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Welcome to day three of our look through the book of Genesis and daily drive
time devotions. We're looking at Genesis chapter three today as we're walking
through a chapter at a time. We're looking at something that happened in the
garden.

I need to begin this day's study of Genesis by saying, "Hi, my name is Tom and
I'm a sinner saved by grace. " This is a chapter about me. It's a chapter about
you.

Ray Stedman has said of this chapter, "Ignore the teaching of this chapter in
history and the story of humanity becomes impossible either to understand or to
explain. The most striking thing about this chapter is that we find ourselves
here. " You may have noticed when you pick up a newspaper and look at the
headlines that they try to position them so that they relate to your daily life
more and more.

It's news you can use, not just about what happened somewhere else in the world,
but what's happening in your life. Well, this chapter is news about you. It's
news about me.

Now, it's not the only news. There is good news. There is good news that we're
going to talk about even at the end of today, but this is news about your life
and my life.

It's news about sin. Genesis 3 verses 1 to 6. "Now the serpent was more crafty
than any of the wild beasts that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, 'Did God really say you must not eat from any tree of the
garden? ' The woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat fruit from the trees in the
garden, but God did say you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the
middle of the garden, and you must not touch it or you will die. ' 'You will
surely not die,' the serpent said to the woman, 'for God knows that when you eat
of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

' When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing
to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She
also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. " This is a
chapter that's not about Adam and Eve.

It's about you and me. The sad truth of this chapter is if I had been there, I
would have eaten of that fruit, and I hope you've come to the place of humility,
of reality, to recognize if you'd been there, you would have eaten of that
fruit. There are five parts to the pattern of sin that you and I see in this
chapter.

They haven't changed. You see them in the Garden of Eden. You see them in James
1.

15. "Each one is tempted when by his own evil desire he's dragged away and
enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it
is full-blown gives birth to death.

" If I know what leads up to sin, I have a much better chance of trusting God
for victory over temptation. Here's the five things that happen. First, doubt.

Satan comes and he plants a doubt. Did God really say? The idea of Satan here,
the serpent, this crafty one, the Hebrew word that's behind this has the idea
throughout the Old Testament of to shine from time to time.

Satan is not an ugly being. He's named even in the New Testament an angel of
light. He's a serpent here, but there's a sense of beauty to him.

He's called a roaring lion. There's a sense of power to him in the New
Testament. He can strike in tragedy, and he most often strikes tragically when
he appears to be good.

Don't mess with Satan. This is the one. Satan is the one of whom Martin Luther
properly said, "On earth is not his equal.

No man, no woman is able to outwit the devil. " A lot of people ask as they go
into this, we have doubts. Why did God let this happen?

Why did God let Satan in? I don't have all the answers. It's apparently part of
some great heavenly plan that God had that I don't totally understand.

Why do you even plant the tree in the garden? Why did he even give the
opportunity to sin? Again, I don't have all the answers.

I have more here. It obviously provided a choice. It provided a choice not
between good and evil.

It provided a choice between God's way or my way. God's way or my way. And they
chose their way.

But again, I don't understand all the reasons why, but I do trust God. Those who
doubt God and say, "Why would he allow this to happen? " don't understand God.

If we did understand God, we'd know why he allowed it to happen, because he
loves us. He loves us more than we can imagine. He wouldn't do anything to hurt
us.

And allowing this very story to allow Satan to plant doubts in your mind, that's
the first step on the road to sin. It begins with a question. He plants a seed
of doubt in the woman's heart.

He is seeking to alter the image of God in her thinking. Eve understated God's
promise here, and she overstated God's restriction. God didn't say, "Don't even
touch it.

" He said, "Don't eat of it. " She missed it. And because of that, the second
thing happens.

After doubt comes deception. You will not die. That's just a lie.

They spiritually died. But Satan lied because he knew that Eve would accept the
lie. Your eyes will be opened.

You'll be like God. Now that was partially true, but they didn't know how deeply
that would hurt them. They wouldn't become totally like God, but they would know
the difference between good and evil.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil gives exactly what it said it would
give, the knowledge of good and evil. And God can know that there is good and
evil and choose to never do evil. You and I cannot.

We are human beings. And once we know there is evil, we will choose to do it.
Ask yourself.

Look at your own life. Ask yourself this question. Do I feel cheated or deprived
or limited right now by God?

Do I feel like God is somehow holding out on me, keeping something back from me?
If so, that is the voice of the tempter. That is deception.

And after deception comes the third step, desire. The woman saw it. There's the
big three here.

There's pleasure and possession and position. She saw that it looked good to
eat. She saw that she wanted to possess it, to hold it.

She saw that it would make her like God. Those are the three temptations that
you and I always face. The temptation to pleasure, the temptation to possession,
the temptation to some position, some prideful place.

Those are the things from Eve to Adam to you and I today. That's where the
desire comes in. And after that comes decision.

When you let that desire get a hold of your life, decision is next. She took it
and she ate of it. And in that moment, it probably tasted good.

I have no doubt that it did. In the moment of sin, it often feels good. It feels
good to be prideful and feel stronger than everyone else around you.

It feels good to lose your temper and feel like you're controlling the
situation. It feels good to tell someone off even if they're not there and feel
like you've won the battle. It feels good even sometimes to hurt those who've
hurt you, even those you love the most because you feel like you're winning.

But of course you're losing. There's pleasure in sin, the Bible says, but it's
only for a moment. It's only for such a brief time.

The decision came and then came death. God comes and he tells them the curse
that's come upon their lives. At first, it's the devil who seems to be right,
but immediately spiritual death comes into their lives.

Romans 5-12 says, "As sin came into the world through one man and death through
sin, so death was passed to all men. " This was the moment that that occurred.
This was the moment that that occurred.

Adam and Eve had no idea that they were making a decision, not just for
themselves but one also that influenced the whole human race. Now, not that I
blame them, like I said, we would have made the same decision, but they made
that decision. These are verses that are about us and our battle with sin.

They're all about how you and I can say no to a temptation. How do I say no to a
temptation? The way that I respond to a doubt and a deception determines whether
or not I will create a desire that provokes a decision that leads to spiritual
death.

Now, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, the decision that leads to spiritual
death, that's already taken care of. You've already passed out of death into
life in Christ, but you can still experience the spiritual death of a loss of
fellowship with God in daily life through sin, the spiritual death of a loss of
opportunity to serve God. How are you going to respond to the doubt?

How are you going to respond to the deception? You don't wait till the point of
decision. You begin at the point of doubt, and at that point you remember the
cross.

At that point you remember Jesus Christ. Now, they sin, and so they experience
immediately shame and fear and blame. The eyes of them both were open, and they
realized they were naked, and so they sewed fig leaves together and they made
coverings for themselves.

I don't want you to miss even in this terrible chapter. I don't want you to miss
the grace of God even in this chapter. In verses 21 to 23, listen to what
happens.

"The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. And
the Lord God said, 'The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and
evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree
of life and eat and live forever.

' So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from
which he had been taken. " You see here the presence of God's grace. First, he
made them garments, and second, he banned them from the garden.

Let me explain. First, he made them garments. Grace is God meeting the needs
that are caused by our sin.

They felt ashamed because they'd sinned, and so they needed clothes to cover up
their shame. I feel ashamed. I've become separated from God because of my sin,
and so Jesus died on a cross to pay the price for my sin.

Grace is God meeting the needs that are caused by our sin. God's grace garments
for you, it's the cross. Are you putting those garments on?

Are you trying to walk through the world naked, covering yourself up? God's
garments of grace. It's in this chapter, even in this chapter, where sin
happens.

He also banned them from the garden. Now, how is that an expression of grace?
Well, he did it to keep them from eating of the tree of life, different than the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The tree of life is the tree where they would get eternal life. They would live
physically forever if they ate of this tree. Well, I don't know about you.

I don't want to live physically forever in a sinful state. I don't want to live
physically forever in a world like this, and so God said, "No, not that tree
yet. " When you get to the book of Revelation, the tree of life is going to make
its appearance again, and we'll eat of it again there.

Once we've been perfected in Jesus Christ, then I'm ready to eat of it, but
here, by God's grace, his purpose is to guard the way to the tree of life. Jesus
says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but
through me.

" It's not through some tree in the garden. It's going to be through Jesus
Christ, because that's the kind of life that God wants you and I to enjoy
forever and ever. So, you put on God's garments of grace.

You accept his forgiveness for your sin. Have you done that? As we begin this
study of the book of Genesis, there's no better way to start than by recognizing
the grace of God in Jesus Christ for you.

In Genesis 3 15, there is the promise of a Savior. Even in this early part of
Genesis, the woman's offspring is going to crush the head of Satan. There would
come one who would defeat Satan one day.

That's a prophecy of Jesus Christ. Have you trusted him for forgiveness? Have
you trusted him for new life?

If you haven't, trust him right now. Just say, "Jesus Christ, I trust you for
new life. I trust you for leadership in my life.

I trust you for forgiveness. I trust you for forgiveness for my sin. Thank you,
Jesus, for living for me, dying for me, being resurrected for me to give me your
life.

Help me to live life in relationship with you. I ask this, Jesus, in your name.
Amen.

" Well, join us tomorrow as we continue through Genesis. We're going to see that
the reality of sin begins to make its way into Adam's family.