushed.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that's what it means.
SPEAKER_01: And there will be no more evil.
SPEAKER_01: There will be no more pain.
SPEAKER_01: There will be no more sin for us to fight against.
SPEAKER_01: We will live finally and fully and securely in peace.
SPEAKER_01: Shalom.
SPEAKER_01: And so as we close, I think of the words of the promise that we began last week with Pastor Josh.
SPEAKER_01: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust him.
SPEAKER_01: So that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may, what's that next word?
SPEAKER_01: Abound with hope.
SPEAKER_01: Christmas is not about just giving you a little hope.
SPEAKER_01: Christmas is not just about a little extra push just to get you through hard times.
SPEAKER_01: No, that's not what the Bible teaches.
SPEAKER_01: Those little words are big words.
SPEAKER_01: May the God of hope fill you with all hope.
SPEAKER_01: All joy.
SPEAKER_01: All peace as you trust in Him.
SPEAKER_01: So that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you can't gin this up.
SPEAKER_01: I can't work this up.
SPEAKER_01: But the Holy Spirit can.
SPEAKER_01: He knows how to bring it.
SPEAKER_01: So that you may abound.
SPEAKER_01: May you abound in hope.
SPEAKER_01: May you abound in joy this Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: May you abound in peace even with the suffering, even in the midst of the suffering, because we know the one who has come to reverse it all and to make every wrong right.
SPEAKER_01: Wait.
SPEAKER_01: Let's wait well this Christmas, this Advent.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we need you.
SPEAKER_01: We need you to help us to wait.
SPEAKER_01: We need your Holy Spirit to give us hope.
SPEAKER_01: We need your Holy Spirit to give us joy, to give us peace.
SPEAKER_01: We can't do it.
SPEAKER_01: We've rebelled against you, and here you turn back and come toward us, and you offer us hope and forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: Oh God.
SPEAKER_01: May there be no proud hearts among us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: May there only be humble hearts who see what you've done, who see what you offer us, and by eyes of faith reach out and receive the gift of life that Jesus alone can give.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.