We are going to begin by looking at
a verse in 2 Timothy chapter 3 because
we want to understand why God has given
us his word.
You know, it is possible to study the
Bible for the wrong reasons, and I think
a lot of Christians do.
Now, we need to study the scriptures and
approach the scriptures for the same reason with
which God gave it, and that is described
in 2 Timothy 3 verse 16 and 17.
It says all scripture is inspired by God.
God is the one who breathed his breath
into this book just like he breathed into
Adam.
If God had not breathed into Adam, he
would have been just a pile of dust,
and any book into which God has not
breathed is just a pile of dust.
God breathed into this, and it has been
given to us for teaching, to show us
the right path, for reproof.
God has given us his word to rebuke
us strongly.
Reproof is a strong word.
To correct us when we have gone astray,
to lead us back to the right path.
To train us in righteousness, that means our
character should change.
To straighten us because we are all crooked,
and ultimately so that we can become men
and women of God.
That the man of God, verse 17, may
be adequate or complete.
You know, like a glass of water when
it is filled is complete.
That our character is rounded off, balanced, complete,
and that we are equipped, anointed for ministry,
to serve him for every good work that
God has prepared for us.
So that's the purpose of scripture.
And if you study the Bible, you must
study it for these reasons.
That your character might be full rounded and
become the way God wants it to be.
That you can be anointed and equipped to
serve other people the way God wants you
to serve.
The Bible was not given for us to
increase in knowledge, or just to teach other
people.
No.
A lot of people use it for the
wrong reasons.
Now you must keep that in mind, my
dear brothers and sisters, when we go through
these studies and all through your life.
I started studying the Bible 41 years ago.
And this is the goal that I have
had before me all these 41 years.
I did not study the Bible to teach
other people.
I studied the Bible because I wanted to
know what God had to say to me.
I studied it at the feet of Jesus,
and asked the Holy Spirit to teach me.
I've never been to a Bible school.
But God, who taught the apostles in the
first century, I believed he could teach me
in the 20th century.
And he can teach you too.
You know, it says that when the disciples
were walking to Emmaus after the resurrection, Jesus
opened the scriptures to them.
And that is the thing which we want
him to do to us as well.
We want Jesus to walk with us.
That's how I want to study the scriptures.
Jesus walking with me, opening the scriptures.
And those disciples said, our hearts burned within
us when Jesus opened the scriptures.
And that's how it should be in our
life.
When the Holy Spirit shows us scripture, our
heart should burn within us.
The scripture is not boring.
Do you think those two disciples to Emmaus
found Jesus boring?
Jesus is never boring.
An anointed ministry is never boring, at no
time.
If we walk with Jesus and allow him
to open the scriptures to us, our hearts
will always burn.
Because the scriptures reveal Christ.
The other thing I want to say to
you is, God has not written the scriptures
for lazy people.
We got to meditate on scripture.
Blessed is the man, it says in Psalm
1, who meditates on the law of the
Lord day and night.
That doesn't mean he's reading the Bible day
and night.
He meditates on it.
Maybe he read it just a few minutes
in the morning.
But he meditates on it right through the
day and in the middle of the night.
If he wakes up, he thinks about scripture.
And as he meditates, he understands God's laws.
Now in the Old Testament, they meditated on
God's laws.
In the New Testament, we are told in
2nd Corinthians 3 verse 18, that we meditate
on Jesus.
The word made flesh.
And we see Jesus in the scriptures.
We meditate on him, as he is revealed
to us in the pages of scripture.
And such a man, it says in Psalm
1, will be like a tree planted by
the rivers of water.
He will always be green.
He will always be fruitful.
All the time.
In another Psalm, it says, even in old
age, he will bring forth fruit.
That is God's will for every one of
us.
It is not God's will that any of
you sitting here, should be a barren tree,
even when others around you are barren.
In a time of drought, you can be
green and fruitful.
The secret is to meditate on the scriptures,
on God's word.
There's another verse, that's in Proverbs 25, verse
2, which says, it is the glory of
God to conceal a matter, and it's the
glory of kings to search it out.
God has, in the world, concealed deep down
under the surface of the earth, all the
valuable metals.
You don't find gold on the surface.
You don't find diamonds on the surface.
They're all deep down.
What you find on the surface is grass
and mud and dirt.
Cheap stuff.
If you read the scriptures superficially, you won't
get the real riches of it.
It's the glory of God to conceal a
matter.
And if you're going to be a king,
a king, one who's reigning in Christ, it's
your glory to search it out, to dig
out and find it.
As God sees that wholeheartedness and eagerness in
you, the Holy Spirit will reveal to you
the meaning of scripture.
Jesus said, I thank you, Father, that you
have hidden these things from the wise and
the intelligent, and you have revealed them to
babes.
You don't need to be clever, but you've
got to have a clean heart.
A babe's got a clean heart.
It's your heart condition that determines whether you
understand scripture, not your head intelligence.
It's hidden from the clever and the intelligent.
You can't understand scripture by getting a doctorate
in theology.
You can understand scripture if you've got a
humble heart and a good conscience.
That's how we understand scripture.
Scripture gives us promises and commands that we
have to believe and obey, words to rebuke
us and words to comfort us.
So having said those words as an introduction,
let me move straight away.
We're going to go right through the scripture,
starting with Genesis chapter 1, and God willing,
complete it in 70 sessions in Revelation 22.
Genesis chapter 1.
There are three things I want to say
here.
We're not going to finish Genesis in this
session, but because Genesis is a very important
book.
Genesis, you know what that means, it's an
English word, speaks about beginnings.
And here we read about the beginning of
creation, the beginning of man, the beginning of
sin in the human race, the beginning of
the message of redemption, the beginning of two
streams of religiosity and spirituality, the beginning of
Babylon, the beginning of Jerusalem, the beginning of
that which is counterfeit religion and true religion.
It's all here.
It's beginnings.
It's a book of beginnings.
And it's wonderful that the scripture begins with
the words, In the beginning, God.
That's how it must be in our life.
Every day.
In the beginning, God.
Not man.
Not my cup of coffee.
God.
In the beginning, God.
It must be like that in every area
of my life.
My goal in life, ambitions, everything, it must
be in the beginning, God.
And when God finds a man or a
woman like that, who will put him first
in every area, in his business, in his
daily life, in his finances, in everything, I
tell you there's no limit to what God
can do through such a man or a
woman.
So there's a lot in those first four
verses of the Bible.
And here it says that in the beginning,
God, you know, we have a description of
creation here.
And there are two words that occur in
this chapter.
One is the word created and the other
is the word made.
Now, that's the difference between created and made.
It says God created the heavens and the
earth.
And then it says in verse 7, God
made the firmament or the expanse.
And many times thereafter, you find God made.
He created man, but he made the beasts
of the earth.
Verse 25.
Have you noticed that difference?
Verse 25, God made the beasts, but verse
27, God created man.
There is a difference.
See, made is from something that already exists.
Created is from something that doesn't exist.
So it says in the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth.
And that could have been millions and millions
and millions of years ago.
And then something happened, which is not described
in Genesis chapter 1.
And that was the fall of the angel
Lucifer, who became the devil.
Now, the reason it is not mentioned here
is because this book was not written for
the devil.
It was written for man.
So therefore, man is prominent and so the
creation of man comes first.
And in later chapters, it's described about how
the devil fell.
But something did happen before man was created.
And that's how we find the devil suddenly
entering in Genesis chapter 3.
And that happened between verses 1 and 2.
When God created the heavens and the earth,
God always makes everything perfect.
There is nothing that God does which is
imperfect.
When God created the world with the spoken
word, the Bible says that what we see
is being created by the word of God.
God spoke and it was created.
It was perfect.
How is it then in verse 2 that
it says the earth was without shape?
It was empty.
It was dark.
God never creates anything empty, dark and shapeless.
It became like that.
Because something happened between verse 1 and 2,
which is not mentioned here.
Because this book is written for man.
It's about man's history.
It's about man's relationship with God.
And what happened there was the fall of
Satan.
And that's why when sin came into the
world, this beautiful earth and heaven that God
had created in verse 1 became, the earth
became shapeless.
It became empty.
It became dark.
And what we read in Genesis chapter 1
is the remaking of that corrupted, spoilt, dark,
empty earth.
And by the time you come to the
end of the chapter, you find it has
become a beautiful heaven and earth again that
God almighty himself could look at it and
say it is very good.
Now this chapter has got a message for
us.
Because we also, Satan has come into the
human race and made us exactly like verse
2.
Human beings are like verse 2.
Empty, dark, shapeless, lost the image of God.
And God didn't create us like that.
God didn't create Adam like that.
The creation of Adam is like God created
the heavens and the earth, perfect.
But the devil came in.
What happened there between verse 1 and 2?
Came into Adam, spoilt him.
And God began to remake.
That's the message that comes in the first
chapter of the Bible.
That God is in the business of remaking
ruined situations, ruined humanity, ruined earth.
And it doesn't matter how shapeless you are
or how dark you are or how empty
you are.
The first chapter of the Bible says God
can remake you.
And make you so perfect that at the
end of it, what does it say?
He made man in His image.
That's what happens at the end.
And He can make you in His image
too.
That's the message of the first chapter of
the Bible.
But how did it happen?
And that's important.
And if you understand how it happens and
you submit to it, the same thing can
happen to you too.
Every day, God spoke.
God said something the first day.
He said something the second day.
He said something the third day.
He went on saying.
He's a God who speaks.
That's the thing you see in the very
first chapter of the Bible.
And the most important thing for you that
you need is to hear God speaking if
you want to be transformed.
You can't be transformed if you don't hear
God speaking.
Man shall not live by bread alone but
by every word that proceeds from the mouth
of God.
That's how man is supposed to live.
And if we don't listen, we are not
going to be transformed.
We have to develop the habit of listening.
God is speaking.
Like He spoke every day, He is speaking
every day.
Most people in the world don't listen.
Most believers don't listen.
Even people who read the Bible every day
don't listen to God speaking to their heart
every day.
Don't think listening to God is just reading
the Bible.
You can read the Bible to ease your
conscience and not listen to what God is
trying to say to your heart.
The other thing we see is not only
God spoke it says the Spirit of God,
verse 2, moved upon the face of the
waters.
Even if you hear God speak, you will
not be transformed unless you allow the Holy
Spirit to move upon you.
The Holy Spirit comes right there in the
beginning.
The Holy Spirit is the one who changes
man.
The Holy Spirit is the one who cooperated
in this work of remaking man along with
the Father.
God spoke and the Holy Spirit moved.
And it's the combined working of the Word
of God which God spoke and the Holy
Spirit that brought transformation.
And so the other thing we learned right
in the beginning of Scripture is we must
always be balanced.
The great need in Christendom today is balance.
There are people today who emphasize the study
of the Word of God.
I'm all for it.
But if you have the study of the
Word of God without the Holy Spirit, you're
going to be dead.
Dry as a bone.
And then there are other people who emphasize
the Holy Spirit.
Oh, the Holy Spirit.
And very often they're like a train that's
gone off the rails just blowing the whistle
and making a lot of noise.
A lot of steam there, but no rails.
No Word of God.
They've gone completely astray.
And ultimately what they have is not Holy
Spirit, but some other Spirit.
Because they did not allow the Word of
God to guide them.
See, all these things are there in the
first page of Scripture.
Blessed is the man who meditates in the
first page of Scripture.
You can get correction, training, instruction in righteousness
so that you can be perfect, thoroughly equipped
for good work, every good work.
That's how we must study the Scriptures.
And you realize that we can't study the
Scriptures in 70 hours.
I find that even after 40 years I'm
discovering new things today.
I'll tell you something I discovered just today.
Even though I've read this for 40 years.
I noticed only today that in Genesis chapter
1 twice I knew it said it once,
but I discovered today it said it twice
that God separated the light from the darkness.
Now how many of you knew that?
That it was written twice there?
You know, that teaches me something that when
God created light He didn't want the darkness
mixed up with it.
The first day you know God created light.
And He didn't want the darkness mixed up
with it.
He brought a division.
Some people think all division is from the
devil.
No.
The first person who divided something was God.
In the very first paragraph of the Bible.
What fellowship has light with darkness?
When light comes into your heart the very
next thing that God wants to do in
your life is to separate you from all
darkness.
You read that in Genesis chapter 1 verse
3 and 4.
God said let thy be light.
In 2 Corinthians 4 it says that is
a picture of the light of the gospel
of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ coming into our hearts.
That's a commentary on that in 2 Corinthians
4.
And what's the next thing God did?
As soon as light comes into our heart
it must be separated from everything that is
darkness.
The world is in darkness.
There must be nothing of that in my
heart.
And when Christians don't do what God wants
to do to separate the light from the
darkness there is confusion.
And it says a second time in verse
18 about God placing the sun and the
moon in the skies.
In the middle of that verse to separate
the light from the darkness and God saw
that it was good.
He separated the light from the darkness in
verse 4 and he saw that it was
good.
And he separated the light from the darkness
in verse 18 and he saw that it
was good.
And when he sees the light separated from
the darkness in your life he'll also say
that's good.
Otherwise he won't say it's good.
A lot of people have got light but
they haven't separated it from the darkness.
That's their problem.
And we read here further that I want
to ask you I don't have time to
go through the whole thing.
I'm just trying to whet your appetite so
that you will go and dig into the
scripture and find out some things.
I want to ask you something.
Man was created on the sixth day.
We all know that.
On which day were the beasts of the
field created?
The lion and the dog and the monkey.
When were they created?
Most people don't know.
The beasts of the field, the animals in
the field were also created on the sixth
day.
Isn't that interesting?
On the same day that man was created,
the animals were created.
The fish and the birds were created on
the fifth day and on the sixth day
it says in verse 24 the living creatures
were brought forth.
The first part of the sixth day and
the second part of the sixth day God
created man and breathed into him.
And that's why you see in animals the
same internal organs that you find in a
human being.
They are made from the same dust that
human beings are made from.
But there was one thing that distinguished man.
God breathed into him.
And it's only the breath of God, the
spirit of God that distinguishes us from animals.
And what the Lord was saying through that
was when you stop listening to the spirit
of God and stop living by the breath
of God in your life it's very easy
to sink to the level of the animals
for they were created on the same day.
Please keep that in mind.
And on the seventh day we read that
God kept it as a day of rest.
It was the seventh day for God but
it was the first day for man.
Man was created towards the end of the
sixth day and his very first day was
a holiday.
Isn't that good?
God was trying to teach man you don't
have to work first you got to have
fellowship with me first.
You fellowship with me for one day and
then go and work in the garden for
six days.
That is the order.
God wants you to fellowship with him and
then go out and serve him.
Always.
Come back and fellowship with him go out
and serve him.
Come back and fellowship with him.
That's why he ordained a day of rest
for Adam.
It was a day when he was to
walk with God forget about the garden, forget
about all the work that has to be
done and walk with God.
In the beginning God.
Those are the lessons we learn and that's
why God taught the importance of the Sabbath
to Israel.
It was a picture like many other things
in the law were a picture and it
applies to us.
The spiritual reality of the Sabbath is walking
with God and being in rest.
Think about that and I believe that God
will have much more to say to you.
I want you to see here that when
God blessed man it says here in verse
28 he says be fruitful and multiply.
How did he expect God the man to
multiply by having a sexual relationship with his
wife.
God created that sexual relationship and said that
they were to exercise that function in their
marriage and produce children and he looked at
it and he said it was very good.
Verse 31.
Do you know that sex and marriage God
himself has said it is very good and
it's very bad and evil outside of marriage.
I just mentioned that because some people have
got a wrong idea about this.
They think you can be holier if you
don't get married.
It's not true.
And the other thing I want you to
notice here is that when God created man
he blessed in verse 28 and said not
only be fruitful he said subdue everything under
you.
Rule over everything.
God created man to be a ruler not
a slave.
God created man to have everything under his
feet to be an overcomer.
Here it speaks about ruling.
You come to the end of the Bible
revelation it speaks about overcoming overcoming overcoming.
That's God's will and he finally accomplishes it
in revelation with a few who become overcomers.
For that was God's purpose for Adam.
It's his purpose for you.
To rule over everything.
To rule over sin in your life.
To rule over your anger.
To rule over your lusts.
To rule over your passions.
To keep them under your feet.
God has not created you to be a
slave.
He created you to be a conqueror.
A ruler.
But that can only come like it says
when God blesses you.
God blessed him and that's how we became.
The other thing I want to say about
Genesis 1 before I move on is you
know God it says here he examined each
day's work and he said it is good.
And it's good for you also to examine
each day's work in your life.
Many people don't have that habit.
If God did it can't you do it?
Look at the work you did during your
day and judge yourself and examine yourself.
Is it good?
So many lessons from that first chapter.
And when you go to chapter 2 you
find here that God was the one who.
There's a greater detail given here about the
creation of man.
But the wonderful thing we see here is
that God is the one who gave man
a work to do.
A job in the garden.
God's the one who gave him a home
in the garden.
And God's the one who gave him a
marriage partner.
Now these are three very important things that
people look for today.
They want a house to live in.
A home to live in.
They want a job.
And they want a marriage partner.
And you have all three in Genesis chapter
2.
God provided it for Adam.
He gave him a home.
He gave him a job.
And he gave him a marriage partner.
Adam didn't even ask for it.
And that teaches us right in the beginning
of Scripture that those needs of yours of
a house a job a marriage partner God
is interested in.
If you walk in fellowship with Him He'll
provide all your needs according to His riches
and glory in Christ Jesus.
God made man from the dust to teach
him that he's worthless apart from God's breath.
There's just one interesting thing I want you
to notice here in Genesis 2.
It says here about the rivers that flowed
out of Eden in verse 10 and it
says in one of those places in Havaila,
last part of verse 11 there is gold
and the gold of that land is good.
In paradise gold is good.
On this incursed earth it's a snare.
You gotta be careful.
That's just in passing.
The other thing I want you to notice
in verse 19 out of the ground, I
want you to notice read this very carefully.
Out of the ground God brought all the
animals, formed every beast and brought them to
the man and man named all these animals
verse 20, gave names to all the birds
but for Adam verse 20 there was no,
not found a helper suitable for him.
And I get the picture when you read
when it says there but for Adam in
the same sentence that he was looking at
the animals and say which of these will
be my partner.
The lion's got a lioness and the elephant
has got its partner and the cat has
got its and which is the one for
me and he looks by all of them
and he says no.
That one won't do.
That doesn't fit with me.
That's not that doesn't agree with my nature
and when he said no to all of
them God said okay.
Verse 18 he said I'll make a helper
suitable and he caused a deep sleep.
Verse 21 and he made him a wife.
Now the spiritual application of this is when
you're a child of God and you're looking
for a partner God will allow a lot
of pretty handsome people to go by you
who don't have your nature and he will
see whether you're going to pick one of
them and if you pick one of them
you miss the one God has planned for
you.
Adam passed the test.
He looked at the pig and he said
no I don't want that one and he
looked at the lion and he said not
even lioness I don't even want a lioness.
None of these got my nature then God
gave him the best.
Honor God and he'll give you the best.
Say no to that.
Don't be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
It's all there in scripture.
The other thing I want you to notice
in marriage is it says in verse 24
something which all Indian Christians particularly need to
listen to that when a man gets married
he must leave his father and mother and
cleave to his wife.
In other words he's not talking about physical
leaving primarily as much as that from now
on his wife must be more important than
his father and mother.
That's the essential message.
I wish I could go up and down
this country proclaiming that message.
That when you get married your wife must
be more important to you than your father
and mother and all your relatives.
I believe there'd be a lot more happy
marriages if they just follow that simple rule
which is written before sin came into the
world.
Do you know that's the first commandment in
the Bible for us?
Which is the first commandment in the Bible
for man today?
Leave your father and mother and cleave to
your wife.
Why did God put that as the first
one?
Because he knew there'd be so many people
who wouldn't obey it.
And whose lives and married lives would be
miserable.
It's amazing what there is in just two
chapters of Scripture.
Okay.
I want you to see here further in
Genesis chapter 3 and 4 I want you
to see here about two men who listened
to the devil.
One was Adam in Genesis 3 and the
other was Cain in Genesis 4.
Two men who listened to the devil.
Now, notice God had allowed Adam to go
into this garden and he did not send
an angel with him to check up whether
he is sinning or not.
Why?
Because it's only in an atmosphere of freedom
that God can test us.
He tests you when you're alone.
When other believers are not there.
When nobody knows what you're doing.
When you're all alone.
Adam and Eve were all alone.
They could sin as much as they liked.
And they went alone and they saw this
forbidden tree.
There were 10,000 trees there, beautiful fruit
and all that.
They ignored all that.
They went after knowledge.
There was another tree of life.
Now, if you were you had a choice
between knowledge and life, which would you go
for?
I'm sure you'll all give the answer life.
But wait a minute.
You people are studying the Bible.
Tell me honestly, are you studying the Bible
for knowledge or for life?
And you have the answer there.
Are you studying the Bible to get a
degree or to get life?
You're going for the tree of knowledge too.
The Bible was not given for knowledge.
It brings death.
Knowledge of good and evil brings death.
Life.
God wants us to know good and evil
through a connection with Him.
Not by study.
You know, you can get a knowledge of
good and evil without reference to God.
And that's how you go astray.
That's the sin here.
Getting a knowledge of good and evil without
God.
A lot of people in the world like
that today.
I don't want it.
I want a knowledge of good and evil
that comes from the Holy Spirit telling me
in each situation that's wrong.
Through my living contact with God.
That's how you must know good and evil.
And if you don't know good and evil
like that, it brings death into your life.
So, that's what the devil was trying to
tempt him.
The devil tempted Eve to say and told
her, you can be like God.
That was the temptation.
If you eat it, you will, verse 5,
you will be like God.
Now it's interesting that Jesus also came with
a message saying you can be like God.
Isn't that interesting?
The devil comes and says you can be
like God.
Jesus comes and says you can be like
God, but completely opposite.
The devil says you can be like God
in knowledge, authority, power, position.
And a lot of people go for that.
Even a lot of Christians, they want to
be like God in knowledge, authority, leadership in
the church, position.
And Jesus says you can be like God
in character, in humility, in love, in goodness.
How many people want that?
This is the difference between the voice of
the devil and the voice of God.
They sound so similar.
Temptation is so subtle.
The devil is a deceiver.
It's like somebody giving you a 500 rupee
note.
It looks like the real thing.
You shall be like God.
In what way?
That's the question.
So you see, temptation is very, very subtle.
And when the devil was tempting Eve, what
he insinuated, what he put into her mind
was that God doesn't really love you.
If God loved you, He'd have given you
this beautiful tree to eat of it.
And that's very often the way the devil
gets into our hearts by making us doubt
God's love.
When Jesus said to Peter, Peter, Satan has
decided to sift you and has asked for
permission and has been given permission, just like
God gave permission to Satan to sift Adam
and Eve here.
He gave permission to Peter also to be
sifted.
But Jesus said, I'm praying for you, not
that you won't fall.
I'm praying that your faith will not fail.
I'm praying that in that moment of temptation,
even if you do fall, I'm praying that
you will not doubt the love of God.
That's the thing, brothers and sisters.
In the time of deepest trial and temptation,
whatever may happen, don't doubt the love of
God.
Even if your prayer is not answered, even
if you find something that you want has
not been given to you, some deep trial,
perhaps like Job, your children dead, your property
gone, don't doubt the love of God.
That's the message that comes from Genesis 3.
That's what the devil see faith.
What does it mean to live by faith?
To live by faith means I know one
thing, God loves me.
That's what brought the prodigal son back to
his father's home.
I know I've done a lot of, made
a mess of my life, but I know
my dad loves me and I'm going to
go back.
So that's faith.
And this tree, which looks so attractive, God
made it attractive because God wanted to test
Adam and Eve to see, will they get
more attracted by my creation or by me,
the creator?
In every temptation, essentially the temptation is this,
the creator or creation.
Are you tempted by a woman?
What is the temptation?
Your creator or what he created?
Are you tempted by gold and silver?
What is the temptation?
Your creator or what is created?
That is the essence of every temptation.
And essentially, to overcome temptation means just this,
that I choose my creator.
I don't choose what is created.
When people, when you are interested in the
honor of men, the approval of men, the
other choice is the approval of God.
Which do you want?
All temptation figures is basically between these two
things, the creation versus the creator.
You either worship the creation and say oh,
this beautiful face, oh, this gold, oh, this
man's approval, I want it, or you say
this is all garbage, the face of Jesus
and his approval and spiritual riches.
My creator is more important to me than
everything created.
You just make that choice in every decision
in life and I tell you, you will
be a man of God, you will be
a woman of God, and you will have
understanding of scripture more than anybody can ever
teach you with any amount of classes that
you attend.
You got to make a choice to say
Lord in every situation I choose you, my
creator, above all created things.
That's the essence of overcoming temptation.
I want you to notice, I don't have
time to go into everything here, I want
you to notice further down in what was
Adam's sin?
Was it just that he ate of the
fruit of the tree that was forbidden?
No, it was more than that.
It says here that the Lord told Adam
in verse 17 because you, not because you
ate of the fruit, that was second.
Because you listened to the voice of your
wife.
Is that a sin?
To listen to the voice of your wife?
God says it is.
Why?
Because he says I made you the head
of your house, and you did not exercise
authority as the head of your house.
You saw your wife talking to the devil
and you just kept your mouth open and
stood there watching the whole thing instead of
stopping her.
You should have put your foot down and
say come away Eve, don't listen to her.
You know there are a lot of husbands
like Adam today.
They are not the head of their homes.
And exactly the same thing God has to
tell them.
So you see Adam's sin was he did
not assert his headship.
But God is a good God.
He did not curse Adam.
It says here he cursed the serpent and
the ground.
But he did not curse Adam.
And you see the tremendous love of God
that he kills an animal.
This is the first death that you read
after Genesis 1.
An animal is killed because that's the way
God made these garments of skin for verse
21.
An innocent animal is killed for Adam's sin.
And that animal's skin is taken off to
cover Adam and Eve.
A picture of what God was going to
do one day on Calvary's cross.
It's there in Genesis 3.21. And then
we read that God put a flaming sword,
verse 24, in front of the tree of
life.
In those days in Eden there was no
flaming sword.
Adam could have gone straight and eaten from
the tree of life.
But today there's a tree there's a sword
in front of the tree of life.
If you want to partake of the tree
of life you have to let the sword
fall upon your flesh.
It fell upon Jesus.
And the Bible says, I am crucified with
Christ.
Then I live.
When that sword, when I unite myself with
Jesus on the cross and that sword falls
upon my flesh I can partake of the
tree of life again.
There is no other way that sword guards
it even today.
And I just want you to notice one
more thing in this Genesis chapter 3.
There are a number of words that come
in this chapter as part of the punishment
God has inflicted on man.
Curse.
Sorrow.
Thorns.
Sweat.
Dust.
Death.
All words associated with Calvary.
Everything Jesus took upon himself so that we
can be free from that curse that came
upon Adam.
When Adam's fellowship with God was gone you
find immediately his fellowship with his wife is
also gone.
He accuses her.
Whenever you accuse other people it proves your
fellowship with God is gone.
When you are in fellowship with God you
judge yourself.
Please learn that lesson from Genesis 3.
Here is another man who listened to the
devil.
Cain.
It says here that Eve gave birth to
Cain and she said I have given birth
to a man with the help of the
Lord.
I have created a man.
The first human being ever born into the
world and Eve said boy this is wonderful.
God made Adam and I made a man
too.
That is what she is saying.
I made one out of my own body.
And it is that spirit that Cain got.
I made.
I created something.
I can do something.
Yeah God helps me a little bit but
I can do it.
And it was the wrong spirit with which
that man grew up.
That child grew up.
And we read here that God.
Now many people read like this.
They don't read scripture properly as though God
said that he accepted Abel's offering and therefore
accepted Abel.
But please read scripture carefully.
It says in verse 4 Genesis 4, 4
the last part The Lord had regard for
Abel first and then for his offering.
It's not the other way around.
And the Lord did not have regard for
Cain and therefore for his offering.
Proverbs 21, 27 says The sacrifice of the
wicked is an abomination to the Lord.
No matter how good the sacrifice is.
The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination
to the Lord.
That's why he didn't accept Cain's offering.
Cain was a wicked man.
And you could see that in his face.
The first question God asks Cain is why
is your face fallen?
See God is the one seeking after man.
When Adam sinned the first question God asked
was Adam where are you?
Think of that.
That's how Jesus came into the world.
Where are you fallen man?
Cain, why is your face fallen?
God is the one who is always seeking
us when we have gone astray from him.
That's a great encouragement for us.
But he does not respond.
God warns Cain but he doesn't respond and
he goes still further.
Allows that sin that was crouching at his
door to come inside and kill him.
Destroy him.
And it's interesting that jealousy, jealousy is the
first sin mentioned in scripture outside Eden.
Jealousy of a younger brother who is more
blessed than I am.
Do you see somebody younger than you?
More blessed?
More anointed?
Than you?
Be careful that you don't go the way
of Cain.
And when Cain is punished, I want you
to notice here the attitude of a sinner.
Notice when God says to Cain that you
are cursed.
Verse 11.
Why did God curse Cain and not curse
Adam?
Genesis 4, 11 he says you are cursed.
God never told Adam you are cursed.
He said the ground is cursed.
The first time God cursed a man was
not Adam it was Cain.
And I believe the reason is this.
When Adam sinned it was a sin but
he hurt only himself.
When Cain sinned he hurt somebody else.
When you commit a sin like smoking or
drinking where you destroy your body you hurt
only yourself.
When you gossip you hurt another person.
How many of you believe that gossiping is
worse than smoking?
I don't know how many Christians believe that.
There are sins that hurt other people which
are worse than sins which hurt only yourself.
That's why Cain was cursed.
Take it seriously.
And when you hurt another person this is
what happens the Bible says.
Verse 10.
The voice of your brother's blood is crying
out to me.
That person whose reputation you spoiled with your
gossiping is crying out to God and it
will never stop crying till you go and
settle it.
Till you ask God for forgiveness.
Ask that person for forgiveness.
Apologize.
Otherwise it will keep on crying till the
day of judgment when you'll have to answer.
Be careful about sins with which you hurt
other people.
That's what we read in Genesis chapter 4.
And when this punishment is given to Cain.
Cain says.
Verse 13.
My punishment is too great to bear.
This is the language of people who go
to hell.
They don't say Oh God my sin is
so terrible.
Not my sin.
My punishment.
Are you more worried about sin or punishment?
That's the difference between a godly man and
an ungodly man.
An ungodly man is worried about punishment.
A godly man is worried about sin.
Yeah.
Keep that in mind.
And Cain goes away from the presence of
the Lord and his children become like him.
One of his descendants becomes a murderer.
They go into multiple marriages.
You read in Genesis chapter 4.
They go into music and there you have
the beginning of rock music there in the
end of Genesis chapter 4.
They invent all these different musical instruments and
they go into all types of things.
That's what happens when you go away from
God.
What you see in Genesis chapter 4 is
the beginning of two streams.
Cain and Abel.
Cain was not an atheist.
Remember he was a very deeply religious man.
He was the forerunner of the Pharisees.
He was the forerunner of this Babylonian system.
False religion.
And Abel Jesus spoke about righteous Abel.
He is the forerunner of the godly.
Both religious.
False religion and true.
And now I want to speak for the
rest of the time on two men who
walked with God.
We saw two men who listened to the
devil.
That's Adam and Cain.
I want to speak about two men who
walked with God in Genesis chapters 5 to
9.
One is Enoch and the other is Noah.
Now in Genesis chapter 5 we read this
expression eight times.
And he died.
Verse 5.
And he died.
And in the middle of that one man
who didn't die.
That was Enoch who walked with God.
It was like a resurrection.
In the midst of all this death there
was a man who lived in resurrection power.
Who walked with God and overcame death and
got raptured.
A picture of the church that lives in
the midst of spiritual death and lives by
resurrection power waiting for the rapture.
When we will be taken up just like
Enoch was taken up.
And Enoch it says for 65 years he
didn't walk with God.
He didn't walk with God for 65 years.
But then he got a son.
Methuselah.
And in the margin of my King James
version it says Methuselah means at his death
the waters will come forth.
That means God gave a revelation to Enoch
when Methuselah was born.
When his baby was born said name him
Methuselah because when this baby dies I'm going
to judge this world with a flood.
That revelation came first to Enoch not to
Noah.
And he named his son Methuselah.
Now when you get a baby how long
do you think that baby is going to
live?
I think every time that baby got sick
Enoch got a bit scared.
Is judgment now going to come?
And can you imagine a baby being called
at his death the flood will come.
You say hey at his death the flood
will come.
Come here.
Every time you call him you are reminded
of this fact.
At his death the flood will come.
The judgment will come.
And that fear made Enoch walk with God
and realize that the things of eternity are
more important than the things of time.
The Bible says the world and its fashions
will pass away.
If you believe it like Enoch believed what
God said about Methuselah at his death the
judgment will come.
It will give us also a seriousness to
live for the things of eternity.
That is the crisis that made Enoch walk
with God.
Enoch walked with God.
Methuselah.
And the interesting thing is you see God's
tremendous long suffering here in the fact that
Methuselah, God allowed Methuselah to live longest of
all.
969 years.
Showing God's tremendous long suffering wherever he went
people heard Methuselah, Methuselah at his death judgment
will come.
For 969 years people heard that message and
they rejected it.
It was not just Noah who preached it.
Methuselah's name preached the message much longer than
Noah that a flood will come.
They didn't know the details but they knew
some type of judgment.
The water is going to come when he
dies.
And that's how we find that it says
in the book of Jude that Enoch prophesied
against all the ungodly people about the way
they were living.
He was a prophet we read in the
book of Jude.
He walked with God and one day God
took him.
See Enoch and Adam lived together for 308
years.
If you count those ages you can find
out that.
And he must have talked to Adam a
lot.
How is it in Eden Adam?
How is it you walked with God there?
Tell me about it.
And Adam would have told him and Enoch
would have had a great longing to walk
with God and he became the first man
to demonstrate that you could walk with God
outside of Eden also.
Not only in Eden even after sin came
you could walk with God.
I've sometimes met godly men very rarely in
my life.
I've met a lot of preachers but very
few whom I've met who walk with God.
And such men have produced in my heart
a tremendous longing from my younger days to
walk with God.
It's been the greatest longing of my life.
And that's how I believe Enoch.
And then we read that Enoch was taken
up and Methuselah and finally his great grandson,
Methuselah's great grandson was Noah.
And he talked to Methuselah for 600 years.
Because Methuselah if you calculate those years you
know that the year Methuselah died Noah was
600 and the flood came.
So 600 years he must have walked with
Methuselah and he must have asked Methuselah about
Enoch.
He said tell me how your dad walked
with God.
Tell me more about it.
And in Noah's heart came a longing.
And we read in Genesis chapter 6 that
Noah verse 9 walked with God.
He walked with God too.
And as he walked with God, God could
find one man on the face of the
earth to whom he could reveal his purposes.
And he could tell him I'm going to
do something Noah.
I'm going to judge this world.
Just like he told Enoch.
You know it's interesting that the first two
people who walked with God what God told
them was he was going to judge the
world for its sin.
And every true prophet of God that's what
they have always preached.
God's going to judge believers for their sin.
He's going to judge the world for sin.
Enoch preached it.
Noah understood it as they walked with God.
And that brought a seriousness in their life.
And they told others.
And hardly anybody believed them.
But God told Noah to build this ark.
And Noah's job was only to do what
God told him to do.
He used his own money to do God's
work.
He didn't ask God who's going to pay
for it.
If he had asked God, God said you
of course.
Who else?
Have you ever heard God say that?
You've got to pay for God's work that
you're doing.
We live in a country where everybody thinks
that if I do God's work somebody else
must pay me for it.
Noah didn't think like that.
Who's going to support Noah?
He had to support himself.
Work extra hard to earn more money to
build the ark.
To do God's will.
And he built that ark.
People ask how did these animals come into
the ark?
That was God's job.
God brought the animals in.
Noah's job was to build the ark.
You've got to do only what God's told
you to do.
He'll take care of all the other things
which look impossible.
And he brought the animals in.
And he did all that God was commanded.
And we read finally when the time came
God shut the door.
Genesis 7.16 It was God who closed
that door.
Not Noah.
And it's God who's going to one day
close the door and say the time is
over for all those who want to come
into God's kingdom.
Well, they got inside the ark.
I'm sure it was inconvenient inside the ark
but it was safe.
And that's sometimes how it is in the
church.
We mingle together in the church with people
who are of different types and they rub
us and sometimes it's not very convenient but
it's safe.
And I'm happy to be in the church.
I hope you are.
And that's where we invite people to come
in.
And we read finally the flood was about
to subside and Noah sent out a crow
and a dove.
A picture of the flesh and the spirit.
And the crow, the raven never came back.
The raven found all the dead bodies of
animals and said, Boy, this is a feast
for me.
And that's how it is when men of
the flesh go out into the world.
And then he sent out a dove, a
picture of a man of the spirit.
He goes out into the world, sees all
the dead stuff and he says, I want
to come back to God's people.
Comes right back.
He doesn't find a home in the world.
That's how you know you're a man of
God or a woman of God.
You're a man of the spirit.
You go out into the world and you
don't feel at home.
I want to say to you, if you
feel at home like the raven, that's the
clearest proof that you belong to the world.
You're a man living according to the flesh.
Finally they come out and the first thing
Noah does, we read in Numbers, sorry, Genesis
in chapter 8, verse 20.
He built an altar to the Lord and
offered the clean animals.
That's why God had told him earlier, the
clean animals and the clean birds you must
take seven pairs.
The others two pairs because he was going
to offer sacrifices at the end for these
clean animals.
The first thing he did was kneel down
and say, thank you Lord.
We see a wonderful example here.
One last thing I want to tell you
is even Noah was a weak man.
He got drunk and he lay naked in
the tent one day and his son saw
him and reported it to others.
Dishonored his father and a curse came upon
him.
Two of his other sons went backward and
covered him and they were blessed.
There's a very important message there for us.
That's the first place where we find God
punishing a son and even a son's son
for dishonoring their father.
God takes it very seriously when we don't
respect authority.
When you see a weakness in your father
or in someone who is your spiritual leader
don't talk about it like ham unless you
want a curse.
Be like Shem and Japheth and have that
love that covers a multitude of sins and
Noah blessed Shem and Japheth and said virtually
at the end of Genesis chapter 9 let
them have fellowship and that's a lovely word
there at the end of Genesis 9 may
God enlarge Japheth 9.27 let them dwell
in the tents of Shem fellowship of those
who have learned to cover the sins of
others.
Those are the people who really build fellowship
and build a church.
Those are the people who live together in
the same tent who have learned to cover
the sins of others.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father your word is so rich we
have missed so much by careless reading of
it.
I pray that all of us our appetites
would have been whetted this evening to study
the scriptures more carefully to see the wealth
there is in it to challenge us to
a more godly life.
Help us each one in Jesus name.
Amen.