Main idea: Falling for Satan’s lies leaves us guilty, ashamed and condemned and only God’s grace can restore us.
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All right, we're turning our attention back to Genesis. As John mentioned when the service started, you could turn to Genesis chapter three, and when we began studying Genesis, we said that we started reminding ourselves that the same God who created all the things in Genesis is the same God who saved through Jesus Christ, he's the same same God in Genesis. One the same God today, today we're going to see that temptation is the same, sin is the same, and ever since this moment that we're going to unpack, man is the same, we're all the same because of what happened here, prone to temptation and sin, and this treats us all and puts us all on a level playing field. So let's stand with me for the reading of God's word, Genesis. Two, I'm going to read 225, through three, seven, to put parentheses on the quality or what was felt in the garden, this issue of shame and guilt. 225, and the man 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 trees of the garden, but God said, But God said, you shall not eat of the fruit 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 desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some 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 loin cloths. This is the word of the Lord, our God we read the first sin, and it is a sin that has been replayed, temptation that has been fallen for so many times in each of our lives, so many times in the history of mankind, that it should be easy to see coming. But the reality is that it's not we fall prey to this over and over again, and as we slow down the attention so to speak on working through this. Help us understand temptation, help us understand our enemy. Help us understand our own hearts and our feeble attempts at covering our sinfulness and our guilt and shame, and help us instead turn to Christ who's promised in this very chapter, the victor over sin and Satan. Help us trust him more as we read this, Father, I do pray for our college retreat that's winding up Matt cop, who is preaching. We are thankful for him and his ministry. We are so thankful that he could join our college students, pray that You would bless him and his ministry. Bless the students when they come back, help them make a greater impact on their campuses. We would pray for your spiritual work, Father, I pray for I pray Father, for you to help the sister, the brother and sister churches, the family of churches in our city, I think of three crosses churches. I just got a note from them this week. They are praying for us, as they often do. We pray for them. Help Corey and I pray that You would help help him preach or teach. Whoever's preaching, whether it's Dave or Cory, today, bless their church. Help them be bold in their witness and help us all lift up high the good news of the gospel of Christ. In Christ's name, we pray amen, you may be seated well in the garden. Adam and Eve listened first to God. They were naked. And unashamed, they enjoyed a life of intimacy and innocence. That's Genesis. Two. Kent Hughes comments, this way, they were spiritually naked before God. They came. God came first in their love and in their thoughts. CS Lewis said, and that without painful effort, all of life was devotion, loving God was as natural as breathing and as effortless. End Quote, how things have changed. That's not life today, is it? Ian, in chapter three, several have been noted this, the woman listens to the serpent, the man listens to woman, and no one listens to God, life with God and each other. From this event onward has been hard and embarrassing, shameful, and as we see it, there's a sobriety, there's a somberness in seeing this, but God wrote it here as a word of grace because God displays His mercy and His grace as a follow up to this failure. If it would have been the end immediately of Adam and Eve, we wouldn't even be here talking about it. God has a word of grace and a word of warning. Genesis is the book of beginnings. Chapter One, we find the beginning of the heavens and the earth. Chapter Two, we find the beginning of Adam and Eve man and woman. Chapter Three is the beginning of sin and judgment. And we find something that I think is really important for us to hold on to. Adam and Eve's problem is not their environment. Their environment was perfect. The problem wasn't their father. The problem was in their heart. It's not the biology. Their biology didn't make them do this. It was the unbelief, discontentment and pride in their hearts, even in a state of innocence, Adam and Eve were susceptible to an enemy who would exploit them. And if that was true for Adam and Eve in the garden, what about us outside of the garden? What about us outside the garden? If we're ever going to find peace with God and each other, we're going to have to recognize who it is that tempts us, what tempts us, and what solutions God has for us, and they are here in Genesis three. We're going to find the exposure that first sin. We're going to find the dynamics of sin, the anatomy of sin, so to speak. And as we unpack it in the coming weeks, we're going to see God's first promise of a solution. We need to start by being wary of the cunning of Satan. We need to expose the dynamics of sin. We need to stop suppressing the consequences of sin, and we need to turn to Christ, the promised Head Crusher from Genesis 315, it's a serious topic, and it affects every person, especially you can see the effects of it in a family when you live close together, the dynamics of a of a home and a household a marriage. You know, I was working through this week, and I just said to my my wife, Hey, honey, you need to own. You need to you need to own your mistakes. She came over to me and gave me a big hug. Here I am.
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The delivery was better first hour, she approved as a great meme. Yeah, she read it to me this week. So appropriate for this, embrace your mistakes. Come here, honey. Oh, that's the only funny thing we're going to get out of this passage, because this is, this is heavy stuff. All right, let's take apart those four first like, how are we going to treat this? How are we going to deal with this, we need to be wary of the cunning of Satan. You have an enemy. You have an enemy. You need to wake up every morning understanding that you're going to be tempted at any moment today. It's that we don't live on a neutral playing field. We're in a war. We have an enemy. It right away, after the utopic summary of life in the garden, we find an enemy slithering in three one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. We're introduced to the serpent a new character, common word for snake in the Old Testament, we have no idea if it had legs or didn't have legs. Just because it's condemned to slither on the ground doesn't mean it had leg, but we don't know. What we do know is that it was said to be more crafty than any other beast. Now you just have to remember that God had made this serpent, and this serpent was good in the original all things 131, all things were good. So originally, this was so this word crafty, it gets translated as a negative connotation, but we need to talk the truth about it. This word for crafty, that Hebrew word can either mean prudent or wise multiple times. The very same word is used for the wise in Proverbs. Also it is used for in a bad way, as subtle, crafty. It's translated as crafty here the serpent makes a really good vehicle for Satan to use, because it's already one of the smartest of the creatures. Says he said to the woman. Now, as soon as you read that, there's been much humor talking about why wasn't the first thing, it says, what a talking snake. But no, that's not what happens. According to what the scripture, rest of Scripture says, what we have here is a satanically possessed or satanically influenced beast, something like that. The earliest tradition is that it's a satanically possessed beast. He asked the question, Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? His first recorded words are the first recorded words, questioning God's word, questioning God's goodness, we instantly find out there is a deceptive enemy out to destroy many Bible scholars have long looked at passages like Isaiah 14 and a taunt to the king of Babylon or Ezekiel 28 and a condemnation of the king of Tyre and the descriptions of both the king of Babylon and the king of Tyre describes somebody who was originally in Eden and who was lofty and beautiful and exalted themselves over and above all things. And it is the best analogy for the beauty and pride of Satan after he rebelled
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in John. 844 Jesus makes it really clear what it is. Isaiah and Ezekiel give us a good idea, good guess. But 844 is really clear. Jesus says this to those who had a surface belief in Him, not a true belief. To these religious leaders who are around him, he says about this, your father, about your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him when he lies. He speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. This is what Jesus says of Satan. The apostle John refers directly to this in Revelation 12 nine calling Satan that serpent who is called the Devil, and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. Satan means adversary. The first adversary of humanity is the character that steps forward in three, one, first, Peter, five, eight, says, Your adversary. The devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. He's still around today, and if Adam and Eve were susceptible to Satan's temptations in their state of it, state of innocence, we must be wary of our enemy who can tempt us. I mean fixing the biology, fixing the social environment is good. The impulse is part of the creation mandate, but they will only go so far. We don't live on a neutral playing field. We live in a war zone with cameras of demonic activity following us, ready to incite and. Cord, not literal cameras. Jesus, death on the cross brought forgiveness. Hallelujah, we have somebody who's conquered Satan. But it didn't mean and it doesn't mean that there's a cease fire between the demons and God's people. Just because Jesus died for your sin doesn't mean there's a cease fire and there are no more temptations. Remember how Jesus prepared his disciples and taught them how to pray, both Matthew six and Luke 11, when the disciples wanted to know how to pray, the prayer ends with this lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The Greek form of deliver us from evil is just as easily translated as the evil one as it is evil. What did Jesus mean? When you get up, you are under enemy surveillance, and whether a devil has to do it or not, whether a demon has to do it or not, you are going to be tempted. Those of you who have trusted Christ started to grow in walking with Christ. We call them, doing things like Christian disciplines, like reading your Bible, meditating on it, praying. How many times have you? Have you put down your Bible? Got done confessing your sin and praying only to be tempted and fall within minutes. Welcome to motherhood, fatherhood, marriage. We are very temptable people. We need to be on the alert. That prayer is what it's asking Is God help me be aware. Help me be watchful, and then protect me as you lead me through my day. So beware of Satan's temptations, of of the realities of temptation. Number two, Let's expose the dynamics of temptation. Let's expose the dynamics of temptation. Just what does Satan take advantage of? So when this temptation comes, he takes advantage of our trust in God's goodness. He takes advantage of our sloppy remembrance of God's word, and he takes advantage of the ease with which we suppress consequences, and we are gamblers by nature. You could summarize his tactics into two, denial, doubt and denial, doubt and denial. And he comes in, pretending to be our helper, pretending to bring clarity. So first doubt he comes and he says to the woman, Did Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree of the garden? I mean the form of the phrase, did God actually say? Is a well acted sense of surprise. You know, I mean, the animals and I, we were hanging out, we kind of overheard how the conversation went. Did God actually say you shall not eat him in any tree of the garden which wasn't a direct initial denial of God, it was an indirect seed of doubt. Putting this question in such a way to accuse God of being unkind, harsh, overly restrictive, it stirred up doubts about his commands and doubts about his goodness and the woman said to the serpent, just she here's the here's the lure, here's the fly, here it is. The woman said to the serpent, when we may eat of the tree, fruit of the trees in the garden. Now she's right, they may, but she's already diminishing God's word and goodness. Just look back. We may eat. We have permission to put the trees. But look what 216 says. Just look over one page where God is emphatically and effusively generous. You may surely eat of every tree of the garden. God's point is, I have given you a three. 60 surrounding of phenomenal fruit plants that you could eat from. I mean, imagine the weeks and weeks that would go by. Hey, we've never tried one of these before. Let's go try that. Well, we had that yesterday. Well, there's these 22 other things we haven't tried yet, just incredible goodness. But what she says is, effectively, well, you know, he's not all that bad, as if starting to believe that God is overly restrictive. We can eat from the trees. When God says, You may surely eat from every tree except one. Now the attention is shifted, shifted from all and the abundance to the one thing denied, verse three, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, diminishing God's word, first, adding to it. Second, it goes back and forth from overly permissive against God's will to overly legalistic. You shall not touch it. She adds the Scripture, making God even more restrictive. Now, accusing God of being overly harsh. You know, if we happen to be around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and somebody trips and touches it, we might die. You
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overly harsh, just an accident might do it. So we stay far away when God gives you commands and when he gives you abundance, what do you see? What do you see? Do you see the one thing you cannot have, or the vast array of things you can natural human tendency is to focus on the one thing you can't see. It's played in every story line, beauty and the beast. The Beast says, Don't go up into the West Wing. What's in the West Wing or the East Wing? Whatever it is, I don't know. I've only watched it 400 times. It's just a natural human tendency. We tend to think, God is not really good. He's not really generous. If he was really generous, he would have no restrictions. He holds back. He's overly restrictive, unkind. The ploy is to sow doubt about God's goodness, therefore unbelief and pride can emerge. Second tactic is denial. So he's moved. She's already following the lure. He's reeling and she's interested, but the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. This is the direct opposite. Look back at 217 says, but the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. You shall not surely die. Satan says, God had said you shall surely die, a direct denial. And then Satan goes further. The serpent goes further. Says, in fact, God will like it. For God knows, when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened this knowledge of good and evil. Your eyes are going to be opened. You'll be flooded with this knowledge, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil, you'll be able to do what he does. Aren't you? In the image of God, you're going to be an image bearer like him. He'll be proud of you. Satan makes disobedience sound like a virtue. How often is this played out in our culture today, over and over and over, and all our concerns about what God thought and how God would respond were set aside the denial. Power of God's justice and judgment made the lure of the tree all the more easy, all the easier. Verse six says, so when the woman saw, now, notice this here, follow this. Saw took eight. Follow it. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She saw, took, ate, it's going to end up being a familiar pattern in Genesis and the rest of Scripture, the most famous of the saw took and sin passages is Second Samuel, 11, two through four, where King David, away from battle, is out on the balcony and he sees Bathsheba bathing. He commanded his men. And it says he saw her. He commanded his men to bring him. He took her, and he lay with her. I mean, from the time we were kids in the kitchen, and mom is frosting a cake. It goes like this. She says, Don't put your finger in the frosting, and she turns to open the fridge, and the kid goes, saw took eight. As we grow it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Saw took eight at this moment, the whole world changed. The whole order of the world changed. The heart was now corrupt. All humanity has been under the influence of Satan, and Satan pursues to destroy all of us pursue desires contrary to God's good and righteous and generous ways, worldliness, as this is called, doesn't require immediate satanic involvement in every temptation. The entire culture around you revels and approves of things that are against God, God's Word, God's goodness, God's character, and it's built into the fabric of culture that's worldliness. And worldliness carries the day for all but the redeemed in our culture. Worldliness is loving, sensual, earthly pursuits over a relationship with God. Now it's notable that the apostle John, toward the end of the Bible, in first John 216 takes those three forms. He turns them into the principles she saw that it was good for the eyes tasted good and would make her wise. He says this in first John 216, for all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. It was something tasty, something lovely, it was something to take pride in. It would make her like God. And then let's make it all the worse. She gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate Genesis three, one through seven. Has her with him, has him with her during the whole conversation. How do we know that? It's with two other indicators. The two use the you and your in verse five, your eyes you. They're plural. He's talking to them both. It's not singular, just you. Eve, He is standing there with him. This is why Adam is credited with the original the origin of sin. He did not protect Eve. The commands that Adam were given in chapter two was to work the ground and keep it, cultivate and keep and keep is to pay special attention vigilant watch. And there is always an element of protection. And the first sin in the garden, outside of what the tempter was doing, the first sin of humanity was not eve. Jesus taking it was Adam's failure to protect. I mean, there he was at each turn, he could have been saying, No, I was there. God said this, no, honey, it's like this. Remember what he really said? It's like this. He was standing there. He had received the direction he could have easily stepped in at any moment.
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This is the dynamics of sin First Timothy 214 says Eve was deceived. So that means Adam was simply directly rebellious, both suppressing any consequences of sin. He didn't protect Eve, and he has the greater guilt. We need to expose the dynamics of sin, two kinds there, easily deceived, directly rebellious. How often have you said to one of your children, don't do that, and they look at you and they do it anyway. They can do that earlier than they can reach their finger in the frosting bull. Direct defiance the human condition leads us to the third, don't suppress the consequences of sin. Be wary. You have an enemy. Expose the dynamics of sin. And three, don't suppress the consequences, we redouble we go back up a little bit. But I want to put this all together. As doubt about God's goodness rises, so does doubt about his justice. Do you hear that as soon as God's goodness is doubted, so is God's justice doubted? Remember, goodness and justice go hand in hand. You can't have justice without goodness, and you can't have goodness without justice. And it starts with Eve softening the consequences. Remember, she's adding to God's word and some saying, don't touch it. But then she softens the force of it by saying, lest I die. And it seems subtle, but that's how sin works. Surely you will die, and lest you will die are two different levels. The lest you will die, unless you die, leaves room for chance. Maybe I won't, and as soon as in your mind, it's possible that there's a chance you could be like God. There's a chance you will die. I mean, be like God might be worth it, softening the consequences the possibility of not dying. The fruit looks good, the promise of God, like status is amazing, the work, it seems worth the risk. So there's the frosting. Mom turned her back. She may not know it, and if she does, maybe she's a soft touch. Maybe all she's gonna say is, now get your hand out of there. She's been reading all the gentle parenting material. I just give them grace. Just give them grace. Just give them grace. Do whatever they want. I'm gonna give them grace. No consequences. That side comment may get some parenting questions. That's good. We need to Kelly's written a little book on it just got produced. It's great. Maybe mom will be a soft touch. Maybe God will be a soft touch. Maybe God will be a soft touch. Maybe I'll just get off with a warning. Maybe I'll just get a little get your hand out of there like dad does, because dad just did it in front of me. That's not a that's a different kind of temptation issue, suppressing the consequences. And then, of course, there's a denial of consequences. Directly with what Satan said, You will not surely die, Satan directly denied God's judgment. E Adam and Eve had lots of reasons to believe the lie.
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The first direct attack. The other was indirect, subtle. This one's direct the first direct attack on the character of God is also the first direct doctrine of denial of the doctrine of. Judgment. The first doctrine that's, that's the first false doctrine introduced in humanity, is the false doctrine that there's no judgment.
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Direct denial. I mean, are you hearing what God is saying here? You think you're going to get away with it, but you won't. You think that there's going to be no consequences. But there are the third denial comes with dealing with the consequences. Adam and Eve had both suppressed the truth about God's promise to judge now they're trying to suppress the consequences of their own sin. Look what it says in verse seven. Then the eyes of both were opened. This is just what Satan promised. The eyes were opened. They were going to see they took it. She handed it. He took it, he ate it. Their eyes were opened, and they knew what. What did they know? Good and Evil? Yes, from the side of guilty, exposed, ashamed, they knew they were naked. Satan had sold them a lie. They were not able to make the decision of right and wrong on their own outside of God's leading. What they were able to do was break his law and suffer the consequences of separation and shame. They did die at that moment, the most important and serious death, a separation from the Almighty God and His gracious presence. John, chapter five, Jesus promises life, which is first a restored relationship with God. Well, we'll see it in chapter five. Everybody dies. Everybody dies. Ian,
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it says they were naked. Why is nakedness the symbol of shame? And I take this because in two, 225, says the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Now they both saw they were naked and were supplying the obvious. They were ashamed. Why is nakedness the symbol of shame. Nakedness shows exactly who you are. Do you want to know exactly who you are? Nakedness shows it total exposure. Clothes do a good job of covering a lot, but if we want to see exactly who you are, nakedness, and it's not just physical nakedness, they both knew they were naked all the way to the core of their soul. They were exposed. How did this happen between Adam and Eve? At this moment, Adam knew that Eve had failed. Eve knew that Adam had failed, failed God and failed each other at that moment, Eve knew that her weakness was exposed, she led her husband into sin and the separation Adam, the moment he ate and his eyes were open, was exposed that he did not communicate God's word. He did not stand in to protect. He did nothing to get in the way. He stood there, passive. He was exposed. Both of them were now separated from God, and they both saw the others failures. They both felt the shame. What is shame? Ian,
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the Oxford Dictionary online summarizes it really well. It's a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior. Do they both immediately knew of each other's sins, and when God comes, he's going to see to the soul exactly who each is. Ian. What do they do about this? What anybody would do so fig leaves together. They sewed fig leaves together, made themselves loin cloths. Why loin cloths? Because the sin is going to be passed down fruit, through the very anatomy that was supposed to create image bearers to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and reflect the glory of God. The attempt to make clothes for themselves is an attempt to cover their sin and its consequences. Why fig leaves, commentators say they are the biggest leaves in the garden, so they get the job done quickly,
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trying to provide a covering for sin and shame on their own. But here's the reality, the covering your own sin and shame is always foolish. It's always foolish. I mean, it's almost silly. Like, really, you don't think that the loin claws that these fig leaves are really going to cover the guilt. You really think it's going to cover the guilt. But this is what humans do. How do people cover their guilt. Well, the most common tactic is to lie. Little girls in the kitchen with mom and they're ready to bake the cake. She turns the refrigerator, she takes that out, she's got it on her fingers, her fingers in her mouth. Her mom sees it and says, I told you not to do that. I did wrong. Lying denial is the first tactic. The second is to blame shift. Well, if you wouldn't make such delicious frosting, if you weren't such a good cook, it's my fault that you just sin blame shifting. We're gonna see a full, full course of blame shifting next week. Some inflict self penance. They punish themselves. Some try to put on really good behavior as an offset to their bad Some think I stopped. Okay, I'm sorry I stopped. Like the I'm sorry I stopped. Is that now good? We're all good, right? I stopped? No, we're not all good. Just because you stopped, that doesn't cover your guilt. And some in our era, the most common, is to make a long list in your mind of all the ways that you're really good. You keep in your mind a very inflated list of all your good qualities and all the good things you do, and the list of the bad things and bad qualities are very small. You know, we could just use the figure of speech. It's all a loin cloth. It's all thick leaves. It is all inadequate. It's really a failure to deal properly with the consequences of sin. What are those? Adam and Eve don't deal with the consequences of sin at all or well. And yet, God is merciful and provides a promise. We need to turn to Christ. And I want to leave today without turning to Christ in His Word, there's number four. Turn to Christ in His Word, there's only two places to turn in dealing with sin and temptation to Christ and His Word, Adam and Eve immediately experienced that shame, that distress, that embarrassment, as if to say, people know things about me that I wish they didn't know. Everybody has those feelings, and this is a shame culture, is it not? I mean, 20 years ago, comedians like Jerry Seinfeld used to say, I mean, you do bad things like you just do you. We don't care. Now this is a culture of shame if you don't toe the thought line, if you don't toe the action line, if you don't toe the line that your HR department tells you you have to toe about morality, you're shamed. You're shamed on social media, you're shamed publicly, you're shamed on the news. Shame is a culture. You know what? God has a way of dealing with shame. I want to tell you there's very good news. God has dealt with our shame, and he's dealt with it in His Son, Jesus Christ. There's no one in the room. There's nobody in the room today who is sinless. You're not. Nobody here is about to face their first temptation. Oh, good. I'm glad I got this sermon. I won't fall prey to that. Yeah, no, you've all failed Romans 323. Says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And since you're in the line of Adam and Eve, you have, or currently might be trying to deal with sin on your own or by your own efforts, that's that's the nature of sin. What do you do about that? I got a few things for you first, admit fully your sin. Admit fully your sin. A complete admission of sin is essential. You must say what the sin was, why it was wrong, how it hurt the people in your life. You need to not blame shift. You just need to own what you did and don't blame what you did on anybody else? Well, I sinned because you sinned, and then I sinned because you sinned, blame shifting. You just own fully what you've done. And the first and foremost place to do that is before God Himself admit fully. We have some great tools in the discipleship toolbox, online about how to deal properly with sin, good confessions. Second, trust completely. Trust completely. Repentance is not merely stopping the wrong but turning to Christ. That means you're going to change what you trusted. The issue of sin is we imagine that there is something that's going to give us power, satisfaction, pleasure, that's greater than God. So true, true. Dealing with sin needs to abandon that. We call that repentance and turning to trust God, He is the one I truly need. Romans, 323, says, All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and then he continues and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ, Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith, we need to trust what Christ has done. There is only one solution to your guilt, shame and sin. It is what Jesus, Christ has already done on the cross, Ian
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faith is the essential opposite of the fig leaves in 37 stop trying to cover yourself, turn to Christ. New Testament is full of these kinds of references. Hebrews 1014, for instance, says this about Christ's work on the cross, for by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified, the cross held a two fold torture. One was physical. That's usually the one that's portrayed at Good Friday time, all the pain and anguish, the nails and feet and hands, the hanging up, the asphyxiation, the starving of the body of oxygen because of hanging out like those. Those things are elaborated, but there is a second part of the torture that the Romans designed into it, which was humiliation. There is pain and there is humiliation, because the criminal hung naked on the cross, totally exposed for all to see and mock you see it at Jesus crucifixion, crowds came through, mocking him, scorning him, laying Shame on him
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and on the cross. Jesus, bore the shame that you deserved. He put it off of himself, and he put it off of you by taking on the punishment for sin. You need to turn to Him, and you need to turn to him over and over and over there. There's an old word in church services. We call it a confession of sin. We do a glory of God, grandeur of gravity of sin, grandeur of grace. There's an old word called a curier. A Curie is a statement, Lord, have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. And it was in every service, a recognition that we walk into worship. Still with the remnants of sin and guilt on our souls and we need the grace and mercy of God. Remember Jesus teaches you to pray with reverence. Hallowed be your name with submission, with dependence. Give us this day our daily bread with confession of sin, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And with watchfulness first temptation. How do you deal with temptation? Watchfulness first, you have to trust Christ. Second, you have to deal with temptation. You have an enemy who wants to destroy your faith. And when you walk out of here, there is lurking in the world system, in your own heart, whatever kind of demonic work goes on in Spokane, you're going to be tempted. And this is a prayer. God help me see it lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one from evil. Doesn't matter how you translate that you've got an enemy. How do you deal with temptation? You start by praying, acknowledging that you need to be helped against temptation. But there is much in Scripture about this. Isaiah, 66 two says, this is the one to whom I will look, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. It is the word of God that was ignored, but it's the word of God that needs to be remembered,
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and we have used as a tool at Faith, bible church for years and years, quieting a noisy soul which deals with the unbelief we have in the character of God and how to come to Christ for forgiveness and re establish that trust. You get the short bird, short book, Jim Burke book, God is enough, is a good way to do that. When Jesus was tempted by Satan, how did Jesus handle the temptation? Quoting scripture. Satan tempted him to turn a stone to bread. Jesus quoted Scripture. It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus says, there is something more important than you need than food. And isn't it interesting? The first sin was over food. The first sin was over food. You God, and Jesus says, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
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We need to be people who what the psalmist says, I have hidden your word in my heart that I may not sin against you. Someone 1911 what's the antidote to doubt and denial, meditating on God's goodness and mercy that he's shown us in His Word that he's shown us in creation, it is to be people who are regularly thanking him for all the grace. When we unpack Genesis, one, you have a whole new appreciation of all the good things God has made in creation. But there is one grace that towers over all the goodness of creation, and that is God's goodness in Christ, in redemption, thanking him for all the ways that he provides redemption. If you have not trusted him, you can turn to him because he's a father who is calling your repentance, offering forgiveness through Christ. And if you have trusted Christ, constantly, count the promises and blessings of God,
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and it is wise and good to believe the promises of judgment or discipline. He doesn't judge believers, but he does discipline children. There will be consequences. Seth, Jesus took all my consequences. Well, yeah, so there's consequences for Jesus. Nobody gets off free. Jesus had to pay. Do you want him to have to keep paying? Do you want that payment to have to include more and more sin? The natural response would be, no, Lord, I want to obey you. Do.
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We're going to end here and turn to the solution as we celebrate the Lord's Supper. This is a heavy message. This is the saddest day in the history of the world. What we're going to do is celebrate the happiest event in the history of the world with the death and resurrection of Jesus and what that brings to us. Let me pray. Ushers are going to get the Lord's Supper prepared for us, Father, thank You for this word. You wrote it to us so that we would be aware, aware of Satan's devices, aware of an enemy, aware of the corruption in our hearts, and how easy it is for us to look back at sins we've committed and watch this process unfold and how it seems we are so easily blinded when the temptation comes. But we would pray that You would just do one practical thing in us each morning this week, remember to pray that you would protect us from the tempter, from temptation, that we would be aware and weary and ready to fight. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.
Dr. Dan Jarms is teaching pastor and team leader at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.
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