25-1228p Transcript

(2:01) Good evening. Well, this morning we talked about the encounter between Satan and Eve, (2:08) and picking up from where we left off this morning in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve were given (2:16) competing truth claims.

God, do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, (2:22) because on the day you eat, you will die. And Satan’s truth claims, you shall not die. (2:31) The fruit is good for food.

It’s pleasant looking and able to make you wise. (2:36) And Satan implies God is lying about the fruit, because God is jealous about his uniqueness. (2:43) And in Satan’s words, he says, God knows on the day that you eat of it, (2:49) your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

(2:55) And they believed Satan’s truth claims, and they got knowledge from that fruit. (3:02) They learned that they were naked, and all of a sudden they felt shame. (3:10) So now we look at the aftermath of their sin.

Not yet the punishment. We’ll do that in a later lesson. (3:18) But we’re going to look and see what changed in their lives pre-punishment.

So let’s begin (3:25) reading with tonight’s text, Genesis 3, verses 8 through 13. They heard the sound of the Lord God (3:35) walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from (3:42) the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord called to the man (3:51) and said to him, Where are you? He said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid (3:58) because I was naked, so I hid myself.

And he said, Who told you that you were naked? (4:07) Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, The woman who (4:15) you gave me to be with me, she gave me the fruit from the tree, and I ate. Then the Lord God said (4:23) to the woman, What is this you have done? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. (4:31) But just moments before, Adam and Eve walked with God in perfect fellowship, (4:39) naked and unashamed.

Now everything has changed. Sin has entered, and with it (4:46) comes shame, fear, hiding, and blame, the aftermath. Tonight we look at the discovery of their sin, (4:56) how God comes looking for them, how they respond, and what this teaches us about ourselves and about (5:03) our God.

The sound of God walking, verse 8. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the (5:12) garden of the cool of the day. Can you imagine that sound? Before sin, this would have been the most (5:20) welcome sound in the universe, the footsteps of their Creator coming to spend time with them, (5:26) to walk with them in the perfect intimacy. It reminds me of the song, My God and I. (5:34) My God and I go in the field together.

We walk and talk as good friends should and do. (5:40) We clasp our hands. Our voices ring with laughter.

My God and I walk through the metal’s hue. (5:48) We clasp our hands. Our voices ring with laughter.

My God and I walk through the metal’s hue. (5:58) Can you imagine what it must have been like to fellowship with God in this way? (6:04) It’s probably as close as you can get in this realm of faith to being face-to-face with God (6:12) without actually being in the realm of sight, the spiritual realm. What a marvelous, (6:19) intimate relationship Adam and Eve had with God.

Verse 8b, the second part of that verse. (6:28) And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees (6:35) of the garden. But now, now those same footsteps fill them with terror.

(6:44) They ate of the fruit, and they learned they were naked, and they felt shame (6:49) and tried to remedy that shame themselves by covering themselves, but it just didn’t work. (6:57) So what do they do? They hide. Sin always drives us away from God.

It always makes us want to hide. (7:07) Instead of running to him, we run from him. Put yourself in their place for a moment.

(7:15) Your heart starts pounding. Your palms get sweaty. Your mind races.

This is the very first time (7:23) any human being has ever felt fear, another newly learned emotion. (7:33) There were no movies to watch to show them what fear feels like, no stories from parents about (7:40) getting caught, no previous experience to draw on. This is random terror crashing over them (7:49) like a wave.

But notice, God does not hide from them. It’s not God who withdraws from their (7:59) fellowship. It’s Adam and Eve who withdraw and hide themselves.

Their sin separated them from God. (8:10) It makes me think of another passage, Isaiah 59 verses 1 and 2. (8:17) Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save, nor is his ear so dull that it cannot (8:26) hear. But your iniquities, your sin, have made a separation between you and your God, and your (8:35) sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

I used to think that this passage (8:45) was talking about God hiding his face from us. But in light of Genesis 3.8, it looks like God’s (8:52) face is hidden because we are hiding from him because of our sin. Even after the rebellion, (9:02) he comes walking in the garden.

Sin breaks fellowship, but it does not stop God’s pursuit. (9:11) He is the seeking God. Verse 9. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, (9:18) where are you? This is not a question for information.

God’s not lost. He knows exactly (9:26) where Adam is crouching behind the bushes. This is the question of a broken-hearted (9:32) father.

Where are you, my son? What has happened to us? It is also the question that has echoed (9:41) down through every generation since. Where are you, God asks it of every sinner who runs from him. (9:49) Where are you in relation to me? Where are you spiritually? (9:55) Verse 10.

Adam answers honestly at first. He says, I heard the sound of you in the garden, (10:03) and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself. Notice the progression.

He heard God, (10:11) then he became afraid, then he recognized his nakedness, and then he hid. Fear and shame (10:20) now define his relationship with God instead of love and openness. This is what sin does.

It turns (10:27) innocence into guilt. Another new emotion, that fruit, the fruit that keeps on giving. (10:37) God asks two questions, beginning in verse 11.

First to Adam, who told you that you were naked? (10:45) Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? Who told you? Think about that. (10:53) Before the fall, Adam and Eve were naked and felt no shame. They had no category for embarrassment (11:00) about their bodies.

Suddenly, they have new knowledge, knowledge of good and evil, and with (11:06) comes a painful awareness of guilt and exposure. God is saying, how did you come by this knowledge? (11:16) This isn’t something you could have figured out on your own. Someone or something, (11:22) there’s two possibilities.

Someone told them, or something gave them that knowledge. (11:29) Has given you eyes that now see guilt, where before you saw only innocence. (11:36) Notice God created man and woman without the awareness of their nakedness.

They did not know (11:42) they were naked. The idea never dawned on them. God’s question, who told you, and did you eat (11:49) from the tree, implies there are only two ways they could have gained this knowledge.

(11:56) And God asks the question, not because he needs information, but because he is giving Adam a chance (12:04) to confess. He’s teaching, just as he taught the angels by creating the physical world before their (12:13) eyes, and just as he taught Adam his need for a helper by having him name the animals alone. (12:22) Now God is teaching all creation, angels and humans alike, a lesson in his holiness, his justice, (12:31) and his grace.

The holy God cannot overlook sin. It must be confronted, but notice how gently (12:41) he confronts it with questions that invite confession rather than immediate condemnation. (12:50) The tragedy of deflection.

But Adam does not confess. He does not accept responsibility for (13:01) his sin. Instead, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate.

(13:09) Verse 12. This is the first recorded blame shift in human history. Another new first.

(13:18) Blame. Adam points the finger at Eve, and then astonishingly at God himself, (13:26) the woman you gave me. In other words, God, if you haven’t given me that woman, (13:35) doesn’t that sound familiar, that woman argument? If you hadn’t given me that woman, (13:40) I wouldn’t be in this mess.

It’s her fault. And really, it’s yours. (13:48) Sin not only separates us from God, but we even begin to accuse God.

Eve follows the same pattern (13:56) when God turns to her. What is this you have done, God asks in verse 13. Her answer in the same (14:03) verse.

The serpent deceived me, and I ate. She learned something from Adam. Plenty of blame.

(14:12) She points to the serpent, and though she doesn’t say it out loud, the implication hangs in the air. (14:18) The serpent you made and put in the garden, Lord, neither one says, I was wrong. I disobeyed.

Have (14:28) mercy on me. Both deflect, both hide, and both blame. And this is the universal human response (14:38) to sin.

From the garden to this very day, when confronted with our guilt, our first instinct (14:45) is rarely repentance and blame. It’s my spouse’s fault. It’s my parents' fault.

It’s the way I was (14:52) raised. It’s society’s fault. It’s the devil who made me do it.

We are all children of Adam and (14:59) Eve in this regard. It seems the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (15:06) really turns out to be the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of evil. (15:11) And that kind of knowledge isn’t worth knowing.

The good news is that God still comes looking. (15:21) The story doesn’t end with hiding and blame. The God who asks, where are you, is the same God who (15:29) will one day send his son into the world to seek and save the lost.

The God who confronts sin in (15:36) the garden is the same God who will one day lay that sin upon his son on the cross. The God whose (15:44) fellowship was broken by our rebellion is the same God who reconciles us to himself through the blood (15:52) of Christ. Adam and Eve tried to cover their shame with leaves, but God clothed them, as we will see (15:59) later, with skins pointing forward to the day when he would cover our shame with the righteousness (16:06) of his own son.

So where are you today? Are you hiding? Are you deflecting? Are you blaming others (16:16) for your sin? Hear the voice of God calling gently through the garden of this world. Where are you? (16:27) He’s not calling to condemn you before you repent. He’s calling to draw you to repentance.

(16:34) Come out from the bushes. Stop pointing fingers. Fall on your face and say, I have sinned against (16:41) you.

Have mercy on me. The God who walked in the garden is the God who walked on this earth (16:48) in the person of Jesus Christ. And he’s still walking.

He’s still calling. He’s still (16:55) seeking sinners who will stop hiding and start trusting. That’s our lesson tonight.

(17:05) So we are extending the invitation to anyone who is in need of it. So come while we stand and sing.