Open up your Bibles and Genesis chapter 3, we will read the whole chapter and we'll actually start with chapter 2 verse 25 and for our sermon this morning we'll really focus on the first 13 verses. So here, God's Word, chapter 2 verse 25, and the man and his woman and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruits of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruits of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave to her husband who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and he said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done. The woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. And to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken, for you are dust and to dust you shall return. The man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man and at the east of the garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Our text is, in many ways, one of the most foundational texts in our Christian faith. It accounts, it gives us the record of man's fall, how sin entered into human history, why it is that we need a Savior. And yet there's many who say that we've misunderstood it, we've read it wrongly. And they look at it, and you'll hear this, especially those of you going off to college, to a secular college. They'll say, you call this the account of the fall. You call this the beginning of sin. Well, when I read it, it doesn't say the fall anywhere. It doesn't mention the word sin anywhere. It doesn't even say temptation anywhere. And they say, read the account again. Who tells the truth? Is it God or the serpent? Did they surely die when they ate? Were their eyes opened? Did they become like God, knowing good and evil? Or maybe they'll say, well, this story, it's not about a fall at all. It's about how snakes lost their legs. How they go upon, why they go upon on the ground. And also why we hate them. The enmity between humans and snakes. Well, let's look at this text this morning, thinking of those things, those other ways that people have suggested to read it and see what God is revealing for us. And we'll look at it under three main points. And so you can write those main points down to keep your outline. The serpent speaks, the people eat, and God come. Those will be our three points. The serpent speaks, the people eat, and God comes. So, the serpent speaks. When you read many books, they often give you long introductions to characters. Maybe they'll tell you about their past, tell you about their history, why they're important, why you should care about them when they come up in a story that you're reading. Well, the Old Testament often doesn't do that, as it introduces people in the account. It often doesn't tell us much about them. We have to figure that out. When God had given David rest, David wants to build a temple. And so what does he do? He asks Nathan the prophet. The thing is, we've never met Nathan the prophet before in that story. He sort of comes out of nowhere. All we know about him is that he's a prophet. But that's really all we need to know in that account. David's looking to God's messenger to do that. Well, other times in the Old Testament, we have to learn about the people in the story based on what they do. And so in the book of Judges, we're introduced to a guy named Micah. And the first thing we learn about him is that he had stolen silver from his mother. And the next thing we learn about him is that he's now making that into an idol. And so the narrator never tells us whether he's a good or a bad guy. We can see that clearly by what he does. Well, in Genesis 3 here, we have a snake. We have this snake that comes, and we're not really introduced to it. What is a snake? What is it doing here? Where does it come from? We aren't given answers to all those questions. And verse 1 tells us something about the snake, though really what it tells us is something about snakes in general. That snakes were this most crafty of God's created creatures, of these beasts of the field. And being crafty isn't a bad thing if we look elsewhere in the biblical text. In fact, Jesus himself, he uses it as instruction for the disciples, referring to this same nature of snakes. Matthew 10, verse 12, he says, Behold, I'm sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. But we learn a lot more about this snake in what Enyx does. He speaks. This particular snake speaks. And this alone tells us a lot about this snake. This isn't an ordinary snake. And we see this even clearer in what this serpent says. This serpent, a creature of God, comes questioning God, comes contradicting God, comes impugning God's motives. And we know that he's acting wrongly, he's doing bad because of God's response. God curses him in verse 14 because of what he has done. And so I think as we look at this, we have to remind ourselves that we're not speaking about snakes in general. That we're speaking about a particular snake here. And we can look through the rest of the Bible and we find that snakes, they aren't specially cursed. They aren't evil in and of themselves. God uses them for his purpose. God's people can look at serpents and even wonder at them. In Proverbs chapter 30, the author marvels. Proverbs 30, verses 18 through 19, he says, Three things are too wonderful for me. Four I do not understand. The way of an eagle in the sky. The way of a serpent on a rock. The way of a ship on the high seas. And the way of a man with a virgin. And so we're not talking about snakes in general here. But the Bible does talk about a particular snake. Isaiah 27 talks about a coming day. And it says, As in that day, the Lord, with his hard and great and strong sword, will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent. Leviathan, the twisting serpent. And he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. And Revelation 12, 9, similarly, says, And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who was called the devil and Satan. The deceiver of the whole world, he was thrown down to the earth. And his angels were thrown down with him. And so we see that, we find, you know, even here in Genesis 3, but in elsewhere, We see that this is not an ordinary snake. And thus, this is not the tale of how snakes lost their feet. We'll look at the curses more later. Genesis 14, as it talks about, because you've done this curse, are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field? On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. We'll look at that more later. But right now in general, what we see is that the devil had used a serpent because serpents were known to be crafty. Serpents were known as these ones who could accomplish what they wanted. And the devil came in his craftiness to deceive Adam and Eve. And yet, here in verse 14, as God curses that serpent, he twists the form of the serpent on the devil himself. Because not only were serpents known to be crafty, but because they were on their bellies, because they were down in the dust, they became an image of defeated enemies, of those who were conquered. And we can see that in Micah 7.17. Speaking of Israel's enemies, it says, They shall lick the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth. They shall come trembling out of their strongholds. They shall turn in dread to the Lord our God, and they shall be in fear of you. And so this snake that approaches Eve, This snake is the serpent, the great serpent of old, the one who opposes God. And so, this serpent comes and he speaks, and he speaks as if he's a helper to Eve, doesn't he? He comes seeking to free Eve, free her from God's oppressive rules. And so we see his first question there at the end of verse 1. Can it really be true that you can't eat of any of these trees? How could such a God do that? Now Eve catches it right away. She responds. She corrects. She says, well, there's actually only one tree that's forbidden. Now, she continues on and talks about not being allowed to touch it. And much has been made of that, whether she's trying here to add to God's rules or not, make them seem more harsh. It doesn't have to be read that way. But either way, the snake doesn't let this stop. So she knows the rule. The serpent continues. And he continues by questioning God's motives. Questioning God's words. God has said you will surely die in that day. But you won't surely die. You won't surely die because I know the reason. I know the reason why God doesn't want you to eat of it. He's afraid. He's hiding stuff for himself. That he's only forbidding this tree because it will open your eyes. As you throw off his rules, it will make you like him. You will know good and evil. And then there's silence. And that's the scary thing. Eve doesn't respond. Eve doesn't rebuke the serpent. The snake has successfully planted these doubts in Eve's mind. These doubts about God. And she's ready to experience the world on her own. To experience it following this snake's interpretation instead of God. She's ready to judge it for herself. To look with her own eyes. Not the eyes of her creator and provider. And that's what we read there in verse 6. Now we see what Eve is now thinking. And she looks at this tree in a whole new light. For when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, it was a delight to the eyes and that it was a tree to be desired to make one wise. There were all sorts of trees that were good for food. All sorts of trees that were beautiful, desirable to the eyes. God had made all of them. Only this one he had prohibited. And yet this is the one Eve wants. Because it's not only those things in her eyes, it's also one that will increase her knowledge, increase her power. She can look at it with new eyes based on what the serpent has told her. Judge for herself. God said it wasn't to be eaten, but it sure looks edible. It sure looks beautiful. It sure looks like it will bring wisdom. And so she takes, he eats, And then she takes again and gives to her husband with her. And he eats. We're not quite sure what Adam's doing during this time. There it says, you see in verse 6, that she gave to her husband who was with her. Was he with her the whole time? Did he hear the whole conversation? Possibly, we don't know for sure. But what is clear is that he willingly follows his wife in this forbidden act, eating from this tree that God had prohibited. The serpent had come to subvert God's order. The serpent, an animal that should have been ruled by men and women, had instead instructed the woman. The woman who was creator to be this helper corresponding to her husband, instead has misled her husband. And the man, the man who was commanded to guard the garden, who has made God's ruler there. He's done nothing to fight against this serpent that has raised itself up against God and nothing to oppose his wife as she leads in sin. Adam and Eve, they had everything. Everything they needed. Blessing beyond measure. They had no reason not to trust God. He had never done anything to make them think otherwise. All he had done is shown himself as good. And yet, they chose to follow this snake in rebellion. Throwing off God's rules so that they could be their own gods. That they could make their own rules. They weren't chasing really after any particular good. Anything that they particularly lacked, they just wanted autonomy, independence, nobody above me, my own master. Does it sound familiar to anyone? Does it sound familiar to everyone here? Different stages in our life. As we rebel against parents, we rebel in other ways against society. But really, all of it rooted in that rebellion against God. The people eat. Adam and Eve, they eat and they're changed. Now, how are we to take this change? Did that fruit have some sort of special powers? Was it magical-like? Well, verse 7 says that their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked. They knew that they were naked. What does that mean? Were they blind before this? Couldn't they see? Their eyes closed? Didn't they know that they were naked already? What does this mean? Well, to understand this, we really have to go back to 2.25, which is why we started reading there. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. What has changed since then? And we looked at chapter 2 a while ago, last fall, so I'll remind you a little bit of what we said. And I used an illustration at that time of a friend of mine who, in college, took a class on utopia. Utopia being a good place, a good place that often shows faults of our present. And for that class, they had to come up with their own utopic description. And one of his classmates, in her utopia, described it as a place where everybody had this display screen on them. And on that display screen, all of their thoughts were displayed to the world. And when we read about being naked and unashamed, I think it's getting at something, a feeling we can get with that. It has reference to their physical bodies, but that outward exposure was also reflective of their inner being. Adam and Eve could have displayed all of their thoughts to each other, to God. And they wouldn't have been ashamed. They wouldn't have been ashamed of those thoughts, what they were thinking. But now in verse 7, everything's changed. And it is interesting that even the word for naked changes. It's a closely related word for naked back in 225, and they're often used in the same context, but this one is used a little more often when someone has been stripped of their clothes and exposed. And that is really the difference. Their nakedness hasn't changed, but how they feel about it sure has. With nothing to hide, they were unashamed. Now they just feel exposed. Exposed. Their eyes are opened as they look at their nakedness in the light of something new. Shame and guilt. And so I don't think we should think of this tree as magical. Eating fruit, like eating the fruit of it was in many ways like eating from other trees. But this tree, it was so different because they knew they were disobeying the command of God. And the change was that their own consciences were now accusing them. So that they now, all they wanted to do was to run, to hide, to hide what they had done. And to hide that guilt, that shame that was now welling up inside of them. And I think we all know this feeling, this eye-opening experience. Although we don't know it to the same degree because of Adam and Eve's sin, all of us are born in sin. We've never known true innocence, true purity of conscience. And yet we know how guilt, how shame changes everything. You want something bad. You want it so bad it's the only thing you focus on and finally you just do it and bam! The weight of what you've done hits you. Oh no, what if someone finds out about this? What am I going to do? And so you quickly try to hide it. You hide it physically around you. Make sure there's no traces. but you also hide it inside of you. Try to push down that guilt, that shame that's making you sick inside. And those of us who are parents, we know we can see this in our children. We see it on their faces. The child that was happy and bubbly just a minute ago now can't look us in the eye. Guilt pouring from every expression. And we have it when suddenly the house goes quiet. We know. We better go look. We better see what's up. What's being hidden. And yet the sad thing is, as we get older, We get better at hiding it, don't we? We get better at suppressing it. We get better at rationalizing it till we can sin without even flinching, without even showing a crack in our external facade. I can look at that lustful picture Nobody will know. They'll never find out. I can cheat on this quiz. No one will see it. I can slack off at work. The boss is gone. No one's around. He's not a nice guy anyway. And our consciences, they become hard to various degrees. And yet, deep down, we still know. We still know that there is a difference when we've stolen that candy from the candy jar when we weren't supposed to versus when it's given to us as a reward, as a treat. That there's a difference when we take that toy that we weren't supposed to versus when it's given by permission. We know there's a difference when we have sex before marriage versus in marriage. Adam and Eve, they knew. They knew that eating the fruit from the forbidden tree, that it was different from all of the other trees that were permitted. And so they wanted to cover it up and hide. And note that they wanted to cover and hide their nakedness even before God shows up. They wanted to hide it from each other. In many ways, this was the first divorce. The two that had become one flesh, now all they wanted to do was hide from each other. To get away from each other. To cover up their shame from each other. Sin had destroyed not only their relationship with God, but also their relationship with each other. But yet we could ask, wasn't the serpent correct? Didn't he call it rightly? Right? Verse 5, what does he say? God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened. You'll be like God, knowing good and evil. Verse 7, their eyes are certainly opened. And they know new things, don't they? And we could even jump ahead to verse 22. What does God say there? Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. But this was not what the serpent had really promised, was it? What they had expected out of it. Adam and Eve, they ate in order to gain knowledge. And yet that knowledge was only of shame and guilt. Adam and Eve, they had acted like God, discerning for themselves what was good and evil as they made their own judgments about this serpent and about this tree. And yet, that didn't lead to blessedness, did it? It led to curse. And that is so often the nature of sin. The deceptions of the devil. It's taking something good and perverting it. Does candy that's stolen still taste sweet? At least for a while. Does that quiz that you cheated on, as long as you're not caught, it still counts for a good grade, doesn't it? Stolen money, it has as much buying power as money you've earned. And sex is still sex, whether it's in marriage or not, right? We know the answer. And even the world around us knows the answer. They often try to glorify sin, and yet they very often admit its consequences. They see what love of money leads to, discontentment, loneliness. They see what dishonesty and lies lead to as they eat us up from the inside, as they eventually catch up with us. They see what unfaithfulness leads to as it destroys homes. It destroys families. It destroys kids. It destroys lives. We have to look at things, not through our own sinful eyes, like Eve. Seeing the fruit as we want it to be. But we need to see as God looks. As He instructs us to look. Because He's the One. The One who created us. The one who loves us. The one who instructs us in what is good. What leads to blessing. So we come to our last point. God comes. And I remember when I was young, maybe disobeying only once, I think. But I was in the basement of our house. I'd broken something I shouldn't have broken. And suddenly the door opens. And I hear the footsteps of my dad coming down the stairs. Utter panic. Should I try to hide it? Quick, put it together? What should I do? And that's what we see here with Adam and Eve, isn't it? That they hear God walking in the garden. And they panic. They run, they hide. Did they really think that they could hide from God? But what's so amazing about this passage is the way that God comes. He comes calling to Adam. God had said that death, instant death, was the punishment for eating from the tree. So why does he come calling? Adam and Eve, they deserved death. They had rebelled against the creator of the universe. They had sided with the serpent when he spoke against God, when he questioned his word, when he questioned his motives. They had become God's enemies. And yet God came calling because he had set his love on Adam and Eve. He had mercy on those that had spurned him. God didn't need information, did he? He knew exactly where they were. He knew what they had done. But he called on them in order that there might be reconciliation. That there might be restoration. Restoration of their relationship. God came calling, Adam, Adam, where are you? And Adam responds. And he responds truthfully, if yet trying to shift blame. God keeps probing him. Adam says, I'm hiding because I'm naked. God probes him. How do you know that you're naked? Did you eat from that tree? Adam shifts blame. Well, it was the woman you gave to me. She gave it to me and I ate. And even amongst his twists and turns, he does come in the end to say, I ate. And God then calls on Eve. And we see much the same thing. She's truthful even as she somewhat tries to shift blame, as she tries to justify herself, oh, it was the serpent who tricked me. And yet in the end, she too says, I ate. And we can say that Adam and Eve, there could have been better ways that they confessed. And yet I think it is still key to see this as a confession, a confession of their sin. And that's especially in contrast to chapter 4. If we kept reading in chapter 4 where we find their son, who God approaches, who God asks, and what does Cain do? He lies straight to God's face. And yet we could come to this point and some would interject and say, well, see, the serpent got it right again, didn't he? He said that they would not surely die, and they don't. And yet that again misses the whole point, the whole point. They're spared, not because God's word was weak, not because he didn't mean what he said in that prohibition, that it wasn't true. No, we have to keep reading, don't we? Death, eternal death, was that punishment for sin. And it would come. But the amazing part is that God held off on giving it to Adam and Eve at that time so that he himself could bear it. Bear that penalty so that he can reconcile his people to himself. He became a baby. He was tempted by Satan and yet without sin. He died the accursed death on the cross so that he could reconcile his people to himself. And thus, as he called Adam and Eve, he really continues to call us the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Sinners from birth. He calls us to be reconciled to God through his Son, Jesus Christ. For apart from Christ is death. That eternal death threatened to Adam and Eve. That death awaiting all those who do not repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. But for those that do, for those who do believe and trust, your eyes will be opened. Your eyes will be opened in a new way. And you will know something, something new. Not the guilt and shame and fear that makes you want to run and hide. you will know peace with God. Peace with God. And when you have that peace with God, then you can look on His law in a whole new way. As that delight, as that thing that we were created for, knowing that He works in you. He has cleansed you from all sin and unrighteousness so that now you belong to Him to serve Him as His child. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, may we know this, the bad news in so many ways of our forefathers and their sin and how it is sin that we have inherited and the guilt and the shame that comes with it. But may we know it so that it will point us towards your good news that Jesus Christ has paid it all. He has earned for us the glories of heaven and we now have freedom in him. And let us use that freedom for your glory and for the betterment of your church. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.