This broadcaster has 1095 podcast archives available on-demand.
Keep up-to-date with this broadcaster on social media and their website.
March 12, 2020 4:00 am
God says to Satan your curses.
You think you've just captured humanity permanently you think you've just taken over Adam and Eve for your own. I want you to know it isn't going to be that way. The woman will not belong to you and in the end.
Out of 1/your head. Concepts like reincarnation and our Lord sacrifice for sinners which is the first book of the Old Testament have to do with the gospel. Find out today as John MacArthur continues his study Genesis of the gospel, airing for the first time on grace to you to look at the origins of the gospel of grace.
You have your Bible turn to Genesis chapter 3. And here's John we come to the last few verses of this third chapter, a monumental chapter. Some would say the most monumental chapter in the entire Bible we read verses 20 to 24 two now the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living and the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. And now, lest he stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which she was taken. So he drove the man out and at the east of the garden of Eden he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life. When you read that it sounds like sort of a collection of things that need to be sort of scooped up in a summary fashion to just kinda close the story off. At first they might not seem to have any significant connection or relationship, but they do because in these verses. Verses 20 to 24 are critical matters what you have here in this amazing little section is the introduction of salvation, the introduction of redemption and this is literally pregnant with meaning. Here is the true proto-evangelion room. Here is the first gospel. Here is the first promise of the gospel unfolded the plan of salvation.
The plan of redemption here is the theology of redemption from man's side and from God's side for here in the verses that I just read to you five brief verses from man's side of faith and repentance are introduced and from God's side, atonement and security are introduced and that essentially sums up salvation man believes with a penitent heart and God provides atonement and secures the believing sinner for eternity. That is the sum of the plan. What is required of the man or the woman is to repent and believe. What is required of God is to provide atonement and secure the sinner and it's all here salvation of sinners, their deliverance, their rescue from sin has always been by faith and repentance through atonement and the power of God to secure us unto eternal life. Now not all that could be or will be said about faith is said here. Not all the could be an will be said about repentance is here not all that could be and will be said about atonement is here and not all that could be and will be said about security is here but those are introduced here faith and repentance and atonement and security are expanded in the Old Testament there expanded again in the teaching of the Gospels, and they find their fullest expression through the epistles of the New Testament, but here very early in the same chapter as the fall and the curse. These necessary elements for redeeming sinners are present in clear terms. We will see on the part of Adam faith and repentance and on the part of God atonement and security. I just remind you now the Bible is progressive, is a progressive revelation. Listen carefully. It does not go from error to truth it goes from incompleteness to completeness. It's all true, but it's not complete until the revelation is closed. What you have here then is the introduction of the great doctrinal heart of salvation. And isn't it wonderful that it happens in the third chapter where man falls and where man is Kirsten woman is cursed and death rains but it is immediately after that curse, that the Holy Spirit of God inspires Moses to write the record of redemption in its first and initial expression.
So what were going to look at are those for great truths to from the side. It is human to from the side that is divine.
What start with man's side. If there is to be salvation for the sinner. If he is to be delivered from the power of sin which is now taken over. If he is to be delivered from the curse. If he is to be delivered from Satan.
If he is to be delivered from death must be faith.
Salvation all through Scripture from here to the very end of redemptive history is always by faith always by faith no time was ever anyone saved by works, even here in Genesis 3. Salvation is clearly by faith and what we mean by that simply believing God believing God as he speaks. That is to say believing whatever God has said now obviously at this point in redemptive history. God hadn't said everything he was going to say but faith required that you believe his word, to whatever extent he had revealed believing the word of God, trusting the promise of God, believing that whatever God has said is true only ask a question, did Adam and Eve always believe that whatever God had said was true. No, up to a point they did, and Satan came into their world and Satan tempted to believe God had not told them the truth right. Satan said to them off. You shall not surely what die. God said the daily to that tree you can die. Satan said God is a liar and obviously Adam and Eve believed Satan. They believe the serpents lies that frankly is how you could define anyone's unregenerate condition where you are not committed to believing the word of God.
In fact, the serpent led them to conclude that God was not honest, the God was not true that God was not to be trusted that God did not tell it the way it is Satan convinced them that God couldn't be trusted that God wasn't really good because if he was good as he purported to be, he wouldn't withhold from them the knowledge of good and evil.
Pretty amazing really to think about the fact that in spite of what they could see in spite of what they could experience about the goodness of God in spite of the obvious power of the word of God evident around them because by his word. He had created the entire universe in which they lived, including the paradise of Eden even though they could see even though they could experience the goodness of God and the power of the word of God and walked and talked with God in the cool of the day, you knew him intimately and knew them personally, even though all of that was true. They were led to a point in the midst of experiencing God's perfection within trusted me now. They fallen into sin and it was very evident because the first thing they did when they were aware of their sin was to cover their nakedness and shame to begin to feel the impulses of guilt, they begin to feel lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, pride of life, they begin to feel all the evil impulses they knew they were alienated from God. They begin to hide themselves from God and immediately they knew that Satan was the liar right a new Satan lied in the must've known that God told him the truth all along because they began to experience decay, but immediately. Faith is exercised, they turn from having trusted Satan to trusting God. Look at verse 20 of the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living I read that in that first and you say well that's just a fact well is a lot more there than that.
This is a testimony to Adams faith. Adam named his wife rightly named her up to this point. She hasn't had a name. She's just been the woman he names her Eve and I hasten to say you know what that means means life word.
Even the Hebrew means life and whatever language they spoke in the garden. This name meant life.
Why would he name her life if they were under the sentence of death. I God had just imposed death on them and he turns right around and names his wife life was a promising creation Genesis 128 and you remember that promise of God is made man and woman he blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, so what God was saying to them was there and reproduce the Rinne reproduce and populate the world and they might well of thought that because of death, entering into the scene that was never going to happen. That was never going to come to pass.
They would just die and it would all be over except for the fact go back to chapter 3 verse 15 that God had said I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed and he is talking to Satan, he shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heels remember that promise. God says the Satan I'm in a put hostility between you and the woman that's good thing God is saying to Satan you think you have that woman you don't you think you got her on your side permanently. You don't you're going to be her enemy and she's gonna be your enemy, which means she's going to be on my side right there. God was saying, I am going to take that woman for my own. I'm going to redeem that fallen sinner and that fallen sinner is going to become the enemy of Satan. That is a pledge of salvation and that enmity that hostility is going on not only between you and the woman, but between your seed. That is the progeny of Satan, all those who are the children of the devil and her seed, Percy. This means she is going to have children. She's going to have children who are going to have hostility toward the children of Satan and in the end. One of her seed identified as he in verse 15 shall bruise you on the head. One who comes out of that woman is going to deliver a crushing blow to the head of Satan.
While Satan will only be able to bruise him on the heel who is that Christ so in the midst of the curse on Satan. God says the Satan your curses.
You think you've just captured humanity permanently you think you've just taken over Adam and Eve for your own. I want you to know it isn't going to be that way. The woman will not belong to you.
She will be your enemy and you will be her enemy and out of her loins are going to come. Those who belong to me, will be the enemies of those who belong to you and in the end, out of her loins is going to come, one who will crush your head, and all you will be able to do is bruise his heel. Based on that promise, that the woman would have a seed who would destroy the serpent of paradise who would destroy the one who had destroyed their lives on the basis of the promise of Genesis 315 and that's all Adam had to go on that his wife would have children. Life would come from her and one of those who would come from her would flesh the serpent said on the basis of that promise of God, he names his wife life as an act of faith that such an act of faith that what Adam is essentially saying is I believe God contrasts that here's Adam living in paradise and he can see the hand of God. He can see the power of God. He can see the perfection of God.
He could experience the wonder and the glory and the goodness and the truth of God, and he walks and talks with God and they must've been conversations about glorious divine realities and in the middle of all that that he could see and touch and smell and taste, and experience. He won't believe God, and he decides that God is a liar and Satan tells the truth. Maze.
Contrast that with the attitude here, here he calls his wife life because she was the mother of all the living. Well I got news for you folks at the time that he named her she was the mother of nobody.
It was the mother of nobody.
Now he's exercising faith in God about what he cannot see that amazing when he had all around him and within him the true wonders of God's perfection. He didn't believe he was seeing, but not believing here he is believing without seeing this tells me that Adam trusted God. God, it only said one thing to just one thing really that he gripped about the future and that is that there would be a seed who would come that is further delineated in what God said to the woman I will multiply your pain and childbirth. You're going to have many children and painfully so. So God promised her children and out of that line of children one who would crush the serpent's head and Adam believes that we try something else.
Adam longed for one to come and crush the serpent's head who had stolen their perfection is now in God's between the curse that ends in verse 19 and the naming of Eve in verse 20 Adam became a believer in God. This is the great promise of the gospel that God will bring one who will destroy Satan who will crush him will bring life to the sinner believed he couldn't see it. He was the mother of absolutely nobody but he believed that out of her would, Savior, to destroy Satan and rescue man from the devil's tyranny. He believed it, see the gospel that ultra what is gospel mean was another expression for gospel good news. The good news with Tyson. Adam had been lied to by the serpent and so at Eve, and they knew it they knew it because they expected to be made like God and instead they were unlike God, instead of entering into some new level of relationship to God.
They were totally cut off from God. They knew that the devil was a liar and they wanted him crushed and they wanted to be delivered is essential to understand here that Adam is X or sizing faith woman will have a son and that son will triumph over Satan and that son will restore paradise and that son will rescue the lost.
He didn't doubt God's promise like Abraham doesn't Abraham believed what God and it was counted to him for righteousness.
That means he was justified because he believed God. Now, obviously, Adam had a lot of revelation he didn't even have the Old Testament let alone the new. But whatever God said he believed in what God said was a Savior would come would crush the usurper crush the enemy destroy Satan and rescue the sinner and that's good news. And Adam knew himself a sinner who needed to be rescued by faith. He believes the promise of God that she would be the mother of many not only the many, but of all and of those one would be the Redeemer. So naming his wife Eve was an expression of his faith in the promise of God as far as it was possible he believed God put another way, there was nothing God had said that Adam didn't believe in folks me tell you something. As you progress through the Old Testament. As you progress through the New Testament at any point saving faith only requires that one believe all that God has said and from here on. God has said that he will provide an atonement he will provide a conqueror of Satan and sin, who will restore paradise and rescue the sinner. So here was Adam and Eve. Certainly with him because she accepted this name they were exercising faith.
And remember, Hebrews 11 one says faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen the chapter 2 of Hebrews 11 says by men of old were approved. Adam was the first man of faith, and I think along with him. Of course Eve as well, and I would add this such faith can't really exist without repentance.
It can't exist without repentance. And so I believe inherent in his faith was repentance was essential if he was going to say God I believe you. He was essentially saying no longer do I believe Satan he was saying. I need to deliver. I need a rescuer. I need someone to come and crush the serpent said I need someone to come and rescue me from the tempter is a repentance involved. For Adam, a dramatic change his attitude toward Satan changed as much as his attitude toward God. All of a sudden he didn't believe Satan. All of a sudden he despised Satan. He was no longer enamored with Satan. He was no longer seduced and deceived by Satan. Once he was only a believer in God. Then he became a believer in Satan. Now he is truly a believer in God and he's rejected the enemy of his soul, and now he believes God for the destruction of the devil and all that the devil said, and all that the devil -induced. He wants destroyed. He wants it the way it used to be between himself and God. So there's an element here in this expression of faith that we could identify as repentance and doubtless as I said the woman had the same conviction.
She also knew that Satan was a liar and that God was true. She accepted her name and with it the hope of redemption and the seed that would come from her bring sin to its end and to bring back paradise so the gospel of salvation promised in chapter 3 verse 15 is received by faith.
In verse 20 they believe God.
They reject Satan. They long for the one to come who will crush the serpent's head and rescue them from sin and death, and friends.
That's the essence of saving faith is not believing that God is the Savior that God's word is true that God promises true that he is going to rescue us from sin he is going to destroy the enemy of our soul according to Habakkuk 2 in verse four and its repeated several times in the New Testament the righteous live by faith or by grace are ye saved through faith, so here we see this wonderful dawning of redemption Mrs. Grace to you with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. John is Chancellor of the Masters University in seminary and the study he continued today looks at the genesis of the gospel of John.
When it comes to our current text and really the whole book of Genesis.
There's always going to be controversy, it seems, because the Bible's opening chapters describe exactly how God created everything and what it means to be male and female, and everything that's wrong with the world and it touches on a lot of subjects that frankly aren't politically correct if you take the Bible sighed on some of those topics you're going to face opposition in this world and with that in mind John, I'm wondering how can we thoughtfully, lovingly, biblically engage a skeptic of the creation account or some other truth in Genesis in a way that honors Christ. Yeah, I think there there's some reasonable things you can say to someone, you can say do you believe in a creator, or are you okay I believe in a creator. So, the creator. At one point in time was the only existing being right because if he is the creator than there was nothing there until he created so, how would you know how we created. If there was no one there, you would have only one account right that would be the creator's account so what you have in Genesis 1 and two is the creator's own account of creation.
You don't approach it with science because that's not science. Science can observe something that it can see, creating the entire universe in six days, has no scientific explanation that is a miracle that is beyond all comprehension. We think it's a miracle Jesus rose from the dead. We think it's a miracle when he healed a leper that is minuscule on the miraculous level compared to creating an entire universe of the complexity of this universe. In six days the science has nothing to do with that science can't explain any of that. So you have to start with her how to be a creator because there is a creation and if there's an effect there has to be a cause. So once there was only the cause and all we could ever possibly know about the creation would be if the one who created give us an account and that's what Genesis 1 and two is it is the creator's accounts. The only eyewitness account.
The only account there is so to to go and say well you know that's not why it away it happened. It happened like this. It happened with evolutionary this and that science does science is know anything about a miracle science can explain a miracle.
Science can even explain why why Jesus rose but did science can't explain how the disciples could go out and preach the gospel and people be healed. That's what a miracle is that it is something that is a supernatural event that has no scientific explanation. Now that's just one of starting points to talk to people about creation but it's a good one and other a lot more in the book. The battle for the beginning I'm so glad I'm having opportunity to tell you about because I believe so strongly that Christians have a case to make for the creation account in Scripture. Get a copy of the battle for the beginning book you will show you what science can and cannot do and it will cause you to believe in the Genesis account of creation. Get a copy of the book. The battle for the beginning available today. That's right. And this is a very helpful book. It will give you the knowledge you need to defend God's word.
From its very first page pick up the battle for the beginning when you contact us today. The battle for the beginning costs $11 and shipping is free to order, call 855 grace or go to GT Y.org. The battle for the beginning will equip you to make a biblical case for creation. Wherever it's needed at school, at work, maybe even in your church to get a copy for yourself an extra copies to encourage people you know, call 855 or visit GT Y.org now as you listen to John's lesson today on Genesis chapter 3. Perhaps he came up with a question on creation or sin or some other biblical topic, no matter what typical doctrine you want to know more about.
Let me encourage you to go to our website. GT Y.org and there you will find sermon blog articles devotionals all give you the answers that you're looking for our website.
Again, GT Y.that's GT Y.org and L4. John MacArthur and the entire grace to you.
Staff on Phil Johnson encouraging you to be here tomorrow when John looks at the first time in Scripture that God is presented as the Savior of sinners, another half hour of unleashing God's truth at a time on race