Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Genesis

Genesis 3:19-24 12/30/01

Intro: Corrie TenBoom's sister, Betsy, made famous by the book and movie 'The Hiding Place' died in the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp toward the end of WWII.

     In that place of freezing cold, inadequate food and work that eventually killed the strongest men, she tried desperately to
     keep a young pregnant prostitute alive but failed. The young mother and baby died. As she watched friend after friend
    succumb to the starvation, the life draining work and the brutal beatings in near despair she looked at friend and said
    'Everything here dies!'

     Betsy could have been describing accurately not only a concentration camp but also Genesis chapter 3 and for that matter she could have been describing our time 'Everything here dies!'

     The message today deals with death. And  I struggled with that. It's too much gloom and doom, people don't want to hear that especially going into the new year with all the hopes and dreams that accompany it. However, death is a reality in Genesis 3 just as it is a reality in the world today  even though we try desperately to ignore it.

ILL: Film director and actor Woody Allen said  'It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.'

    As much as we don't like to think or talk about it, death is a reality of life and is the direct result of sin.

     A superficial reading of Genesis 3:19-24 will reveal only death... So we won't read it superficially but with the eyes of the Holy Spirit as we will see God's marvelous grace, His abundant blessing in the guise of cursing.

Trans: Turn in your Bibles to Gen. 3:19 where we will take our first look at the curse of death.

Read: Gen. 3:19

     Have you ever wondered about how much money is spent each year on achieving the 'perfect body'. Do you know how much I have spent to get this body in the shape that it is?   What....who said I should demand a refund? The reality is we try desperately to avoid the inevitable by dieting, exercising, even liposuction and plastic surgery. I am not saying diet and exercise are not good. But I am saying that we spend far too much time on the  physical and not enough time on the spiritual.

Read: 1 Tim.4:8 'For bodily exercise profits  little but godliness is profitable for all things since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.'

     Betsy TenBoom was right 'Everything here dies' that is the curse of sin and it is one we all experience.. No matter what kind of shape we are in....sooner or later  everything dies.

    What blessing is possible in such a horrible end for humanity? God did not immediately kill Adam and Eve. Yes, they would die, but God would delay the execution of the sentence for sin. That is grace and a blessing in the guise of cursing.

     Notice that Adam understood what God had said...what He was promising. Adam exercised faith in believing that from the woman that God had given him would come life..they would die but humanity will go on and eventually one will come who will defeat Satan once for all.

    This is why Adam renamed his wife. He called her Eve which means 'life' or 'life bearer'.  Even though Adam and Eve had no children, they believed God's promise of offspring...sound familiar. Who else had his name changed because he believed God's promise to him of offspring? Abraham.

    In Abraham and Sarah's old age, with the promise of death quickly approaching, Abraham believed God's promise of life.

     God gave Adam and Eve hope and Adam responded in faith. Faith is another blessing from God in this text. Adam believed God's promises...and so should we. God is not finished with his children until he calls them home through death. God withholds judgment until all those who will be saved are saved...and that is a wonderful blessing. Even in the promise of inevitable death...there is the blessing of life.

Read: Gen. 3:21

     The fig leaves they had made for themselves were not able to adequately cover their nakedness...remember I said a few weeks ago that outward acts of religion without Christ are just fig leaves.

     -But I read my Bible and I go to church twice a week and I always try to say hello to the person sitting next to me...
            fig leaves says God.

        -But I give $100.00 a week to the church..fig leaves

 -But I serve on the missions committee...fig leaves

 -I...I...I.....all fig leaves.

     God says none of those things deal adequately with your sin. 'The soul that sins shall die'.

    For the sake of His own character and law, God must judge sin but for the sake of His beloved Son, Jesus, God is willing to forgive sin. Remember Jesus is the Lamb of God 'slain from the foundation of the world' (Rev. 13:8). You see God had already made provision for forgiveness and salvation from the very beginning. That is grace in action and blessing where it is not deserved.

     Have you ever wondered what animal God used to make the skins to cover Adam and Eve?  James Boice said that although the text does not say what animal was sacrificed, he believed it was a lamb.

     John the Baptist  in the Book of John called Jesus 'the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world'...what do you think? I think it was a lamb too.

     In order for Adam and Eve to be clothed in animal skins, animals had to die. In order for the Believer to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ, which is what the skins symbolize, Jesus had to die.

     This also reminds us that there is nothing we can do to get right with God or to cover over our sinfulness. It is wholly a work of God, in Christ who died so that we might have life.

     God removes our filthy rags of works and good deeds and He clothes us with the righteousness of Christ...through faith. Truly a blessing from God.

Read: Gen. 3:22-24

    This is perhaps the saddest of all the curses. Humanity, represented by Adam and Eve has been driven out of the Garden, out of life as God intended it to be lived...all because of sin, rebellion against God.

     It was in the Garden that Adam and Eve walked and talked with God in the cool of the day. Now they and we have lost fellowship with God...all because of sin, rebellion against God.

     Every detail in these verses, with its flaming sword turning every way is given to exclude the sinner from the presence of God. We see in this text that we are set apart as sinners...not for God but from God. If there is to be a re-establishment of fellowship between God and humanity, God will have to initiate it. And that is what the remainder of the Bible is about.

    In this text God is saying 'What if man, doomed now to guilt, shame and death should reach out to the Tree of Life, eat and live forever.' It would mean that we would never physically die and would go on in our evil and depraved condition forever in bondage to sin .

     The way to communion and fellowship with God, the way to eternal life through the Tree of Life, in the Garden of Eden has been closed. That way is over and done with. The blessing is that God has given us a new way....Jesus Christ.

Read: Heb. 10:19-20 'Since therefore, brethren we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil that is His flesh.'

Read: John 14:6 Jesus speaking says 'I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the Father but by me.'

    Did you know that the Bible begins with a story of the Tree of Life and it ends with a story of the Tree of Life? Between these two trees, in the opening chapters of Genesis and Revelation, we have the Biblical story of redemption.

     How is it that humanity, once banished from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden in Gen.3 eventually will be able to gain access once more to the Tree of Life in the Garden city in Rev. 2?

Read: Rev. 2:7 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. to him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the Tree of Life which is in the Paradise of God'

     Both trees represent fellowship with God and eternal life in God's presence. What happened to open up the way once again to the Tree of Life? Jesus who gave his life on another tree, the cross of Calvary to remove the curse and lead us once again to paradise, to life.

     It is through Christ and only through Christ that we can enter the Garden and eat of the Tree of Life...where we can walk and talk with God for all eternity.

     By removing Adam and Eve from the Garden , God preserved for Himself a people. And this people would know God once again through His new  and living way....Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

There are three kinds of death.

    Physical Death: Which is the separation of the body from the soul.

    Spiritual Death: Which is the separation of the soul from God.

    Eternal Death: Which is the separation of the body and soul from God forever.

     Eternal death is pictured here at the end of Gen 3. But as we have seen there is a remedy for eternal death. It is faith in Jesus Christ. Your life may not be paradise but it certainly isn't Hell either. In fact, you have the opportunity to get off the path that leads to Hell and walk the path that leads to paradise.

     God's grace is seen in that Jesus took the full curse, the punishment for your sin at Calvary.  Grace is a free gift from God and one that you need to accept for it to be applied. It just doesn't happen, you can't inherit it from your parents or receive it by osmosis by sitting in church every Sunday, you must ask for it from God.

There are just two paths in life

     Continue in your life of sin, your rebellion against God, and when this life is over the angels and flaming sword that guarded Eden will sweep  you into the Lake of Fire, which is Hell, that torments forever.

     Or, honor God and accept his free gift of grace, of eternal life through Jesus Christ, then when this life is over, the angels will welcome you into God's paradise for all eternity.

     What's it gonna be?  Cursing or Blessing?