Well, good morning. So, today we’re launching a new series, and we’re going to start out in the book of Genesis, in the Garden of Eden, with the story of humanity’s fall into sin. But we’re also going to hear of the story of the promise of redemption. And throughout the next couple of weeks, you’re going to hear about how God made his first promise to Adam and Eve, and then he continued that promise through all of Israel’s patriarchs, that God had a plan to restore us back to a right relationship with him. So, as we read Genesis 3 today, I’m going to ask you to listen, especially for the early whispers of God’s plan that sets the stage for his presence and promise. through all generations. This is God’s timeless call. See, it all started in the Garden of Eden. Eden was a place of perfection. In fact, the word Eden means paradise. In this paradise, there were two people, Adam, Adam, which means man, and Eve. They had it all, perfect environment, perfect harmony, at peace with each other, at peace with nature, and at peace with God. Then something happened, which to this day remains the greatest tragedy in all of human history. It was a tragedy that plunged this world into conflict, a conflict we’re still fighting today. And it’s the root cause of every single problem on the planet. Let’s open our Bibles, and we’re going to look at Genesis chapter 3, verses 1 through 15. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? 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. 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. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and 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. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 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 with, from the presence of the Lord among the trees of 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. He said, Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me. And I ate 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 on your belly? You shall go and dust. You shall eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and this woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Dear God, as we study your word of promise today, help us to come to a better understanding of our sinful nature, and help us to turn to you for forgiveness and salvation. You are our merciful Lord and Savior. Amen.

So how easy is it for us to rationalize our wrongdoings? To blame someone else? I can’t help it, I was born this way. Or how tempted are we to blame the whole world? Well, everybody’s doing it. Now some of you may remember a show in the 70s that starred Flip Wilson. And what did he blame every single time he made a bad decision? He said, The devil made me do it. That’s right. Adam and Eve sinned. They disobeyed God. They tried to play God, and they tried to become God, and they failed. They failed miserably. In fact, Adam and Eve are our very first contestants on The Blame Game. Listen to what Adam and Eve said when confronted by God. about their sin. In Genesis 3 11 through 12, God said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate. Now notice Adam first blames the woman. And then he blames God, the woman you gave to be with me. As if Adam was to say, you know, I was really happy with the monkeys, and then you give me this woman. No. Remember, he was so excited, he said, finally, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It seems like he was really happy with his wife until she got him in trouble. Well, then God turned to Eve. And he asked her the same question. Genesis 3 13. What is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. The woman blames the snake. And it’s worth noting that neither Adam nor Eve admit their wrongdoing or ask for forgiveness. Gosh, it seems like we have had a hard time admitting our sins since the very beginning. The result of their sin, shame, they hid from God. Adam and Eve are banished from Eden, the perfect place. And they damaged their relationship of perfect faith and trust in God. And they were thrust into the world that we live in today. Now we call this the Fall. But that’s an interesting term because rather than a fall down, this was actually a fall up. You see, they actually wanted to become like God. They wanted to go up a rung or two. Genesis 3 verses 4 through 6 says, 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. You will be like God. That statement was the trigger. You see, sin is unbelief. It’s unbelief that God is for us. Sin is not believing in God’s promises and that He has our back. Sin is believing that we know better. Sin is believing that we can be our own God and decide things. for ourselves. Since the fall, we’ve actually lost the ability to hear, trust, and obey God without questioning his intentions.

Satan put into Eve’s ear the question, did God really say? That’s all it took. He placed a question in Eve’s ear that caused her to think it. Well, maybe God’s holding out on me. Maybe there is something better. See, through sin, we question God’s goodness. In the fall, we lost that peace that comes from trusting God. You see, God created Adam and Eve to have this permanent relationship with Him. They were supposed to trust in His goodness. They were never supposed to die, but their sin, it caused a disconnect between God and man. And because God is holy, he cannot tolerate sin. And Paul actually said this in Romans chapter 6, verse 32, or 23, he said, for the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God. is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. You see, in spite of their sin, God is merciful. And before he booted Adam and Eve out of the garden, he said something to them. He told them that he had a plan to bring them back in a right relationship with him. He said, 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 him on the heel, that verse Genesis three 15, carries with it the hope for the entire world. This is the dawn of the promise. So we’re gonna take a few minutes and actually take this phrase apart. God’s first talking to the snake, and he says to the snake that there’s going to be enmity. Enmity means hostility, means hatred between you and the woman, between you and her offspring. God tells the snake, you’re always going to be trying to strike at the heel of man. And as part of the curse from man’s sin, this hatred, this enmity, this mutual hatred, will exist between the woman and the serpent. Later, this same hostility, this same hatred, will continue with the woman’s seed. That means her offspring and the serpent’s seed. In other words, their offspring are going to remain enemies throughout the generations. Now, the serpent’s metaphorical offspring, you guys, those are the demonic forces. Those are people who follow the devil. And God is saying that Satan will always be the enemy of mankind and that people who side with Satan are always going to be at perpetual war with God’s people. The battle between good and evil, that’s what Paul talked about in Ephesians chapter 6. Genesis 3. 15 is actually called, a fancy word, the Proto Ewangelion. That literally means the first gospel. Because this verse is the first prediction in the Bible of a Savior. The second half of the verse gives two messianic prophecies. The first messianic prophecy. The first prophecy in Genesis 315 is he will crush your head. That means the seed of the woman, Jesus, will crush the serpent’s head. The second messianic prophecy in Genesis 315 is you will strike his heel. That’s directed at the serpent. The serpent will strike at the heel of the woman’s seed. But it won’t be fatal. You can strike at the heel and survive, but not a strike to the head. Genesis 3 15 points to the promise of Jesus’s birth, his death, his resurrection, and his victory over Satan. See, the serpent strike didn’t spell the end of the offspring for the woman. He thought it would. He put Jesus through a lot of strife by striking. And Jesus did die on the cross, but what happened? He rose on the third day, breaking the power of death and winning the ultimate victory over sin, death, and the devil. Jesus crushed the devil’s head, defeating him forever. Yeah, the devil is still with us for a little while, but he will not be victorious over us. Amen. Satan does not get the final word. Jesus does. So, what did this dawn of promise mean? Well, to the people of Israel, this would become a ray of hope in a world of darkness, that a savior would come. What did it mean to Satan? God declared war. And what did it mean to Adam and Eve? It meant that through a human, that we really messed up the world, through another, we would be redeemed.

The first Adam fell. We needed a second Adam. A new Adam to come to our rescue. And that new Adam is Jesus. Sin means to separate. Our sin separates us from having a relationship with God in perfection. And every one of us carries our sin like a ball and chain, and we are not strong enough to break it. But that’s what God did on the cross of Jesus Christ. One of the greatest promises that God made in the Bible is found in the Psalms 103 and it says as far as the east is from the west so far does he remove our transgressions from us. So how do we know that God has accepted this payment for our sins? I mean how do we know the check didn’t bounce? It’s because of the resurrection. When God raised Jesus from the dead, it was his way of saying, debt cancel, paid in full, serpent head crushed. This is why Christ suffered death. He willingly allowed the serpent to strike his heel. He suffered. He died. But then, three days later, he became forth victorious. by raising from the dead. And this victory over final death that Jesus gives us to you and to me by grace through faith. Though right now we’re still heirs of the first Adam, we have this amazing promise that we can also be heirs of the last Adam and his forgiveness and eternal life. Romans 5. 15 says. But there’s a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. Will you pray with me? Lord God, You created us to be in perfect relationship with You. You made this incredible world so that we could walk hand in hand with You. Forgive us, Lord. We sinned against You and Your creation, and we continue to sin daily. We continue to believe the lie that we can figure things out on our own. But in spite of our stubbornness, You still love us, and You’ve offered us the promise of forgiveness. Through Jesus Christ, help us to believe and live. Amen.