Judgment on the Serpent

Genesis chapter 3 is where we are. We're not going to get all the way through the chapter.

I started it a couple of weeks ago. I'm going to pick that up again starting with verse 8. So I'll read verses 8 and following here in just a minute of chapter 3.

In fact, I think I'll just go ahead and read all the way through verse 15. That will be the chunk of the chapter that we're going to deal with here tonight. And then hopefully next time we'll be able to finish up this chapter.

Start with verse 8. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? And so he said, I heard your voice in the garden.

Wait a minute. Did I skip something? Yeah, where are you? And so he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and hid myself.

And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? Then the man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.

And the Lord God said to the woman, And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me and I ate. 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 feet. To the woman he said, Well, I'm going to stop right there. I said I'm going to stop at verse 15 and just kept on reading.

So that's the portion of the text that we'll get into tonight. And I want to go back and look at verse 8 again.

It's a pretty lengthy text. Let me read verse 8 again. I want you to pay close attention there. And they heard, That's Adam and Eve. And you remember, Hopefully recall back to the first part of this chapter And what has transpired.

And you remember that. And how Adam and Eve had broken the one and only commandment that God gave them. And ate of that tree that God said, Do not eat of.

And they did. And their eyes were opened. And we talked all about that last time. And so, you know, here they are. And they, you know, They hear a sound.

And it's God walking there in the garden. In the New King James says, Cool of the day. If you have, I don't know, I know the Holman Christian Standard says, In the evening, I believe.

Does the NASB, Anybody have the NASB? I forgot to check that. Some translations put this in the evening. Some give the impression that it's in the morning.

The answer to that is, I don't know. I have always, Over the years, Kind of thought it was in the morning. Early in the morning.

And, in fact, I've been tempted to use it as a case For having a quiet time early in the morning. Because here, Adam and Eve, God is walking through the garden Early in the morning.

Maybe. And it was, And it's implied in such a way That this is a regular thing That he did with Adam and Eve. And I think it was.

And so, you know, Here's a case for getting up early And having your time with the Lord. However, I must say to you, If evening time works best for you, Then do it in the evening.

You know, Maybe midday, Or some other point. But sometime in the day. Some people are not morning people like I am. And, you know, I don't know that I am not an evening person too.

I don't go to bed early, But I always get up early. It's just kind of my way I'm wired or geared or something. But here is God. He's walking through the garden. Maybe it's early morning.

Maybe it's in the cool evening After the sun has set or whatever. And Adam and his wife, Eve, Hid themselves.

They hid themselves. They had never done that before. And here's God coming along. I think, again, Implied that this was a customary time. Where they just walked with God.

And I think he taught them. And they just communed with him. But this time was different. They hid themselves. Hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God Among the trees of the garden.

Alright? Now, They were So instantly corrupted. I think we need to understand this. And I'm sorry if that makes you Feel kind of bad About thinking this way about Adam and Eve.

But understand, When they broke that commandment, When they sinned, They were instantly Corrupted By that one sin.

That one sin. And they not only Felt the shame Of that corruption. But they also resisted. I mean, The first thing we understand Is that they resisted Fellowship with God.

And you could add to that They also Eventually they're going to Make excuses for what happened. In a sense, They're going to Going to lie.

And the point Here that we didn't understand Is that this is what sin does. Or, Not does, It does, But has done To us. And what we've been born into.

And we Hide from the presence of God. We don't want to Communion with God. And there's Not only the Feel of The shame Of the corruption Of the sin itself.

But it It also Produces a resistance To have fellowship With him. Now let me read Again 9 and 10 I know I've read All of this text But I want to Kind of take These verses Bit by bit here.

Then the Lord God Called to Adam And said to him Where are you? A little side note here I don't know about you But my First question is Didn't God know Where they were?

I mean my goodness He's God. But it's interesting Isn't it That In the Old Testament As well And certainly In the New Testament With Jesus We have Jesus Asking questions That We're just sure He knows the answer to.

But the question Is a leading question It's a question Maybe prompting Some kind of admission In this case Prompting Repentance And he said Where are you?

And so he said Adam said I heard your voice In the garden And I was afraid Because I was naked And I hid myself Now I think That This is the very first I would even say A prime opportunity For Adam and Eve To repent At that moment And did they do it?

They did not They did not repent They'd been caught They had sinned And now they knew it And they felt the shame Of that sin And they certainly Were experiencing For the first time The corruption That sin Produces By the way You and I Don't have any Memory really Of not feeling This way But Adam and Eve Were already adults And this This was a brand new Experience for them And so they knew All of this And here's God Coming And he's calling And here's prime Opportunity number one For them to repent And they And they And they miss it Miss it completely And And I would say To you That that is The condition Of the sinner I'm sorry Rosa Yes If they would have Repented Well now I take it back The corruption Had already taken place Now God's going to

Graciously save them Here A little bit later I guess I've misunderstood Your question If they had not Sinned Before Everything Everything would have Changed Now that didn't Happen did it And you're asking me Did God plan it that way Did God know Yeah he knew But Things would have Been different But here I think the point That we need to get From this is Not what would have Happened if they Had repented At that time What we need to get From this Is A lesson A clear lesson From scripture Of what the Condition of Sinfulness Does to us Now I'm going to Use a word here In a minute And it's the word Depravity Depravity And that is The What Indicated here What What we understand From why About why Adam and Eve Did not repent Right away

They felt the shame They resisted Fellowship with God In a little bit They're going to be Evasive and so forth And it's all an Indication of the Corruption That was brought about Into their hearts Because of their sin A corruption That has persisted From that point on Throughout all the Ages On into our day And this is Depravity And Adam and Eve Were suddenly Depraved We'll define that Here in just a minute And then all Are born With that Depravity All are born Depraved Alright now So we see here In the garden Not only Do they feel Shame Not only do they Resist Fellowship with God Hiding themselves From him But they also Resist repentance First opportunity They have

Here's God He's there They could have Fell down At his feet Right there In humility And in godly sorrow And repentance But they resisted that And their whole Conversation with God Is evasive It's Deceptive You know They're choosing Their words Just right We're going to See that here Pretty clearly And it's an Attempt Obviously To shift Blame For their sin And that's what We see here In verse 11 Look at it again He said God said Who told you That you were Naked Have you eaten From the tree Which I commanded You that you Should not eat Now there's Opportunity number Two to repent They could have Repented at that Moment There's the Opportunity Did they No They did not Verse 12 Then the man

Said The woman Whom you Gave To be With me She gave Me the tree Of the tree And I Ate Alright See this is Depravity They try to Put a blame On God To Well I I think Yeah I think That's implied There too I mean It's your fault God If you hadn't Given me This woman It would Never happen But he's Directly blaming Eve You gave Her to me She Gave The fruit To me And I Ate of it It's depravity And Adam Eve Are depraved To the core Of their being And with them All that are Born out of them Including All of us Here today We were born Depraved Now what is Depravity Well it's a Huge I don't think So complicated Subject Or theological Question It is Of course Hotly debated Among some Theologians

But here's a Simple definition That I think Is correct Depravity Is a condition Of the heart Alright It's a heart Condition In which One is Both unwilling And Unable To stop Sinning Honestly Repent Sin And trust God In his Salvation I'll give you These next Week When I Finally do Give you Your notes Okay Let me give you That definition Again Depravity Is a condition Of the heart In which One is Both unwilling Not just Unwilling But also Unable To stop Sinning Honestly Repent Sin And trust God In his Salvation It's a condition Of the heart Depravity Is not Just Sinfulness See often times The word Depravity Is used

In that Context With that Meaning That depravity Means Some You know Way out there Kind of Sinfulness It's not Just Sinfulness Or wickedness Now It is That But It is More than That So Think about Adam and Eve After the Desire To sin To break God's law And after That desire Was conceived In their Hearts And that's Where it Began Inside the Heart First with Eve And With Adam When that Was conceived In the Heart And after They experienced The actual Sin Breaking Of God's Law And then As a result Of that After the Guilt Of that Sin Came upon Them And the Shame After the Shame And when They finally Were confronted By God All this Is step By step

Taking place After all Of that They will Now do Anything To avoid God To avoid Him They're Hiding And they Will now Do anything And everything That they Can And everything They can Think of To deceive And evade And to Shift the Blame And what I'm saying Here tonight Is that Is the Essence Of depravity And that Is the Condition Of man Depravity And it's Been that Way For Six Thousand Plus Years Now And so Depravity Is a Condition In which The sinner Will not Repent Of sin And that's Exactly What we See here It's the Same thing That's going On It has Been going On ever Since Now Understand This Praved Sinners May Understand That what They did Was sin I mean You've met People like That who are Not born Again Christians And they Sin And they Have full Knowledge That what They did Was not Right

Depravity Doesn't mean That That the Sinner Or the Unsaved Sinner Just doesn't Know anything About sin Depraved Sinners Do know When they Have sinned That doesn't Mean that They believe Everything That is Sin That they Have committed That everything Is actually Sin You know We live in A culture That's Redefining Sin This may Be sin For you But it's Not for Me But all Of them Have at Least A category That they Would Agree Upon That this Is sin That doesn't Mean that They're Turning toward Christ They just Have a Knowledge of It An understanding Of it And a Depraved Sinner May even Feel Some shame From their Sin If you met Someone like That Feel guilty Feel shameful For doing A certain Thing Committing a Certain sin Depraved Person can Feel that Sense that Experience that A depraved

Person may Have to Face the Reality And the Consequences Of their Sin Adam and Eve certainly Did In fact All three Of these That I've Just mentioned You know Understanding what They've done To sin Adam and Eve understood That They were Still depraved Feeling the Shame The guilt Of sin Adam and Eve They certainly Felt that They wouldn't Have hid Themselves If they Didn't Have any Understanding Of that Facing the Reality Consequences Of sin Adam and Eve did A depraved Person may Even make Resolutions You know To change Their ways You know Turn over That new Leaf Or you Know Try to Discipline Certain Kinds of Lifestyle Activities Out of their Life They may Even do That You know And desire To stop Doing corrupt Things in Their life

A depraved Person can Do that And they May even Acknowledge The truth Of scripture Concerning sin They may say Well yeah That's probably Right See this is Not the Point The point Is they Cannot Stop From their Sinning And they Will not Repent on Their own Nor can They can't Honestly Repent And so What they Do is Hide from God And that's The essence Of depravity And do we See that In the world Today Take those Who profess To be Atheists Or Really I Think all Atheists Are just Simply Agnostics You take Atheists Or agnostics They hide From God All the time How do they Do it By saying There is No God That's how They do it How about People who are Self-righteous They are Trusting in Themselves They hide From God By saying That God

Is not as Holy as Maybe you Think And so I'm Good enough To To please God On my Own That That probably Describes The majority Of people That you Would meet Who are Non-Christians Who have Not ever Repented There are Others who Hide from God By redefining Him Saying that He is Something else Explaining Away his Word Saying well You know Some of it is True Not all of it is True Or Coming up with Their own Versions of it Or they just Simply remove This is what a lot Of people do They just simply Remove themselves From anything That reminds them Of the true God And his word So they don't Darken the door Of a church Even though they Might be invited Or maybe a family Member encourages Them but they Don't want to go There where the Word of God Might be preached Because it will Remind them Of their wickedness So people avoid That That's how People in a sense

Do what Adam And Eve did They hid Themselves in the Trees And today Many people Are hiding Themselves from The one true God In many Many ways A host of Different ways A survey Shows That 90% Of Americans Believe In God 90% And yet It's pretty Clear By the way Most Americans Live That The vast Majority of Those 90% Believe God To be the God They have Decided He is Rather than Who he Really is They're Worshipping all Kinds of Different gods Or acknowledging The presence Of some God Or this God And they Have redefined In ways In ways That suit Them And yet The vast Majority of Americans Say they Believe In God And of Course Most of Them are Not believing In the God of The Bible And that's Why again

Where the Word of God is Preached And where True True God Is worshipped And where Jesus Crucified For sinners Is Exalted Sinners are Not comfortable With that Not comfortable With that And they need Something to Hide behind And they'll Look for Anything that They can Find And they Don't want To walk Into a Place Where they're Going to be Exposed to The true And living God Who sits In judgment Of their Lives That's why Sometimes in The workplace Wherever you May work In other Places where We have Interaction With Lost people Why sometimes We're Scoffed at And persecuted In fact You don't Really have To even Say a Thing Some people Don't like You just Because Your Christianity Not just Insults Them But it Makes them Feel Condemned And they're

Really just Doing Again what Adam and Eve did They're Hiding Themselves And evading God And so For But That's Exactly Again what We see in Adam and Eve And so Instead of Repenting They hide From God And when They're Confronted By God About their Sin Adam He said It was Eve's Fault And Eve Said it's The serpent's Fault And the Serpent Didn't have A leg to Stand on You've heard That All right So this Is really Kind of The point Number one Of the Gospel And I Think With most People Is where We begin And need To begin With lost People And that And that Is the Good news That we Preach Begins With the Bad news The reality Of Lostness Of Sinfulness

Because Before people Will ever God will ever Bring them To embrace The good news They need to Acknowledge the Bad news And the bad News is Man is a Sinner And hopelessly Lost But what is The good news In Genesis chapter Three Because we do Have the gospel In this chapter Let's look Again At verse 14 So the Lord said To the Serpent Because You have Done this You are Cursed More than All cattle More than Every beast Of the field On your Belly You shall Go And you Shall eat Dust In all The days Of your Life And I Will put Enmity Or hostility Between you And the Woman And between Your seed And her Seed He shall Bruise your Head And you Shall bruise His heel There is that Famous passage Now verse 14 You have Really God's curse

Toward two Different entities Or people Not people Really Personages I don't know What the right Word would be Because you see First we have God's curse Toward the Natural Serpent There is a Natural serpent And you That Satan Was using Inhabiting Some kind Of walking Reptile Whatever it Was And apparently Talking At least Satan gave It power To talk Communicate At the very Least And so First you have God's judgment Or curse Upon the Natural serpent And then Verse 15 You have the Curse God's curse Upon the Supernatural Serpent And that Of course Is Satan And so First he speaks To the animal This reptile This serpent Whatever it Was Which again Was just An instrument Of Satan And he said You're more Curse than All the Livestock More curse Than all The wild Animals And on Your belly On your Belly On your

Stomach Shall you Go You're going To eat Dust All the Days of Your life That sounds So cruel To us Think about It This is Not Cruelty To some Poor Innocent Dumb Animal It's not That This is Meant I believe By God To To Be an Enduring Reminder Of what Happened There in the Garden A reminder That we Can see Most any Day That we Don't Really Want to I guess Nobody Wants To see Snakes I don't Know if We have Any snake Lovers Here In the Room If my Son Matthew Was here He'd raise His hand He liked Snakes From a Little kid He'd pick Them up Suddenly he'd Come to the Front door of The house And have a Snake In his hand Never had Any fear of Snakes But I Have a Fear of Snakes I don't Like them I usually Hurt myself Getting away From them But what I'm saying

Is that That They serve As a Reminder Of what Happened In the Garden A constant Reminder And a Reminder of God's curse On Satan Now Snakes Then provide For us a Picture A symbol I think Even a Symbol Of God's Divine Judgment On Satan It was Satan Who sought To be higher Than God And But But he Was brought Down Lower As low As possible See there's The symbol He decided To rise Above God Take his Throne And God Brought him Down to The earth It's symbolic Of that I'm not saying That Satan Is in every Snake You see Though You may Feel that Way But We have That kind Of fear Of snakes I think

Built into Us Because It Represents A symbol Of this And So It's not so Much Punishment Of the Physical Serpent That's About what We're to Get from This As You know What it Is is a Statement Of God's Punishment Of his Great Adversary Satan And it Makes the Seriousness Of God's Punishment Of Satan More dramatic And more More visible For us And so Every time You see a Snake You can Be reminded That God Has defeated Satan And has Brought him Down to The lowest Level So Symbolized By the Crawling Snake But now What about The judgment Of The supernatural Serpent Because Satan Is called Referred to As a serpent In a number Of places In scripture So He's a Supernatural Serpent What about That Well verse 15 again And I

Will put Enmity Between you And the Woman And between Your seed And her Seed And he Shall bruise Your head And you Shall bruise His heel Now this Is a Very important Curse If you know Anything about It or heard Anybody teach On it Considered It yourself What does This mean Well it's Really not That hard To figure Out Though I Would say You know That the Old Testament Reader Would not Have known All that we Know About what This text Means Because we Live on This side Of the New Testament Is on This side We live on The New Testament Side of Revelation And so When God Said that I Will put Hostility Inmity Hostility Between you And the Woman That's Eve Between Your seed Satan And her Seed He will Strike your Head And you Will strike His head Or crush You will Excuse me He will Crush your Head Literally Is the Idea here What's What's he Saying

He's telling Satan That he's Going to Fail You know See I Think Satan Has this Idea And I Think he Still has It today He's Self Deceived But he Has the Idea That what He accomplished With a Third of The angels Who followed Him And were Expelled From heaven What he Succeeded How he Acceeded With him He's going To have That same Success With the Human race That's what He thought He had Accomplished There And to A degree He did It appears That way And you See the Angels That fell Were Sentenced To Eternal Punishment Like fire And there Was no Escape For them No Salvation For those Fallen Angels And so Once they Joined Satan's Rebellion They were Forever Damned Condemned As friends

Of Lucifer You know The enemies Of God Eternally And I Just think That Satan May have Thought that The same Thing was Going to Be true Of the Entire Human Race And God's Curse says You're wrong You're wrong Because Adam And Eve Are going to Experience salvation And we'll get Into that Next time How God Did that And in A very Real Way He Saves us In the same Way But anyway They're going To experience Salvation And then Out of Eve Will come One One day Come one Who is Going to Undo What Satan Did And And he'll Be the Seed of The woman That's Eve And so God's Saying you Serpent You'll Bruise his Heel But he Will crush Your head And so It's the Curse The curse Here Toward this

Supernatural Serpent That curse Is a promise It's part Of the Gospel And so What Is a Curse To Satan Is a Promise To us To us A couple Of passages In the Bible That In the New Testament That speak To that Hebrews Chapter 2 And Verse 14 In as Much As the Children Have Partaken Of flesh And blood He himself Likewise Shared The same That through Death He might Destroy Him Who had The power Of death That is The devil And 1 John Chapter 2 Verse 14 I have Written to You Fathers Chapter 3 Excuse me 3 verse 8 He who sins Is the devil Is of the devil For the devil Has sinned From the Beginning For this Purpose The son of God Was manifested

That he Might destroy The works Of the devil So there are A couple Passages That Confirm What God said Was going To happen To Satan And this Being part Of the curse So Jesus The Messiah Will one Day come And he's Already Come And he Will die This is What God Is pointing Adam and Eve to What he's Pointing to The future About This seed Of the woman Will die Bruce is Healed And he Will rise Again To remove The curse Of sin From those Who believe And one Day At the end Of the Millennial reign Of Jesus Christ The curse God pronounced Upon Satan Will come To absolute Completion Romans 16 20 The God Of peace Will soon Crush Satan Under your Feet Alright

So next Time we'll Get into The curse Of Eve And man And we'll See how God saves There And I Don't think Any of That's Going to Surprise You Probably Have heard This taught And preached On but We see I think The first Revelation Of the Lamb Even though The Bible Doesn't mention A lamb In chapter Three Like Tom Said at the The end of The night I really Kind of Think it Was a Lamb But that's Consistent With the rest Of scripture And that Kind of Progressive Revelation Of the Lamb Throughout The old On into The new Testament So Under the Blood Of a Lamb Innocent Blood That will Save Adam And Eve And it's The blood Of the Innocent Lamb Of God That saves Us