Genesis 3:14-4:5

The serpent was more cunning than any beast: Satan’s power is in his cunning, his craftiness. We can’t outsmart Satan, but we can overcome him with the power of the Word of God.

It was the craftiness of Satan that made him successful against Eve so we’re told in 2 Corinthians 11:3.

The serpent spoke to the woman. Before the curse on Satan, the serpent was different from what we know today as a serpent. He was able to communicate one on one with Eve. This creature didn’t start as a snake as we know it, it became one.

Satan brought his temptation against the woman rather than the because he perceived she was more vulnerable to attack.

Perhaps Satan knew by watching Adam that he didn’t do a good job of communicating to Eve what the LORD told him making Eve more vulnerable to temptation. Satan often attacks a chain at its weakest link, so he gets at Adam by tempting Eve.

We see that the temptation comes through a question. “Has God said”?

The age-old method of deception is used. Cast doubt on the truth. Once a tiny crack of doubt opens it gets easier and easier to turn the truth into a lie.

Eve was also ignorant of exactly what God actually said.

It was Adam’s responsibility to pass this on to Eve and he did a poor job of it.

Maybe Adam explained it to Eve this way, “See that tree in the middle of the garden? Don’t touch it or God says we’ll die!” It’s better than saying nothing, but it doesn’t explain it anywhere near fully and so it made Eve vulnerable to Satan’s attack.

“You will not surely die,” Satan says to Eve. He first draws her into a discussion and plants the seed of doubt about God’s Word by using her incomplete understanding of God’s Word. Now he moves in for the kill, with an outright contradiction of what God said.

He gets Eve to forget all about what God said about the consequences of sin because when we know and remember those consequences, we’re more likely to give up the passing pleasures of sin Hebrews 11:25 confirms this to us.

Satan gets Eve to doubt the goodness of God and the badness of sin. If God lies to her, how can He be good? If this fruit is something good for her, why doesn’t God want her to have it?

Satan wants us to see sin as something good that a bad God doesn’t want us to have. His main lie to us is “sin is not bad, and God is not good.”

Note that Satan’s temptation was all the more powerful because there was

truth in it. It was true Eve’s eyes would be opened, but also to her own sin and rebellion.

The final piece of the drama is the most powerful because it’s how Satan himself fell, wanting to be equal with God, like God. Eve tried to become a god by rebelling against God.

The goal of becoming God is the centre of so many non-Christian religions, like Mormonism and almost the entire new age movement. But in our desire to be gods, we become like Satan. It was Satan who said, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God… I will be like the Most High see Isaiah 14:13-14.

Friends, temptation always follows the same path.

You have the Tempter outside, and inside is the strong desire to satisfy the natural senses while all the time hoping to somehow escape the consequences. Through the eye passion sweeps in like a flame; that passion then overtakes any struggle of the will. Then the body obeys its desires but the act of buckling to the temptation is immediately followed by remorse and guilt. Then we need the second Adam, Jesus!

The perfect nature and the state of innocence that man once lived in were short-lived. Almost as soon as God finished His work to bless man, satan appears to destroy it. The Lord Jesus calls him “a murderer from the beginning” and “a liar and the father of lies” in John 8:44 and Revelation 12:9.

Through man’s unfaithfulness, satan has succeeded in breaking into the relationship between God and man. It’s been that way with all that God has trusted man with. If a man doesn’t trust God completely, he’ll fall prey to the temptation of satan. If you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything. Make sure what you stand for is truth.

There has been a Man who satan couldn’t win over, the Man Christ Jesus. This Man is the guarantee that everything God’s made will be restored and His purpose will be fulfilled

 

Well now, lets get on with the next verse in our Genesis study, Genesis chapter 3 and verse 14, “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’”.

The serpent wasn’t the slithering creature that we think of today, as we’ve already discussed. He was different at the beginning, and there’s now this judgment that God’s placed on him.

God’s judgment upon Satan also has a tremendous effect on man.

Verse 15, “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 heel.”

“And I will put enmity between you [that is, Satan] and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it [that is, Christ] shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

This is the first prophecy of the Messiah who’ll come into the world one day, the Saviour.

Notice that verse 15 says “her seed.” It doesn’t say the man’s seed. Here is at least the suggestion of the virgin birth of Christ.

This incredible statement doesn’t talk about the ultimate victory that’ll come, but the long struggle. It reveals the fact that now there’s to be a long struggle between good and evil.

This is exactly what you’ll find throughout the rest of the Bible.

The Lord Jesus made this statement concerning this struggle, when He debated with the Pharisees in John 8:44. And we read,  “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”

“The devil” is Satan. The Lord Jesus Christ made the distinction between children of God and children of Satan. John again mentions this conflict in1 John 3:10, “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest…”. You see this conflict between the two groups of people on earth, the children of God and the children of Satan.

So, we have before us this massive conflict, a struggle, that will last at least 6000 years between two seeds, the seed of the woman and the seed of the Devil.

There will be a final victory. God’s stated that and it will come to pass, but it’s important to note this long and continuing struggle.

Every man faces temptation and will either win or lose his battle. Before Christ came, the victory was through obedience in faith, looking forward in time toward the coming Messiah, The Christ. After Christ came, the victory is in looking back to a wooden cross on Judea some 2000 years ago where the Christ was crucified, the one and forever sacrifice for sin..

What does it mean to be saved? It means to be in Christ.

To be “in Christ” means we’ve accepted His sacrifice as payment for our sin. We believe that Jesus Christ, who was God in the form of man, “Immanuel”, was crucified, buried and rose again on the third day according to the scriptures.

We’ve also got to understand the hugeness of sin and the impact it has on our eternity. We need to grasp how no amount of self-cleansing can make us pure enough to warrant forgiveness and a relationship with a thoroughly Holy, Righteous God.

We need to judge ourselves differently than the majority of the human race. Most compare themselves with some of the worst members of society like the rapist, the murderer and the genecidal dictator. In that comparison, most of us come up looking pretty good, but it’s the wrong comparison. The correct comparison is how we look when compared with God who is completely Holy and Righteous God.

As we see in Romans 3:10-12 and I’m reading, “As it is written: ‘THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NO, NOT ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS; THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS AFTER GOD. THEY HAVE ALL TURNED ASIDE; THEY HAVE TOGETHER BECOME UNPROFITABLE; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, NO, NOT ONE.’”

Man was one of three orders of creation: angels, man, and animals.

Animals were given no choice, but man and angels were given a choice.

Mankind made his choice in the Garden of Eden. He’s made a decision, and he’s held responsible for the decision he’s made.

When God went into that garden looking for man, He called to Adam, “Adam, where are you?”

How different this is from religion, man’s attempt to find God.

My friends, that’s not the way God tells it. Let’s tell it like it is, Salvation is God’s search for man.

Man ran away from Him, and God called to him, “Where are you?” It’s been said that it’s the call of Divine justice, which cannot overlook sin. It’s the call of Divine sorrow, which grieves over the sinner. It’s the call of Divine love, which offers redemption for sin.” We have all of that in this verse, the promise of the coming of the Savior.

God’s search for man is the theme throughout the Bible. Paul, in Romans 3:11 wrote, “… there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.”

The Lord Jesus said in John 15:16, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you …” And we can say with the Apostle John, “We love him, because he first loved us” that’s 1 John 4:19. God seeks out man, and He offers man salvation, but there’s going to be a long and painful struggle that’ll take place.

Now to Genesis 3:16 to 19 and we read, “To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain, you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”

This is the judgment upon the woman.

Then to Adam He said in Verses 17 to 19, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.”

This is the judgment upon man. Death now comes to man. What is death? Physical death is a separation of the person, the spirit, the soul, from the body. Ecclesiastes 12:7 says it like this : “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it. ”

Man ultimately must answer to God. Whether he‘s saved or lost, he’s going to have to answer to God.

Adam didn’t physically die the day that he ate of the tree. He didn’t die until more than nine hundred years later.

The whole point is simply this: he died spiritually the moment he disobeyed God.

He was separated from God. Death is separation.

When Paul wrote to the Ephesians that they were “dead in trespasses and sins,” he didn’t mean that they were dead physically but that they were dead spiritually, separated from God.

In that wonderful parable of the prodigal son, our Lord told about this boy who ran away from his father. When he returned, the father said to the elder son, “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found …” that’s Luke 15 verse 24.

Dead? Yes, he was dead, not physically, but he was separated from the father. To be separated from the Father means simply that—it means death. The Lord Jesus said to Martha in John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.”

Again, “dead” means death spiritually, that is, separation from God. Man died spiritually the moment he ate of that tree. That’s the reason he ran away and hid from God. That’s the reason he sewed fig leaves for a covering to try and hide his shame.

Now we see Redemption introduced as we go to Genesis 3 verse 20.

“And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.”

This doesn’t mean that Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve’s first children, were born in the Garden of Eden, but it’s definite that they were born after the fall of Adam and Eve.

Verse 21, “Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.”

In order to have the skins of animals, the animals needed to be killed. This is the origin of sacrifice and God made it clear to man. Only the shedding of innocent blood could cover sin.

God rejected the fig leaves they’d made but instead, made them clothing of skins. When Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, they looked back upon a bloody sacrifice.

There are four great lessons that we see from the fig leaves and the fact that God clothed them with skins.

Man must have the correct covering to approach God. You can’t come to Him based on your own good works. You must come just as you are, a sinner.

Fig leaves are unacceptable; they are homemade and manmade. God doesn’t accept a homemade, manmade garment.

God Himself must provide the covering.

The covering is obtained only through innocent blood. Ultimately it is the blood shed at the death of the Lord Jesus.

Man must have a substitute between himself and God’s wrath. It’s vital.

Salvation from sin comes when you and I take our proper place as sinners before God.

In verses 22 to 24, we read, and this is again the Godhead, the triune God talking; “Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” – therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.

So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”

Thank God for this verse.

Thank God that He didn’t let man eat of the tree of life and live eternally in his fallen sin state without hope of ever being redeemed. You and I would have been born in the same state with no hope of ever being free from sin and the awful effects of it. Could there be anything worse?

This doesn’t mean that God put a permanent roadblock on Eden and the tree of life. It means that the way of life was kept open for man to come to God. But now that way is not through the tree of life. Salvation can now only come through a sacrifice. The penalty for sin is death and the penalty must be paid or God is not just.

Now we’ve just seen in Genesis 4 the fruit, or the result of sin.

How bad is sin?

Genesis Chapter 4 reveals the extent of what really happened to the man.

By his disbelief and his disobedience, he’d turned away from God and had sinned in such a way that he brought upon himself, and his race, God’s judgment. You and I have inherited, by birth, this same kind of nature from our father Adam.

We see this nature passed on to Adam and Eve’s children in the story of Cain and Abel, the first two sons of Adam and Eve.

They had many more children than this, of course, but we’re given the record of only these two at this time.

In Genesis 4 verse 1 we read, “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the LORD.”

It’s likely that Eve thought that Cain was the seed that God promised, the deliverer, the one who would come from Eve who God had said would bruise the head of the serpent as we saw in Genesis 3:15.

Her thinking was more likely, “I have the man from the LORD.”

This reveals that Adam and Eve certainly didn‘t think that the struggle was going to be a long one. Here’s that man and soon we can get this all back to normal.

But Cain was not the one.

Eve thought she held the Messiah in her arms, the Savior of the whole world, but what she really held was a murderer.

For a minimum of six thousand years, the struggle has been going on between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

Now to verses 2 and 3, “Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD.”

“In process of time” could also be interpreted as, “at the end of days,” or the Sabbath Day, the day that God had rested.

“Cain brought”. The idea of “brought” suggests brought to an appointed place. They are bringing an offering to God to an appointed place to worship.

We know that they’re doing all this by revelation because of Hebrews 11:4, where we read: “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts…” How could Abel offer it “by faith”?

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”, we’re told in Romans 10:17.

God had to have given His Word about this, or this boy Abel could never have come by faith, and that’s the way he came.

The other boy didn’t come that way. “Cain brought of the fruit of the ground.” Now, there’s nothing wrong with the fruit. Don’t think that he brought the leftovers, he’s not giving his old clothes to St Vinnie’s.

The fruit he brought probably would have won first prize in any country fair. He brought the best of his beautiful, delicious fruit, that he’d grown and tended to himself as an offering to the Lord.

Verses 4 and 5 read, “Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the LORD respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.”

Now, you might say, “I don’t see anything wrong in the thing Cain did.”

Well, In the eleventh verse of Jude, we hear Jude speaking of apostates (people who turn their back on the faith in the last days). He says, “… They have gone in the way of Cain …”

What is the way of Cain? When Cain brought an offering to God, he didn’t come by faith, he came on the basis of his own works. And the offering that he brought denied that human nature is evil. God said, “Bring that blood sacrifice which will point to the Redeemer who’s coming into the world. Come on that basis, and don’t come by bringing the works of your own hands.”

Cain’s offering also denied that man was separated from God. He acted like everything was all right.

This is the belief of many today who talk about the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. Everything is all right they think. The world just goes on the same way.

My friend, things are not all right with us today.

We are not born children of God. We have to be born again to be children of God. Man is separated from God.

Cain refused to recognise that, just as multitudes do today.

The third thing that Cain’s offering denied was that man can’t offer works to God, but Cain felt he could.

Scripture says: “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit”. That’s Titus 3:5.

The difference between Cain and Abel was not in their characters but in the offerings they brought.

These two blokes had the same background. They had the same parents. They had the same environment.

The difference was in the offerings.

That offering makes a difference in men today. No Christian takes the position that he’s better than anyone else. The thing that makes him a Christian is that he recognises that he’s a sinner like everyone else and that he needs an offering, he needs a sacrifice. He needs Someone to take his place and to die in his place to pay the penalty for him.

Paul says of Christ in Romans 3:25 “whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed…” Propitiation is the act of gaining or regaining the favour or goodwill of God.

Therefore Paul can continue in Romans 10:3: “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”

That’s the picture of multitudes of people today. They’re attempting to make themselves acceptable to God through religion, through joining a church or doing something they regard as “good”,

God’s righteousness can only come to you and me through Christ’s providing it for us because it must be a perfect righteousness.

Romans 4:25 puts it this way, speaking of Jesus Christ, “who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”

That is, He was raised for our righteousness. He was the One who took our place. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him”, says 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Paul says in Philippians 3:8-9, “… that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, (which was Cain), but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; ….” (which was Abel),

The righteousness of Cain was his own righteousness. The righteousness of Abel was faith in a sacrifice that looked forward to Christ’s sacrifice.