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And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman had to do that. The woman whom you gave me, to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? And the woman said, the serpent. The serpent deceived me and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this cursive, are you above all livestock and above all the beasts of the field. On your belly, you shall go and the dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Let us pray. Father, I pray that you adept. You would come and as we consider this one of the most important chapters in all the Bible that you would give clarity and that you would show Jesus very clearly. I pray that you be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart and in my understanding, in my mouth and in my speaking. In Christ's name, we pray these things. Amen. And amen. Basically, we've been looking at the book of Genesis for, I don't know, several weeks now. And in the 16th century, John Calvin said once, he said that the Bible ought to be preached in thirds. And what he meant by that is he meant that the Bible ought to be preached in thirds and by that he meant the third chapter of John, which says you must be born again. The third chapter of Romans, which says that you must be justified by faith alone. In other words, you need to trust Christ and it's only faith in Christ that can make you right with God. And then the other third was the third chapter of Genesis, which was the reason for the other two chapters. In other words, the third chapter of Genesis is the reason you need John chapter three. And it's also the reason that you need Romans chapter three. In fact, it's the reason that we need the whole Bible. What I just read to you is the reason that everything else in the Bible is written. It's because of what happened and what I just read to you. So before I jump into that, let me remind you of the purpose in the background. Again, remember the purpose of the book of Genesis was pretty simple at some level. It was to remind Israel and to remind us of the gospel, the promises of God. They promised Israel that he would deliver them out of Egypt and into the promised land. And he promises us to deliver us out of Egypt, our sin, and into his promised land, which is new heavens and new earth and a really a new creation altogether. And remember the story this far, it's starting to get interesting, right? The story began with God creating everything out of nothing. And all of a sudden there was chaos and we saw that God brought order to chaos in much the same way he does in our lives. Right? He looks at our chaotic lives and what does he do? Same thing he did at creation. He speaks like boom, one time. And after bringing order to the chaos, one time he spends the next six days actually reordering things to the way they should be unto rest. And that's the same thing he does in our lives. Then we looked at the fact that God created Adam and Eve, man and woman in his own image. And he really asked them to do only one thing. Trust me. Doesn't say that really what he said was I'm giving you everything that you can see to eat every plant that is good for food is yours. Everything is yours. Just don't eat of that one tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And why do I say they had to trust him? Well, they had to trust that what he was saying was what was best for them. And we saw last week that they didn't. Last week instead of trusting that member, the serpent came Satan and he basically tempted Eve and said, you know, to God really say you can't eat of that tree. And she said he said we can't even touch it. We can't even near it. And we saw last week that Eve was among other things the first Pharisee. But also we see that really the blame at the end of the day comes down to Adam. Because while she was being tempted, while she was taking of the fruit, it says right in the text that Adam was with her the whole time. And Adam's probably the one that didn't trust Eve when, where do you think she got the information about not touching the tree? Adam probably said when she was, you know, created. She said her, are there any rules here in Adam? Thinking, well, let's avoid trouble and set up to tell her not to eat it. Probably said, you know, that thing right over there don't even touch it. Don't even near it. And we saw last week that they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that's where it leaves us tonight. What's going to happen now? They've broken God's command, they've sinned, they've blown it now what? Because remember what God said. He said on the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, on that day you'll die. And that's where the text, that's where we pick up tonight. I've got three points, if you're a note taker. And basically the three points are this, the first point is understandable fear. Understandable fear. The second thing we're going to look at is understandable defense or self defense. And the last thing we're going to look at is unanticipated grace. Unanticipated grace, that'd be number three. So let's look first at the understandable fear. Remember verse seven, it says the eyes of both of them were open and they knew that they were naked and they sew big leaves together and made for themselves loincloths. And then we pick up and verse eight, it says they heard the sound of the Lord God. Walking in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid and hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees in the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Have you ever wondered why were they so afraid at least given the way it sounds here? I mean, as you read this, it says that they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the cool of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves. It almost sounds at odds because the picture that seems to be set up is that everything was copicetic. God was just this cool day and God was coming through the garden like on his regular round. You know, birds, everything's tweeting and yet they were deathly afraid. Why were they deathly afraid? And actually the reason they're deathly afraid is in the sentence, the first sentence in verse eight. 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. If you notice that what says in the cool of the day, the word there that is translated in our English Bibles and almost every translation I believe as cool, every other place in the Old Testament is either translated as wind or spirit. In fact, I use the ESB Bible and I think the NIV, they all have footnotes that say this could be wind or spirit. So that's one. The second thing whenever you hear the construction of the day in the Old Testament most often the way it's put here, it has the context of it is the day of the Lord or the day of judgment. Now think about that verse in those terms and also think about when Adam, when God comes in the cool of the day, it's not sort of, you know, birds chirping and everything's going to goes, Adam, where are you? Imagine that God now comes, they have sinned, they've broken God's command. And God now comes into the garden in the spirit of the day. You could be afraid of that, could you not? And instead of saying, Adam, where are you? Imagine him saying, Adam, where are you? I mean, he's God, he knew where Adam was. He knows everything, right? And yet what's being set up here is this very tense confrontation where God is coming in the spirit of judgment. He promised them that he, on the day they ate of that fruit, they would surely die and here's a principle for you to keep in mind is that God always without exception punishes sin. Always. Most of us, you know, we watch movies and stuff and we love to see justice being meted out, we just never wanted to be meted out upon us. And one of the promises that God makes is that sin will always be punished without exception. Every single sin that has ever been committed will bear punishment. What is sin? You know, the Catechism says sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. In other words, God has given us His law and any failure to live up to that or any breaking of it will be punished. That's something to be afraid of, is it not? And God walks in the garden and he says to Adam, Lord God called and says, where are you? And Adam said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and hid by cell. Why would Adam and Eve hide themselves? Remember in verse seven, it says, when they were no longer, they were no longer now naked and unashamed. When they were created, they were naked and they were unashamed. And now they are trying to hide themselves and they are ashamed. And there's an important distinction here that you need to get a distinction between guilt and a shame. We tend to use them as synonyms but they're really different. Here's the difference. Guilt is what you feel because of what you've done. You do something wrong and you feel guilty. My kids oftentimes say, Dad, you make me feel guilty and I always respond. That's because you are guilty, right? So guilt is the feeling that you get because of what you've done. Shame on the other hand is not what you feel because of what you've done. You've done shame is what you feel because of who you are. Shame is not a result of what you've done. Shame is a result of who you are or at least who you think you are. And when you think you are, you feel ashamed because not you've committed sin but you feel ashamed because you are a sinner. And if you're a sinner, it's understandable that you would be afraid for someone to out you, for someone to find out who you are. It's understandable. Now the question is, is it reasonable? At least in the context of the gospel, it's not because you can't hide from God. God knows what you've done. He knows who you are. So while it's understandable that you might try and hide and it's understandable that you might be afraid, it's not necessarily reasonable given the fact that he already knows. And if God already knows, where does that leave you? You have two options. You can either fess up and say, here I am. You'll notice as you go through this text, Adam and Eve never shoots straight with God. He asks him, yes or no, answer questions and they sort of always have an excuse. He says, where are you? And instead of Adam just standing up naked and saying, right here, I blew it. What does he say? I heard you coming and I was afraid. So one response is to stand up and say, here I am. The other response is to try and hide yourself or to try and excuse your actions. That's where Adam goes next. What he did was understandable, but it wasn't really reasonable given who he was dealing with. You see, the next thing we'll look at is the understandable defense. And when I say understandable, I don't mean it's the right thing, but I can understand what they're doing here because I've done it. Notice what happens here in verse 11. Well, after Adam says, I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and hid myself in verse 11. He, that is God said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat? Now, before I go on, did you think God doesn't know that yet? Why is God asking him these questions? Does he just like to hear himself talk? God is actually giving Adam several chances to come clean. Adam, who told you you were naked? God knows what happened. Who told you, have you eaten of the tree? God knew. And at each point, Adam has given the chance to come clean and how do the Adam respond? Typically, the man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate. So at one level, Adam's shifting, Adam's shifting blame in really two different ways here. Adam, who told you you were naked? Who gave you the tree to eat? And he immediately, he doesn't say, you know what? God, you told me I was responsible for this whole thing. I gave Eve the wrong information and it's my fault that this whole thing has been screwed up. What does he say? He first shifts blame to Eve and he says, the woman, but he shifts blame even bigger than that because what does he say? The woman who you gave me. In other words, God, the reason that everything screwed up is not my fault. It's your fault. If you hadn't given me that woman and she hadn't been so stupid and tempted by that snake, then I wouldn't be in the situation I am. And you've got to love the way God is a great model parent. He doesn't argue. He doesn't, he doesn't vicar back and forth with Adam. He just keeps talking because he knows he's right. Listen to what he says. So Adam blames things on the woman. And then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me. And I ate. So no one, it's no one's fault. Have you ever felt that way? Right? In my house, I have three children that I can see and one child that is invisible. And that child's name is, I don't know. Right? Who left all this stuff out? I don't know. Not me. So just some invisible person came in here and put all this stuff out here. I guess so. Right? When someone has done it, right? I know. And so it drives me crazy. And here we have Adam and Eve. They're doing the same thing. I do the same thing myself. Who did this? The woman who you gave me. She gave me the fruit and I ate it. Okay, Eve. Adam says it's your fault. Is it your fault? The serpent who is in the garden deceived me. It's no one's fault. Now the question it's understandable that they would do that. Because if you're naked and you're ashamed and you feel guilty, you really only have two options. You either fess up or you shift the blame to someone else. That's understandable that they would shift the blame. But is it reasonable? Is it reasonable given the fact that they really are guilty? You see the decision that every person has to make at some point in their life is whether you're going to own your own guilt and shame or whether you're going to constantly blame it on people around you. The most common outlet for that is our parents. Many people, and just statistically speaking, there are people in this room who are bitter and angry about their parents. And they act certain ways and do certain things because of the way the parents treated them. And if you're asking, that's what they would tell you. In fact, I know that for a fact when I was growing up I grew up in a family that was, I grew up with an alcoholic stepfather and not a lot of supervision. And besides being, never went to church, of course. And so growing up, besides being bitter, this is going to surprise you is I was pretty wild. There was nothing that I wouldn't try or nothing that I wouldn't try to do. I mean, by the time I was 16 or 17 years old, I'd broken almost every bone in my body. And you know, it's wild about that. As I can remember, at 17 years old, doing crazy things, doing lawless things and thinking to myself, you know what? People say, you know, aren't you worried about getting caught? And I would think to myself, all I have to do is tell them to look at my family. People would have to, when they saw how screwed up my family is, they would have to understand that it wasn't my fault and they'd let me off the hook. So therefore, I can do anything. And all of that changed one night when some girls invited me to a camp and the guy they had a speaker at the camp, and I didn't know that that's what you do at camp. And he talked about God and he talked about sin and the fact that God always punishes sin and then he just said, good night, kids. And for the first time in my life, I realized that, you know, all the stuff that I had done, all the stuff that I was, really wasn't my parents fault. They might have helped hone my sinfulness, but it wasn't there. It was my sin that I had to be dealt with. And I remember walking out of that room and weeping. And a guy came up to me and asked me, what was the problem? And I said, you don't know how bad I am and all I can remember is him telling me about Jesus. You see the gospel gives you an option. You can either shift your blame to other people and just remain in that bad place for the rest of your life or you can own your sin. You can own your own transgressor. You can own the fact that you personally are screwed up. And here's the good news of the gospel. The person who's willing to admit that he's messed up and sinful and without hope and without any kind of deserving of any mercy, you're the very person that Jesus came to save. The very person. You see because the whole thing about the gospel is grace. And the next thing you see here is unanticipated grace because what God could have done after this. And next week, we're going to look at the fallout. Next week, Adam and Eve have to deal with the consequences of their sin. But before they deal with the consequence of their sin, something else happens. And it's unanticipated grace. And notice what I'll finish with this. Notice the last verses 14 and 15. Eve says the serpent deceived me and I ate. And verse 14 said the Lord God said to the serpent because you've done this cursed or you above all livestock above all the beasts of the field on your belly. You should go on the dust of dust. You should eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Okay, that verse that I just read you is theologians called the Proto-Ivangelium, the first good news. And the first good news, the first promise in all the Bible is given to Satan. Did you catch that? The first promise God makes in the whole Bible is actually made to the serpent. And did you notice God didn't dialogue with the serpent. He dialogueed with Adam and he dialogueed with Eve and she said the serpent deceived me and God doesn't dialogue with the serpent. He mandates to the serpent. The first thing he says to him is cursed or you? You'll crawl in your belly forever and you'll be crushed in the dust. And really, that's a picture of what God will do to Satan. He humiliates him. He humbles him. But then the promise that he gives him is the first promise in the whole Bible that actually is pointing us directly to Jesus. He says to the serpent, her offspring will crush the head of your offspring, the seed of the woman, and your offspring will strike his heel or bruise his heel. And with verse 15 of chapter three of Genesis, the whole course of human history is set into motion. Because the whole course of human history is really just one great big story of the seed of the woman battling the seed of the serpent. The kingdom of God battling the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of good battling the kingdom of evil. And you know the good news is that God not, he promised from the very beginning that the seed of the woman would win, that the seed of the serpent would bruise the heel of the woman's seed, the woman's offspring, but the woman's offspring would crush the head of the serpent. He would utterly destroy him. In this battle, you see, you cannot watch a movie without seeing this battle played out. You can't read a story without watching this battle play out. You know, one of my favorite television shows of all time. In fact, when I was a singles pastor, that was my very first job. I was an intern and I had to do a singles movie night. And I came, I showed up at that movie night with a movie called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And the singles laughed me out of the room. They said, you know, we're not watching that. It's a cheerleader who kills vampires. And I said, guys, this is going to be big. Trust me, it's going to be big someday. I said, you know, here you have someone who's chosen before the foundation of the earth, the battle evil. And she triumphs and, you know, all this kind of stuff. And they said, oh, that's crazy. We're not going to watch it. Well, little did they know it would become a television series and one of the most successful television series of all time. That's not an encouragement for you to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. However, when I loved about watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's the same thing that frustrated me about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Because really, it was about this teenage girls chosen to be the chosen one. Every generation has one vampire slayer. And her whole life was about destroying vampires and demons and everything else. And the problem with Buffy, though, that always frustrated me is she was always depressed. Why was she always depressed? The reason Buffy was always depressed is because she didn't understand the gospel. She know that she had been chosen to battle evil but what she didn't understand was the fact that God already had won the battle. At the cross of Jesus, the head of the serpent was crushed once and for all. So while evil might still, you know, ride and evil might still attack at the end of the day, it's not all on your shoulders, Buffy. She was gutting it out every day, thinking, I don't know if I can face anymore. I don't know if we can win this battle. And I want to scream to the television, the battle has been won. That Jesus has defeated evil. Straight from the promise that you see in Genesis 315 all the way to the cross. Jesus wins. That's the story of the Bible. He crushes evil. And when he raises from the dead, he shows that his heel might have been bruised but he wasn't killed. Satan himself was crushed and destroyed. Does he still exist? And does he still wreak havoc? Sure. But the question is, are you going to live in fear of that or are you going to live in the victory that Jesus has accomplished over him? Keep that in mind. Think about it. Let me pray. Father, I pray that now you would help us to not be blame shifters. Help us to own our own sin but help us to own it with the sense of the fact that you have taken it away. That you want us to own it in order that you might take it and give it to Jesus. So I pray that you would just open our eyes to this more and more. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen. Amen.