Amen. Well, if you're turning your Bibles to the Book of Genesis, we'll be looking in chapter 3 again this morning. I do want to remind you, if you're not aware, we did start our new Sunday School quarter. Pastor Applesons teaching the Apostles Creed in the Fellowship Hall, and I began the new members class just today in Room 409. If you meant to come and you weren't there, you can still come next week. Sunday School starts at 915 every Sunday, and we had a great time this morning just hearing the testimony of all the different folks who and how they came to the church and how they're here. It's one of my favorite classes, that first class, but we'll be able to do that a little bit more next week, so I encourage you in that. Last time we looked in this text at God's judgments on man's sin in the garden, and I hope that you were able to see with me how those judgments are ultimately every one of them for the good of the people who have sinned against God, that God would even use the judgments of his life that do make this life more difficult, the blessings of this life, all of them, marriage and family and children, eating and work, living itself, all of it, visited with more difficulty and now pain and now conflict and now frustration and hardship and ultimately death, as we sang in the one song that when man dies his plans perish with him or as we said in these, called a worship. That's true for all of us. We're all going to go through that unless Jesus comes before. But all of the good things in life, every blessing in life, all realities are now visited now with hardship. And these are God's restrained responses, I tried to show you last week, to man's rebellion, restrained here and again not to destroy him, but to save him, because in making fallen life difficult for man, God is graciously and mercifully arranging nature itself to keep man from becoming as sinful as he would be, where his sinful desire is not constantly frustrated and disappointed. We can't find fulfillment in this world, no matter who you are, no matter what you have. God won't let you. He won't let you make an idol of this world that will satisfy you completely or joining together. He won't let us all as a people unite perfectly together and rebel against him. That's what we did in the garden. Adam and Eve and the serpent, they were in union, they were in perfect union against God and God said no more, I'm going to curse the ground so you can't do that anymore. Do you see how God's judgments keep man again from becoming as sinful as he would be in this world? And so God's judgments are powerful means to call man to confess to turn from his sin, to seek reconciliation with God the only way we can have it through faith and his word, through repentance from our sins. And that's what God told the first man and the first woman in those judgments, especially in Genesis 3.15, which we looked at two weeks ago, the first gospel promise of salvation, trust in me, God was saying, and I'm going to cause the curse to fall not on you, but on the serpent and on the ground. It's going to be harder with that hardship again is what you need in your sinful nature to not be as sinful as you would be, as each one of us would be. So God and His wisdom and His judgments leading us to the gospel. And now Adam and Eve, we're going to look for the first time thrust out of the garden, living in a world cursed, the ground is cursed. How will they respond to God's good word to them in a now fallen world? How will they live east of Eden with the gospel promise still ringing in their ears? Let's pray as we turn to God's word. Father, we thank you that we can now turn to your word and Father, I hope that you will show us this morning, and I ask you to do so. How in many ways we are all just like Adam and Eve. We have the promise of the gospel, and we are living in a fallen world in which there is toil and pain, sweat and labor and death. And yet, Father, God, we have your promise of eternal life, and so help us this morning to live more for you, to live by faith every pain and every sorrow and even in the face of death that we would know that you are our Savior and our assurance of eternal life. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Here now the word of the Lord. We're going to start again in verse 14, for context, because Adam and Eve are going to respond now to all of the words of God, the judgment of God on their sin which began in verse 14. But we will focus again on 20 to 24, here now the word of the Lord. So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust, all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception in pain you shall bring forth children, your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Then to Adam, he said, because you have heated the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you saying, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil, you shall eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles. It shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field in the sweat of your face. You shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust. You shall return. And Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and he closed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us to no good and evil, and now lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of light and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man, and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore cane. And she said, I have acquired a man from the Lord. May the Lord establish this word in our hearts this morning. I want you to notice this morning, first of all, the faith of Adam. I want you to notice the faith of Adam, we pick up our text again after God finishes his judgment on the man and the woman for their sin, his sentence of judgment. And that's the only sentence of judgment on sin in this world until Christ comes again. This is God's response to man's sin, all of it right here, verses 14 through 19. This is how God is going to deal with man. And according to his sin deal with the earth itself and how the earth itself bears now. Difficult things, hard things, but again all for man's good as we saw. And what we saw last time when God had, well not last time, but only last time that Adam was in the garden and naming the animals. You know when God first put him in the garden, the first thing Adam did was begin to name the animals. Right after God put him in the garden, instructed him about the trees and he begins to name the animals. And we saw that that was surprising. That was not what we would expect because Adam doesn't do many of the things that we probably would do if we found ourselves in a brand new world, in a brand new existence. We'd probably end this great commission from God to subdue the earth, to have dominion over the whole world. Something that's going to take centuries, millennia, even if we do remain sinless, to actually produce this world and develop it as God had commanded us to do. I would imagine we would probably begin by building a shelter or maybe gathering some food, maybe surveying the landscape, seeing and planning, creating a map, beginning to devise what we're going to do first. That's not what Adam did. The first thing he does is to respect and to relate to the other living creatures that he sees around him that God brings to him, the ones that are nearest to him. And everyone that God did bring to him, he gave it a name. And we saw how this idea of naming things is fundamental to every science, to human learning itself. That because I can say things like she has red curly hair, you know immediately what I'm talking about. I didn't put my thought into your head, but I used names, I used red, I used curly, I used hair, and you know what those things are. So you can understand what I'm thinking of, and you can do the same to me, and it's by naming things, by language, that we can share ideas, that we can come together and work and solve problems. It's foundational to human knowledge in every field, even to this day scientists are looking through microscopes, naming things. So that they can identify something, communicate its other scientists, and together they can come up with a cure, and then they name the cure so that we can develop it and mass produce it, understanding and knowledge through naming and identify. And how, by doing that, we submit to God's reality, an objective reality that we can accurately know with our senses. And we don't question that, we have to live by that. All of this is what Adam did when God put him in the garden, as Adam and his sinless wisdom, rather in the image of God, begins naming the living creatures that God made, setting forth again a foundation for future generations. And now, now that he's kicked out of the garden, right, now that he has to go outside of Eden, and he loses the garden that God had planted, the garden of God. And I tried to point out to you how, when we plant a garden that's for our food, when God plants a garden that's for as it were, the food of heaven. And that's what Adam would have eaten. It was only to the man and the woman that God said, I give you the trees, all of the fruit of all the trees, except one, that's all. And so they had the fruit of heaven to eat daily, and now they lose that. Look at it in verse 18. You shall eat the herb of the field now. You want to be like the animals, you can go out and eat the animals food. You want to join with the snake against me, you can go and live now, where the animals live, out in the wild. And he loses that food of heaven, and he loses the garden, and he loses the trees. In particular, he loses the tree of life. And so now Adam and Eve step outside the garden. I wonder if he stepped on a thorn as soon as he stepped out of the garden. A fissile now growing, hurting him, cutting him, rocks now that are sharp that would cut him before God would have never let that happen. The laws of nature would have never conspired to hurt anyone, because God is the one who causes those things to continue. Now he steps outside the garden, what's the first thing he's going to do? What would you think? What would you do in a dangerous world, in a world where there's danger and disease and death ultimately? The first thing he does is go back to what he did before. He sits down, his wife sits down, he takes no doubt her hands, in his hands he looks for in the eye. And he says, you shall be called Hava, life in Hebrew. He names her life. Think about that. He tells his wife, your name from now on is life. They're all going to die because of what she did. He's going to die because she convinced him to disobey. Their children are going to die. Did you ever have a friend married couples, did you ever have your spouse do something that was really wrong that caused pain to you both? How did you respond to that spouse? How can you do this to us? What are you thinking? Is that what Adam does? Does he throw it back in Eve's space? Does he call her death? It's funny because I couldn't help but think about how in our culture we do this nowadays. We find heroes in the past, George Washington, Martin Luther, whatever, find something that they did wrong or that we say they did wrong, half the time it's not. And then what do we do? You know that you published that. You put that out there. I know of Christian school recently that had this poster around Martin Luther's racist. Well that's the way to remember Martin Luther, right? Martin Luther said some things against the Jews but it wasn't because they were Jewish, it was because they didn't believe in Jesus and nothing to do with their race. But still he was wrong to do it. Is that the way we remember people who find the thing they did wrong? You know we wouldn't even be in this church if it wasn't for Martin Luther. You like singing? You wouldn't sing. There was no congregational singing before Martin Luther. All the good that he did, they find something bad about him. Now we cancel him, right? Now we tear it on his stash. This is the cancel culture. Find something wrong, find someone think. And that's all you say, right? Oh yeah, let's do that. It's not what Adam does. And he had done a pretty bad thing. Like I said, they're all going to die now. And she did it first. He listened to the voice of his wife that's what God said because he did the voice of your wife. Again there's nothing wrong with that when she's saying what he should do but she told him to sin. He shouldn't have listened to that. If he would have been the other way around she shouldn't have listened to him. We never listened to anybody who tells us to sin and Adam knew that and that's why he was wrong and that's why he was wrong but now that they're outside the garden and they're both going to die. Name says, wife, life. I think it's one of the most beautiful moments in the body. I just can't get over this man, this husband doing that to his wife because I know I'm not always that way. I'm not like that. You know, especially if your spouse again does something wrong that causes pain to you or causes money to the family. I remember this time when I ordered, remember when I ordered Augustine's Confessions and it came in two volumes, you remember that, don't you? Because it came in these two volumes and you know Robin's very good about getting rid of clutter and I had taken the one volume out because I started to read it right away. And I didn't take the other volume out of the box while she threw the box away through my volume two of Augustine's Confessions away. And I was so upset. I had to order another one. Adam had a lot of reasons to be upset with you but she was repentant. That's part of it, right? You have a right to be upset with somebody who doesn't repent and continues to do the wrong thing. Eva's repentant. She's sorry for what she did. We'll see that in a moment. We're going to see her fade. And so Adam, like a Christian, like Christ loving the church, doesn't throw her sin in her face. He calls her life. I mean, how can he do that? Because God's promise was that I will cause the seed of the woman to cross the head of the serpent. The seed of the woman is going to bring life. Adam believed it. And he names his wife after that promise. Can you imagine for the rest of her life and she lived a long time. Everybody who said her name would be speaking the promise of God. Everybody that said her name would be encouraging their mom and she was our mom too. That she isn't the one who brought death to the world. She's the one who's going to bring life to the world. By sending her name, you have to say that. Adam is causing everyone to call who calls on Eve to speak the gospel. He lived by faith in God's promise. He calls her life. And he's not just comforting and being kind to her. It's an act of faith in God. He is living by faith. He is believing in the promise. And he even names his wife after it. So again, that everybody who says her name is speaking the gospel. And so secondly, I want you to notice the faith of Eve. I want you to notice the faith of Eve. This is why I included verse 1 of chapter 4. It kind of ends nicely at verse 24. But I wanted to get to the point where even as we saw Adam's faith in the naming of Eve, I want to show you how we see Eve's faith in the naming of her first son, probably her first son. So we don't know that for sure. But she gives birth to Kane. And in Hebrew, the word Kanah is the word to get or to acquire, to possess, to buy even. And so she says, I have gotten Kanah, Kane, and the same consonants in the Hebrew. And so she names her son that fact that she got a man from the Lord. Now, there's an interesting construction in the Hebrew here that it's probably worth mentioning, because some of you have probably heard about it. But it literally says, I have gotten a man. And then it says, F, the Lord, the word F in Hebrew usually is just a direct object marker. It's usually not translated because it's hard to tell what the direct object is in this language. Where usually the verb goes first. You know, he ran John to the store. But it could say he ran to the store, John. And you don't know, did the store run to John? Or did John run to the store? I mean, he kind of do. But if it's something else, but the direct object marker tells you that. So you could translate this. I have gotten a man, the Lord. I've gotten a man, the Lord. Martin Luther was one of the first ones to notice this. And he actually argued that because of Adam and Eve's sinlessness and having known God the way they knew God and knowing God much more than we did, even after they fell into sin, when God first speaks the gospel, they understand that the seed of the woman actually had to be the Lord. And that they knew the triune God. Because God said the man has become like one of us. Just as he said earlier, let us make man in our image. God's always try you and Adam and Eve walk with God. We don't know what, how much they knew of God. Martin Luther said she knew, he knew, that their son would have to be the Lord. That's the only way that he could save them. It's certainly a possible construction. However, the word act also does mean width or from. And there's several times in the book of Genesis where it clearly means width or from. And you just have to go by the context. So Genesis 39, 2 and 21, both say the Lord was with Joseph, just at Joseph. No one translates it. The Lord was Joseph. We know it has to be width there. Same thing is true in Genesis chapter 20 with regard to. Ishmael. It says, 21. Now that Genesis 21, 20, and God was with the lab. No one says God was Ishmael. God was the lab. Has to be with there. So even if it is though, why don't want to point out to you? Even if it is, I have gotten a man with the Lord. Even if that's what she said, and that's what she meant, it still shows her faith. First of all, it shows her faith that she didn't have a child just by the natural power of her inner husband. As if things just work down here on their own. God has made all things okay, well acknowledge that. But now everything just goes by itself. And Adam and Eve now have the power in and of themselves to have children. I have gotten a man. She doesn't say that. She says, I have gotten a man with the Lord. She recognizes even something as natural as having children can only happen with the Lord. Only the Lord can open the womb. Only the Lord can cause the man to be fertile. And God has to do that. She is acknowledging that. She's acknowledging in the sense all of nature is by God's power, by God's grace. I have gotten a man. The only way any woman can get a man with the Lord is because he has given me this son that I have a son. And so all of the powers we understand of creation, natural laws that like gravity, emotion, physics, biology itself, they are all the providential care of God. God is still caring for and keeping this world going. In fact, we see it seems to me in God's creation, as Romans once says, the wrath of God is revealed. From heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Where is it we will in everything? Because everything is corrupted. Everything is running down. Everything is incomplete. Everything decays and goes from bad to worse. I remember my dad used to talk about Murphy's Law when I was a kid. I hear about Murphy's Law. I heard two verses of it. I don't know who Murphy was, but he was right. Things that have left to themselves will go from bad to worse. That's the curse on the ground. You leave that garden to itself. It's not going to produce more and have less weeds. It's going to do the opposite. Before the curse, it would have been the opposite. It would have produced more and there wouldn't have been any weeds. It's only by the curse that things go from bad to worse. But they do. They go from bad to worse. The other version is things that have left to themselves. No, that's what I said already. Things go from bad to worse. Let's see the other version. Oh, what is it? If you can't. Oh, anything that can go wrong will. Like me remembering the second law. I should have heard it down. Anything that can. Anything that can. Anything bad that could happen probably will. And that ultimately seems to be the case as well. That if there's something bad that could happen again, chances are, well, it drives me nuts. I always roll the, um, of a big long extension quartz. I can cut my edges. And, um, and I always roll it up this over underway, which we learned in television so that things don't get tangled up, because it will automatically kind of not tangle up. And yet it always tangle up in every way. And I know how to roll table. And it's like, why does it automatically get tangled? Shouldn't it, like, shouldn't there be a, it automatically doesn't get tangled? Or automatically on the tangles itself. Nothing untangles itself. But that's, that's the ground. That's, that's what has happened. And so when Eve names her son and says, I've gotten him from the Lord, but she's not acknowledging. Yes, I know God's wrath, and God's displeasure is in the world, but so is God's mercy. And God's mercy to me, that I could have this son. But I think even more than that, I think we see Eve's faith in the promised savior, because in naming her son, I don't think she's just. I think she is acknowledging that God is the one who gave her a son, but she's also looking to that promise. It was her seed. Her seed. There was going to crush the head of the serpent, and now she is naming him. She has a male. She says, I have now gotten a man. From the Lord, the one that God would use to save us. And I think they did. I think she did think. If not came himself, but certainly through came. God's promise was going to be fulfilled. This was evident some of it. This is the faith of Eve. And so thirdly, I want you to notice the provision of God. Notice the provision of God. We've already considered God's incredible mercy, and amazing grace, and not killing Adam and Eve the moment they sin, which is what they deserve. It's what we deserve, the moment we sin. It always makes me laugh when people say, well, you know, why is there Eve on the world? Why do bad things happen to good people? Or why is there suffering in a people who don't believe? And I just like to look at them and say, you should really be glad that there is. Because if God answered the question the way you think it should be answered, you and I would be in hell right now. Because that's what we deserve. That's what we deserve. If God brought perfect justice, there wouldn't be any bad things. There wouldn't be any suffering. Everybody would be in hell the moment they sin. Nobody would have any problems then. With God being inconsistent. With God is merciful. And so as mercy allows sinners to live, and when they live, they do bad things. The penalty for sin was fully deserved by Adam. Yet he showed mercy. And it was free mercy. They didn't do anything to get it. It was independent. It was gratuitous. God spared the human race simply because he decided that he would. And he promised to send the Savior. And that was what we looked at in Genesis 3.15, the first instance of the gospel. And Adam and Eve were to live in the light of that promise, framing their lives on it as they did. Adam and Naming his wife, believing that she would bring light. And even naming her son, believing that God would give her that seed. But how would they, in addition to that, how would they now relate to God? How would they worship Him? How would they, you know, when they sinned? How would they bring that to God? You know, the thing here is, we're created for the glory of God to glorify Him, to relate to Him. How can they do that? How could they, here's the real question. How could they continue to worship God when they're outside the garden, when they're no longer allowed into His presence? How could they have some fruition of God? That's, man can't live without that. He has to have some kind of fruition, some assurance that God is accepting Him, that He can relate to God. And that's what God does for us, beloved in verse 21. I want you to notice it. Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin, and He clothed them. They're standing there in their fig leaves, and that's not adequate, not out in this sinful world. And God makes for them clothing. But you saw how He made it. It was skins. Word can be animal skins, human skin, any kind of skin. But clearly it's animal skins. God either Himself does it directly, or He teaches some scholars just believe this text means God taught them how to do it. And the language allows for that certainly. But whatever the case may be, Adam and Eve now actually see the penalty for their sin. They see death now, because God kills, or causes them to kill, a couple of animals. And they take their skins, and they're taught again by the Lord how to dry out the hides and stretch them out and make them. And so this is something that happens in more than a moment, unless God did it supernaturally, which is certainly possible. But this is why, beloved, as they see the blood on the ground. And then they're clothed because of the death of the animal. This really is the birth of the entire sacrificial system, which God institutes, that by the death of an animal, man can cover his shame. Can cover his shame in the presence of God, can cover his shame in his own presence with one another. God gives them adequate clothing, the clothing of animal skins. Which begins here. And it's by the shedding of blood, and only by the shedding of blood that there's forgiveness. And that's what God teaches them right here. At this time, they will have to kill animals on a regular basis to provide skins for themselves and for their children. They're going to have to do that now. And what happens to the rest of the animal? I agree with Matthew Henry. I think it was offered to God as a whole bird offering. That's what we see right away in chapter four. Can enable bringing offerings to God. They're taught by God to do that. That wasn't invented by God. It's like, you know, sometimes people say, well, why should I be part of a church? You know, that as if that was man's invention. God invented church. Jesus said, I will build my church. This is his idea. If it's not good enough for you, then you should say, Jesus, you were wrong. You shouldn't have started church. But don't listen to these lunatics. You say a bunch of people started it. But it was God who started the sacrificial system. Man didn't come up with the idea. All I'm going to kill some animals and burn them to God. God taught him to do that. It taught him to relate. This is how man makes a tone. And it's interesting in Hebrew. I think I mentioned it before. That the word covering, to cover, even to cover a table, to cover your feet, is the word kefir. But Hebrew has six main stems. And each one of those stems are a little different. The hopeful, the hifil, the PL, the pool, the knifil, the PL is the intensive stem. And so if you wanted to say, you know, I broke the chair, you might say it in the cow, the normal stem. But if you wanted to say, I smashed the chair into pieces, you would use the exact same word in the PL stem. It's intensive. When you use the word cover, in the intensive stem, it means atonement. It's the word for atonement, kefir. That's what we translate. Every time you see the word, he atoned, made atonement. He kefir. He covered. God closes them here. But he is showing them how to make atonement, to cover their sins. Because without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of sins. Because the penalty of sin was death. That judgment has to fall on someone. It's on the ground. And now, in a picture, it's on that animal. And now they're clothed with its skin. Matthew Henry says this, they were slaying the animals, not for food, but for sacrifice, to typify the great sacrifice, which in the latter end of the world should be offered once for all. He says the flesh was offered to God, a whole burnt offering. That was the most holy offering in the medical system, the whole burnt offering, where the entire animal is burned, to ash. And it's all to God. And I believe that system was born right here. God showed them how to do that. And they burned that corpse as an offering to God, and they were now covered with its skin. And they teach their sons as we'll see Lord willing next week to bring those offerings to God, both animals and produce from the garden. And so the scripture was fulfilled, which said, Jesus is the lamb slaying from the foundation of the world. It literally happens here. It was probably a lamb that they killed. And they put those lamb skins on them. Jesus is the lamb slaying from the foundation of the world, because the foundation of the world has recently happened, because I don't think Adam and Eve went too long before they sinned. And so here's the first picture of Christ, the lamb to come, and God gives it in a picture, and then that system, now where they can continue to do that as they wait for the seed of the woman. This is the provision of God. And fourthly, and last thing, I want you to notice the preservation of God. I want you to notice the preservation of God. You know there's a lot of difference of opinion in some of these verses, and I haven't really touched on them, but we can handle them rather quickly. I think verse 22, then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us to know good and evil. What do you think God meant in that text? Do you think that what God means, what the word of God means, is that by sinning, Adam and Eve elevated their status. Is that what we've seen? By sinning, they're closer to being like God now. Is that what God is saying in that text? Clearly not. By sinning, they've lost the garden. They've lost God's presence. They've lost their immortality. There's a curse now. The ground is dangerous. They can hurt themselves, and they will ultimately die. Something's going to kill them. Life itself, if nothing else, will kill them. What do you think God meant? Did he learn something new? Is he smarter now? Does he now know more than he knew before? This is where we've got to use, you know, sort of our, keep our wits about us when we interpret Scripture. What do we see in the text? And what does Scripture teach about God? Right? And about me. And about sin. And if we keep that, we'll be able to understand this text correctly. We have to reject any kind of interpretation that would ascribe to God some kind of pettiness, some kind of jealousy. Oh, I'm afraid the man's going to become like one of us now, so I better act. That's not God. The man and the woman live because God wills them to live. The tree continues to grow because God wills it to grow. Nothing moves, but God continues to will and hold all things in existence. God is not concerned that man's going to do something that he can't stop. That's not what the Texas saying. God is speaking this for the good of Adam and Eve. The man has become like one of us, to no good and evil. They're standing there again, and they're figlies, or this is maybe right after he clothed them, and these animal skins, they're outside the garden, or about to be thrown out. They're standing there, mortal, cursed, not literally cursed, but under the curse, suffering under the curse as it were, and they're spiritually dead. What is God doing? Behold, the man has become like one of us to no good and evil. I think what God is saying here is that he is pointing out to them what has really happened. In effect, God's saying, look at yourselves. Look what you got. Look what listening to Satan got you. You were in the Garden of Eden. You were immortal. You were the king and the queen of the world. Now you're going to die, and you're standing there, and you have to put skins on yourself because of your shame. Look what listening to Satan got you. Look at it. God isn't saying this to mock them or hurt them. He's saying this to convict them. They have to be brought to repentance. They have to be brought to sorrow for their sin. And sorrow is essential for repentance. It's what God is pointing it out to them. He is showing them. This is what listening to Satan gets you. Remember this. I think Adam and Eve would never have forgotten that moment when they're standing before the triune God, and God says, behold, the man. It's not just like us. You know, it's like God, Father, Son, Spirit, Adam, Eve. You can't tell them apart. There's so much alike now. No. The man is anything but God is using it. Matthew Henry calls it an ironical upgrading, said to awaken, and humble them, that they would see the folly of listening to sin and Satan. This is what it gets you. I don't think they would ever forget that moment. The rest of their lives, and I don't think Satan would be able to deceive them again. Not directly like that. I mean, they have a sinful nature. They have to fight that. But never again would they listen to that serpent. They would remember what they were, and now they know what they are. They know what they've lost. No. The original Geneva Bible, 1599, the summation of our reformed fathers, it says this on this verse. By this derision, God reproaches Adam's misery. Not reproaching Adam. He reproaches his misery. He says, look at your misery. Look what you have. He reproaches Adam's misery into which he was fallen by ambition. The reformed fathers believed Adam had the ambition too. He was deceived by the serpent. Adam was persuaded by E. But they both had this ambition to be great, and they have now been brought so low, and God's pointing them out, pointing that out to them. This is what sin does. That they would feel it, that they would be sorry for it, that they would be built up to not listen to it again, to fight against it. And I said, he's teaching them how to do that. And I think that's the rest of the passage too, that people struggle with, lest he put out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever again. Do you think if Adam ran to the tree and quickly got a piece of fruit and God would be like, oh, shucks, he's going to live forever now. There's nothing I can do about it. I mean, he really think that's what the text is saying. Calvin says he could have devoured the whole tree. And he wouldn't have lived any longer than God wanted him to. It's by God that we live and move and have our being, not by some tree, trees and magic. The tree was a sign and a seal. It was in a fact that they have eternal life. They could go to that tree whenever they wanted, because of the life they already had. Did you notice it in our scripture reading? At the end of the book of Revelation, blessed are those who do the commandments, that they may have the right to eat of the tree of life. Because they have eternal life, that they have the right to eat of the tree of life. It's a sign of it. It doesn't cause it. And now they lose that. They don't get that anymore. They can't go to the tree because they don't have eternal life. So why should they get the pleasure of life? Calvin says again, it is indeed certain that man would not have been able had even devoured the whole tree to enjoy life against the will of God for there never was any intrinsic efficacy in the tree. And by taking it away, not only does God keep them from having, as it were, a temptation to work out their salvation. Well, I'll get enough of that. Could you imagine if God kept that tree where they could get to it? I mean, to this day, there would be black market tree of life fruit that you'd pay thousands of dollars for. There would solve all your problems, right? We have that already. And it's not even the tree of life. People would idolize it. They would turn it into a God. They would be worshipping the tree. Oh, we've got to get to the tree. That's how we're saved. God's trying to tell him here, there's no way to be saved unless you trust in the seed of the woman. And so he puts them out of the garden. They can't go to the tree and corrupt it. Sacrifice, take this holy thing of God and touch it. This gift that God had given, sinless man, no, they lose that. He puts that flaming sword in that cherubim. The cherubim are these mighty angel type creatures. You can read about them in Ezekiel and Revelation. These powerful, amazing creatures that are always where God is. They're always in the presence of the Lord. In fact, we've all seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, right? What's on the top of the ark? There's angelic wings. Those are the cherubim. The cherubim's wings are on the ark. The mercy seat, the lid. And it wasn't just on the ark. Solomon was told to carve them into the walls and actually build the giant one with its wings touching the walls in the holy place. And in addition to that, the veil itself, not only of the temple, but of the tabernacle, the veil that separated the most holy place where the ark was, from the holy place where the priests were, it had embroidered cherubim on it. I love it. The cherubim aren't there to kill man. The cherubim are there to keep man from killing himself by going by his works into the presence of God. Remember what happened to the people who touched the ark, right? The cherubim are there to protect man. The cherubim are there to notice to guard the way to the tree of life. There's only one way to eternal life and it's through the seat of the woman. We can't force ourselves back into the garden. We can't go and get the fruit of that tree. That's not going to work, God's not going to let us do it. He puts those guardian angels there to assure us the only way to come to me and be saved. It's through the seat of the woman, through Jesus, who defeats Satan by his atoning death on the cross, by his perfectly righteous life, which Adam and Eve were incapable of doing now. And by believing in him, not only they, but we have eternal life. Let's pray, Father, we thank You for the gospel message. We thank You for this judgment. We thank You, Lord, for the protections that You did, that it maybe on the surface would seem harsh, but they're in hot. Oh, Lord, You put them out of the garden so that they would not die in Your holy presence. And You taught them how to live by hoping in Your salvation promise and You gave them a way in which they could deal with their sins until He came through the animals. Lord God, oh, how merciful and how good and how gracious You are to our first Father and our first Mother. And Lord God, how gracious and merciful You are to us. And now, having two thousand years ago brought that seat of the woman and You, Lord Jesus, and having crushed the head of that serpent and now we can experience by faith that victory. And we know You're coming again. And we will have in new bodies eternal life. And so Father, we thank You for this gospel, that we see first given in this garden, help us to believe in You and live for You in Jesus' name. Amen.