Jeff Schreve - Naked and Afraid
Summary:
This sermon kicks off a series on fear by examining Genesis 3, where Adam first experiences fear after disobeying God by eating the forbidden fruit. The preacher identifies three roots of ungodly fear: disobedience to God which brings spiritual separation, the resulting self-conscious shame of feeling «naked» before a holy God and futile attempts to cover sin with human efforts, and a distorted view of God as harsh rather than loving and forgiving. Ultimately, the message points to God’s provision of animal skins to clothe Adam and Eve as a foreshadowing of Christ’s sacrificial covering, assuring believers that God’s presence removes fear.
Opening Worship and Introduction to the Series
A man, great time of worship, great time to praise the Lord. If you have your Bible, please turn to Genesis chapter 3. I encourage you to follow along in the Bible in the pew, even though the verses will be on the screen. Genesis 3 is one of the greatest chapters, one of the most key chapters in all of the Bible, a chapter concerning the fall of man.
Now, we are starting a new series today on the subject of fear. I believe it was in the year 1989 that a company began selling clothing, and their motto was «No Fear.» Boy, they became popular, really among athletes, and they would wear these t-shirts and jerseys and things that said «No Fear.» Well, that sounds pretty good, but the truth of the matter is we struggle with fear, and as much as we want to say, «Well, I don’t have any fear,» we do.
Common Fears and Phobias
Now, some people have a tremendous amount of fear; it’s fear that is on steroids, extreme fear, and illogical fear. We call that kind of fear a phobia. Did you know that social scientists have identified literally scores and scores of phobias? No doubt, in this room, under the sound of my voice, we struggle with some of these phobias. Let me mention a few of them to you. How about this very common one: claustrophobia? Many people have claustrophobia, which is a fear of confined spaces. Who has a fear of confined spaces? Lots of you claustrophobics! How about this one? I have this one: arachnophobia. They even made a movie out of it; it’s a fear of spiders. I don’t like spiders, and I don’t like this one—ophidiophobia. That’s a fear of snakes! I’m like Jim Stafford; I don’t like spiders and snakes, and neither do many people.
There’s this phobia called glossophobia. You might be asking, «What is glossophobia?» Glossophobia is a fear of public speaking. Anybody? The hands went up without even having to ask—they just went up! The fear of public speaking. You know, Jerry Seinfeld said that when you go to a funeral, this is true: people have a greater fear of public speaking than they do of death. So, when you go to a funeral, most people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. I mean, it’s that kind of a deal.
How about this one? I have this one, sometimes in a different kind of way: homilophobia. Homilophobia is a fear of sermons. Mine is a little different; mine is a fear of not having a sermon, and it’s Sunday morning—that’s my phobia. How about this one: pentheraphobia? That’s the fear of your mother-in-law. Who has that one? Some hands went up back there; others are too afraid because their mother-in-law might be here and don’t want to let people know!
Then there’s this one: ecclesiophobia. It’s a fear of church. They’re not here. And we have this one today, big in the news: russophobia. It’s a fear of Russians—it’s big in the news today. You say, «Well, you hadn’t hit me yet.» Well, maybe you have: phobophobia—that’s a fear of phobias; you’re just afraid of getting a phobia!
And then my all-time favorite phobia: hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. That’s a real thing—a fear of long words! It’s a fear of getting up to public speaking and having to say that word! That’s a real thing too. So, lots of phobias! Hey, we’re just a bundle of fears. We can put on a t-shirt that says «No Fear,» but that’s not entirely accurate, because we do have fears.
Some of you are here today, and you’re fearful of the events coming up this week. Maybe you’re facing a surgery and fighting fear about that surgery. Maybe you’re waiting for a test result and feeling anxious about that. Is it going to show that I have cancer? Maybe you have something going on at school or at work this week, and you’re very anxious about that. Maybe you’re fearful about your finances, or you’re fearful that your marriage is not going to make it. Kids are fearful that their mom and dad aren’t going to hold together, that the family is going to fall apart. Lots and lots of fears!
God’s Answer to Fear
Hey, here’s the good news: God has an answer for our fears. God is greater than our fears. As we sang today, «Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.» Our key verse for this series is, «Fear no evil.» It’s Proverbs 23, Psalm 23, verse 4: «Even though David said, 'I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, ' that scary, scary place, 'I fear no evil.' Why? Because you are with me.» The presence of God makes all the difference in the world. God has an answer for our fears.
Three Types of Fear in Scripture
Now, when you think of fear in Scripture, there are basically three types of fear. Two types are good; one type is not good. We’re going to focus on the type that’s not good. The first type of fear that’s good is a godly fear. There is a godly fear that the Lord talks about over and over, 23 times in the Old Testament and two times in the New Testament. We read 25 times in the Bible about the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; it’s the beginning of knowledge. We are to live, Proverbs 23:17, «My son, do not let your heart envy sinners, but live in the fear of the Lord always.»
Now, that’s not being afraid of God; that’s recognizing God as God and giving Him His proper respect. There’s a godly fear that’s a good thing. Secondly, there’s a wise fear. A wise fear is a self-protecting fear. A wise fear is the fear that says, «I don’t go on a ten-story building and jump off.» Why? Because that’s going to kill me! That’s the wise thing to do. It says in the Book of Amos, «A lion has roared; who will not fear?» I mean, if you’re out in the middle of the woods somewhere and you hear a lion roar and you don’t respond to that with some fear and trepidation, something is wrong with you!
I remember when I was a little kid. I learned about animals letting you know that they’re ticked off at you. I was just about six years old, and I had a little toy car, and there was a dog at this family event my parents were attending. I was running the car over the back of this dog, thinking the dog really liked it. The dog was growling, but I wasn’t that savvy on dog growls. I just thought, «He’s liking this!» You know, our cats make a sound kind of like that, but that’s purring. He wasn’t purring; he bit me! Well, what was the growl but a warning to let me know, «Back off, pal! I don’t like your car on my back!» That’s what he was trying to let me know, and I didn’t know that.
Hey, there is a wise fear. Then thirdly, there’s an ungodly fear, the fear that we struggle with, the one that eats our lunch. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 1, verse 7: «For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind.» The fear that eats our lunch, this ungodly fear, is the fear of man, the fear of failure, the fear of the future, the fear of the unknown. We’re going to talk today and in this series about that kind of fear, the fear that plagues us and dogs our steps, the fear that we have to do battle with.
The First Fear: Adam and Eve in Genesis 3
So, in this first message, what I want us to do is look at the very first time a human being ever experienced fear. We find that in the Genesis account with Adam and Eve, the very first two people that God made, the only two people that God created. From those people, God created everybody else. But these two people were living in the Garden of Eden, a beautiful place with a perfect God. They were made perfect there, in a perfect place, with a perfect God, in a perfect relationship. A perfect relationship with God, a perfect relationship with one another.
Then something happens that causes them to experience ungodly fear. Genesis chapter 3 says: «Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.» He said to the woman, to Eve, «Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden? '» The woman said to the serpent, «From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.'»
The serpent said to the woman, «You surely shall not die. For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.» When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that it was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
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. Then the Lord God called to the man and said to him, «Where are you?» He said, «I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.» The Lord said, «Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?»
I’ve entitled this message «Naked and Afraid.» Adam was naked and afraid. So, the first time we read about fear, it’s the first time any human being had ever been afraid.
Root 1: Fear Comes from Disobeying God
So, what are the roots of fear? I want you to notice with me three discoveries from this great chapter concerning the roots of fear.
Discovery number one: fear comes from disobeying God. Very succinctly, where does fear come from? It comes when you disobey God. Now, as we said, Adam and Eve were made perfect before the Lord. God reached down; they were made differently because God formed Adam from the dust of the ground, and He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. The Lord put him in a garden to cultivate it and to keep it.
When God made Adam, he was freshly made but full grown. He was mature. Some of our scientists have a real hard time with the age of the earth because they say it has to be billions and billions of years old. They want it to be really old because they believe in evolution, and how does evolution work? You have to have lots of time! Still, it doesn’t work! You can put junk parts in a washing machine and put it on spin cycle for ten billion years, and you’re not going to get a camera to come out!
So, evolution is ridiculous. But they say, «Oh, you just need more time.» Hey, listen: when God created the world, He created it mature. So, if you could test the world through carbon dating or whatever else, it would test out as, «Man, this is billions of years old.» Perhaps it’s not so; God just made it mature. You look at Adam: if we could have seen Adam in the first five minutes of his life, but he’s not an embryo; he’s not a baby; he’s a full-grown man because God made him mature.
He makes Adam from the dust of the earth, he makes Eve from Adam’s rib. He takes a rib and fashions from Adam’s rib a creature known as woman, and man! She was a knockout! Adam said, «This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman for she was taken out of man.» And the man and his wife, Genesis 2:25, were both naked and not ashamed. That’s how they came! That’s how God made them—naked, but they were not ashamed.
Then something happens. Now he’s naked and ashamed! What happened? Well, he disobeyed God. He was given one command, that’s all they had. They didn’t have the Ten Commandments; in Genesis chapters two and three, they had one command, and this is the command: Genesis 2:16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, «From any tree of the garden you may eat freely.» I’ve made all these fruit trees, Adam; help yourself! You may eat freely! It’s a buffet here of fruit, and it’s wonderful!
Verse 17: «But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. One tree, you can’t eat from it! For in the day you eat from it, you shall surely die.» In the very day you eat, you’ll surely die. That was the command: don’t mess with the tree of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told Adam that. Then He creates Eve. Adam tells Eve that: «Eve, this is God. He made this all for us, but there’s one tree! We can eat everything but one tree! Don’t mess with that tree!» And he may have told her, «Don’t touch it; don’t touch it because it’s bad news.»
They had the one command, and they blew it. We know from reading in Genesis 3 that the serpent came to the woman, and he deceived her. That’s what she says when God asks her, «What is this that you have done?» She said, «The serpent deceived me, and I ate.» Adam wasn’t deceived; Adam listened to the voice of his wife. That’s what God says to him: «Because you have listened to the voice of your wife.» He wasn’t deceived; he just entered into sin.
But they both ate, and they both sinned, and they’re both naked and afraid and hiding from God. Now, mark it down: sin brings separation. The Lord said, «On the day you eat of it, you will surely die.» Now, some say, «Well, you know, Adam—if you read Genesis chapter 5, verse 5—Adam lived to be 930 years old. He didn’t die the day he ate!» Yes, he did! Yes, he did! Because in Hebrew, what it says there in Genesis 2:17 and 18 is «The day you eat from it,» says Genesis 2:17, «dying you shall die.»
Adam died the moment he ate! Where did he die? He didn’t die in his body—he died in his body when he was 930 years old. He died in his soul. He went on to have conversations and relationships with people. He died in his spirit. See, when God made us, He made us in the image of God. God is a triune God, and He made man a triune creature. Man is spirit, soul, and body. Adam died in his spirit, where he communed with God—that was the place.
The Scripture says that the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord. That’s the place where you have fellowship with God in the spiritual side of you, and that’s where he died. Sin brings separation. Death is being separated from God, and separation brings fear. He was naked and not ashamed in Genesis 2:25 because he was with God. But now, all of a sudden, sin has brought separation. He’s separated from God, and when you’re separated from God, then there’s fear. That’s why David said in Psalm 23, verse 4, «Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil.» Why? Because you are with me! But if you are not with me, I’m afraid—I’m very afraid.
Fear comes from disobeying God.
Root 2: Fear Comes from Feeling Naked Before God
Second discovery: fear comes from feeling naked before God. And it doesn’t come from being naked before God, because Adam was naked and Eve—they were both naked before God; they didn’t know they were naked! Now, all of a sudden in Genesis 3, because they disobeyed God, they sinned; now they’re aware of their nakedness! They weren’t aware of that before, and when the Lord comes, he says, «Adam, where are you?» Adam said, «Well, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.» The Lord asked him this question: «Who told you that you were naked?»
Well, who told Adam he was naked? No one! No one told him he was naked; he knew he was naked. «Who told you you were naked?» God says. «Have you eaten of the tree that I commanded you not to eat?» Yes, the woman whom you gave to be with me— that was Adam’s answer! «It was her fault! The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.» See, the devil told Eve that if she would eat of that tree, her eyes would be opened, and she would be like God, knowing good and evil.
Well, her eyes were opened, and Adam’s eyes were opened, and they were opened to things that they wished they had never seen, because now they had a knowledge of self that they didn’t have before. See, sin brings separation, and separation brings fear, and sin causes us to become self-conscious. Self-conscious. Adam and Eve, when they were created and when they were enjoying Eden and they were enjoying one another and they were enjoying walks with God in the cool of the day—they said, «How do you walk with God?» God is Spirit!
This is a theophany, an appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ before He came in His permanent humanity, and He would take on flesh to walk with them. How awesome was that! But when they would do that, their whole life was focused on God; they just had God consciousness. They didn’t have self-consciousness; they weren’t aware that they were naked. Why? ‘Cause they weren’t thinking about themselves; they were thinking about God—the God that they loved, the God that they served, the God that was so good to them!
But now their eyes are open, and they know that they are naked. This sin brought an awareness of self, and with that awareness of self came an awareness of guilt and came an awareness of shame, and came this desire: «I have to cover myself up! I’m not right; something’s not right; something has changed, and now I feel so naked, and I have to cover myself!»
Hey, sin causes us to become self-conscious. You know what’s interesting? When the devil said to Eve, «When you eat this fruit, your eyes will be opened, and you’ll be like God, knowing good and evil.» The Lord says at the end of chapter 3, speaking— the Trinity speaking among Himself, the Lord says, «The man has become one of us, knowing good and evil.» That happened!
Now here’s the difference: how does man know good and evil versus God knowing good and evil? God knows good and evil as He looks at Himself. God is a holy God—the thrice holy of the universe! «Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!» And God evaluates everything based on His holiness. He knows what is good and what is evil based on Himself. But man is not holy! Man is a sinner!
And so when man tries to evaluate things based on his sinful condition, he can’t do it! And so he knows good and evil, but not the way God knows good and evil. As John MacArthur said, it’s kind of the difference between a cancer surgeon who knows cancer and a cancer patient who knows cancer. God is the great physician who knows good and evil; you and I are the great patient who is saddled with evil from our own sin!
Hey, sin causes us to become self-conscious. Sin causes us to try and cover up. So what’s the first thing they do? They feel naked, and it says in verse 7, «They knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.» «We got to cover up! You’re naked; I’m naked!» And so then it became Tarzan and Jane, you know? They have these makeshift fig leaves, and we’re going to put those together just to cover up our loins, and then we can go about life.
That’s the way we are: when we feel naked, we think, «Oh, we got to do something to cover up! We’ve got to somehow, you know, make ourselves acceptable!» And so that we can cover the guilt and cover the shame of our nakedness. And it works for a while! It worked with Adam and Eve! They had covered themselves, and they’re like, «Man! I feel so much better! Because now I’m covered, and you don’t see me, and there’s a covering there!» But then that fails when God shows up!
Because when they heard the sound of the Lord God in the cool of the day, they didn’t feel covered, and they hid themselves in the trees. When God called, «Where are you?» «I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked!» «Oh, you’re not naked; I thought you had your fig leaves on!» Ah, the fig leaves wilt in the presence of the all-seeing, all-knowing, holy God! «I was naked, and so I hid myself!» And my fig leaves don’t cut it!
Hey, every human being tries to cover himself because of his sin! Because he feels the guilt, and he feels the shame! And so what do we try and do? We try and say, «How can I make myself acceptable to God? What can I do to somehow erase this guilt and shame that is upon me because of what I did? Maybe I’ll start going to church.»
Well, you got ecclesiophobia! Yeah, that’s true; I can’t go to church! I’m afraid of the church! You know that’s just a joke! Anyway, you do something that tries to make you all give to the homeless! «I’ll try and help out! I’ll work in a soup kitchen!» Huh, I’ll do something that’s going to be some kind of fig leaf on me to cover me up! And maybe you feel good about yourself for a little while.
Let me tell you something: when you stand before God, the fig leaves all just wilt away, and you’re still naked before the God of the universe! Sin can’t be covered by the fig leaves of the flesh! What do the fig leaves represent? They represent what you can do, what you can put together, what you can somehow work to cover yourself and present yourself to God! That’s what they tried to do!
Why did they cover themselves? They covered themselves for each other, but they covered themselves because they knew that they were going to have to see God! But when they heard the sound of the Lord God in the garden, then all of a sudden it’s like, «I still feel so naked! I still feel so naked! I’ve got to go hide myself from the presence of the Lord!» They’d never done that before-hiden themselves from God!
Man, they used to run to God like little kids! When my kids were little, and I’d come home from work, man, they would run to the door: «Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!» I just loved that! I just loved that! God, as the wonderful Father that He is, He loves that when His kids run to Him! Adam and Eve used to run to Him, walk with Him! Now they’re not; now they’re hiding from Him! And God has to ask the question: «Where are you?»
Hey, sin can’t be covered by the fig leaves of the flesh! You know, it’s very, very interesting: the last week of Jesus' life, do you remember what He did? He cursed the fig tree! Cursed the fig tree, and it withered and died! I think that was a message for all of us to say, «See the fig—the fig trees in Genesis, the fig leaves of Genesis chapter 3—that’ll never cover you! That’s cursed! If you try and come that way, come before me that way with the fig leaves of your flesh, it’s not going to make it!» You can’t cover yourself that way!
Hey, your sin is either going to be covered in Christ, or it’s going to be condemned in hell! That’s the only way that you can be made right with God: through the blood of the Lamb! Fear comes from disobeying God. Fear comes from feeling naked before God.
Root 3: Fear Comes from a Warped View of God
And thirdly and finally, fear comes from a warped view of God. Now here’s the thing: the devil, he’s called the serpent. He’s not just called a serpent; he’s called THE serpent! And sometimes you hear—I’ve heard Bill Maher say this—the atheist, the cynic, the skeptic, and just so bitter; he’ll say things to Christians, «So you believe the Bible? Yes, I believe the Bible.» «Oh, then you believe in talking snakes, do you?» And then the person’s like, «Well, yeah!» You know, I feel like an idiot!
You just need to say, «Well, how many talking snakes have you ever seen?» «How many snakes do you hear talk?» «Well, I don’t listen; I don’t believe in talking snakes. I believe in a talking devil!» And the devil is called the serpent of old and the dragon. When the devil came to the Garden of Eden, we don’t know how he came. Now, we just assume he’s a serpent, because that’s what it says. But as Ray Steadman pointed out, hey, that word for serpent could also be translated «shining one!»
That makes it a little different! «The shining one was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.» The devil is a created being, and he is slick and crafty and sly. The Scripture says that he disguises himself as an angel of light! You know, if he came in the form of a serpent—which he may have! —we know from Exodus, when Moses went up against Pharaoh and the magicians of Pharaoh, and he threw down the rod, and the rod became a snake—Pharaoh’s magicians could turn their rods into snakes too!
How did they do that? Not by the power of God; they did it by the power of the enemy! So however the devil came to her, he came disguised, and the devil can speak, and the devil did speak to her! And he caused her, in just a few verses, to doubt the goodness and the love and the grace and the wonderfulness of God! He caused her to doubt all of that. He starts out with a question: «Indeed, has God said?»
I mean, I heard this! This can’t be right: «You can’t eat from any tree of the garden!» Now, God didn’t say that! He said the opposite! He said, «From any tree of the garden, you may freely eat!» But the devil takes what God says, twists it a little bit, and presents it in a light that God is not good and that He is trying to warp her mind to get her to think, «God is not good! God is holding out on me! God cannot be trusted! God doesn’t tell the truth!» My friend, the serpent is the one who loves me! He’s the one who tells me the truth! He’s the one that I can trust!
And in just a few verses, he gets her to buy into that lie! Hey, you know why some of you are really struggling with fear? Because you have a warped view of God! Why was Adam hiding from God? He used to run to Him! «Daddy! Daddy!» He used to run to Him. Now he’s not running to Him. Why? Because he says, «I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked! Naked or I’m naked and I hid myself!» I was afraid of what you were going to do to me because I’ve sinned. And I don’t want to say I’ve sinned, and I don’t want to run to you and say, «God, I blew it! Please forgive me!» I don’t do that! I hide from you!
Lots of people: hiding from God! There’s an atheist named C.J. Worman; he wrote a book, and his book is entitled this: «God Hates You, So Hate Him Back!» God hates you, so hate him back! And that’s the way lots of people—they have that in their mind! God—who did they see? They feel guilt, and they feel shame over what they’ve done, and they say, «God must hate me.» And so, they don’t know how to do work on that! They put the fig leaves on—they try and cover up—and then they get this idea that God is just a bad God and God must hate me for what I’ve done people deep down I hate for what I’ve done! And so God must hate me, and so I’m just going to hate Him back! I’m going to be proactive in my hate towards Him!
And you have this whole twisted, perverted, warped view of God that sends you down a terrible path! Hey, sin brings separation, and separation brings fear. If you live your life separated from God, you’re going to have lots and lots of fear.
The True View of God
So, what is the truth? God is for you! He’s not against you! God is for you; He’s not against you! I love what the psalmist said in Psalm 118: «The Lord is for me; I will not fear; what can man do to me?» The Lord is for me among those who help me! Now, do you see God like that? A God who’s for you? A God who wants to help you? Changes everything when you see God like that! «Lord, you’re for me!» David, who had his share of ups and downs, his share of terrible sins, said in Psalm 56, verse 9, «This I know, that God is for me!»
God is for me! Now, God is not for your sin! But He is for you! With my three girls, I am for them! I’m for them! Now, if they do something dumb and stupid, I’m not for that, but I’m for them! And God is for you! He loves you; He’s not against you! Secondly, God wants to forgive you, not condemn you.
The Scripture says in John 3:16: «For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him!» Man, if God just wanted to send the Son to condemn—well, He wouldn’t have had to! He could just come Himself!
What did God do in Genesis chapter 6? He condemned the world with a flood! He didn’t have to send His Son for that! But He sent His Son, born of a virgin, to die on the cross so that you and I would be saved! He didn’t come to condemn us; He came to save us! He wants to forgive you, not condemn you! He wanted to forgive Adam and Eve, not condemn Adam and Eve!
The Scripture says in Psalm 86, verse 5: «For you, Lord, are good and ready to forgive and abundant in loving-kindness to all who call upon you!» I love that! God is ready to forgive! Ready to forgive! Hey, did you do something terrible just in the last 24 hours, 48 hours, last week, last month, or last year? Something terrible, horrible? Did you try to block it out of your mind that you can’t believe you did that?
God is good, and He’s ready to forgive! He sees it! He knows what you did! He knows what you did last week, last month—He knows what you did last summer! God knows everything! «The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching the evil and the good, and there’s no creature hidden from His sight! But all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do!» God knows! He knew what they did!
You know when the Lord asked the question, «Adam, where are you?» He knew where he was! «Who told you you were naked?» God is never asking questions for information! He’s asking questions so that Adam would search his own heart: «Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?» God knew he did! God knows everything that you do and everything that I do! And He’s ready to forgive!
To forgive us, not condemn us! One of the greatest verses for a Christian is Romans 8, verse 1: «There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!»
And then God wants us to come to Him, not hide from Him. See, the warped view of God says God is against me; God hates you, hate Him back! The warped view of God says that God wants to condemn you. The warped view of God says that you need to keep your distance from God; He’s not safe; you need to hide from God! But the proper view says God is for me; He’s not against me! God wants to forgive me, not condemn me! And God wants me to come to Him, not hide from Him!
Jesus said to the religious leaders in John chapter 5, «You search the Scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life, and it’s the Scriptures that bear witness of Me, and you are unwilling to come to Me that you might have life!»
Is that describing anyone in this room? Unwilling to come to the Lord? Unwilling to get real before the Lord? Unwilling to say, «Lord, I’ve tried to cover myself with the fig leaves of my flesh»?
And where I worked: sin! And God, I throw that aside, and I just come to You! And I have blown it, and I’ve sinned! And I’ve sinned greatly! Oh God, I need You to be merciful to me, the sinner! That’s what the publican said in Luke chapter 18: «God, he’s just beat his breast! God, be merciful to me the sinner!»
The self-righteous Pharisee was telling God how great he was: «Lord, I thank You that I’m not like other people—not like this tax collector over here! I pay tithes on all that I have; I fast twice a week! What a good boy am I! Look at my fig leaves! God, how happy You ought to be with me!»
You know what the Lord said? He said, «That publican, that tax collector, he went home justified, and that Pharisee just went home!» Because «I’m not going to do business with someone who is full of self-righteousness!» There is no cover! You’re going to cover yourself with your fig leaves? Then you have at it! But if you want to be made right with Me, you come to Me, and not in hiding, but in confession!
And coming to the Lord and saying, «Lord, here I am, and I’ve messed up, and I’ve sinned against You! And I did it in Adam’s case with my eyes wide open! I wasn’t deceived! I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I did it anyways!»
Anybody ever sinned like that? Well, you know what you’re doing is wrong, and you do it anyway? The Bible calls that sinning with a high hand! That’s a serious, serious sin! And I’ve been guilty of that sin! Knowing it’s wrong and doing it anyway! And all of us have done that— all of us!
But God is good, and God is gracious, and He says, «If you come to Me, we can work! I can work in your life!»
God’s Provision and the Protoevangelium
Now here’s the thing: when the Lord came to Adam, «Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?» Adam said, «The woman whom You gave to be with me; she gave me of the tree, and I ate!» Those three words, «And I ate!» He confessed that he did it!
He said to the woman, «What is this that you have done?» She said, «The serpent deceived me, and I ate!» They both confessed what they did—they sinned! And God curses the serpent, and God lets the woman know that she’s going to have pain in childbirth! And He lets the man know that, «Man, the ground is going to produce thorns and thistles, and you’re going to have trouble, and you’re going to eat of the sweat of your brow all the days of your life until you return to the dust, because that’s where you were taken.»
And then it says something really odd in verse 20: «Now the man called his wife’s name Eve because she was the mother of all the living.» Goodness, what is that? That doesn’t seem to fit in there! And it says in verse 21, «And the Lord made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.»
What’s going on here? When God cursed the serpent—and the serpent is Satan—He said to him in verse 15, «I will put enmity, hatred, between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel!»
That’s called Genesis 3:15! In evangelical or in theological circles, that’s called the protoevangelium, which is a big word that just means «first gospel.» It’s the first time the gospel is ever preached! And God preached it Himself to Adam and to Eve as He condemned the serpent!
And it’s the first gospel! It says this: «There is coming one day the seed of the woman!» The woman doesn’t have a seed; the woman has an egg! The seed of the woman is Jesus Christ, born of a virgin!
And the devil is going to bruise His heel; he’s going to attack Him on the cross! And he’s going to inflict his venom upon Him, but Jesus is going to rise from the dead, and He’s going to crush his head! And somehow, Adam understood that there was coming a Savior!
And he recognized that Eve was going to be the mother of all the living! And God did something for them! They came with their fig leaves, and God stripped them of their fig leaves! And God killed some animals, and from those animals, He made them coats of skin, and He covered them!
And they understood that day that sin brings death! Sin brings death! And they saw it! You know, they felt the death inside when they died in their spirit, but they saw the death when those animals died!
And the Scripture—and they saw blood shed, and the Scripture says in Hebrews 9:22, «Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins!» Leviticus sets up the sacrificial system. It says in Leviticus 17:11, «For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and it is the blood, by reason of the life, that makes atonement.» The life of the flesh is in the blood! Why were they supposed to bring blood sacrifices all the time? Because the life of the flesh is in the blood, and it is the blood, by reason of the life, that makes atonement.
And so, they would sacrifice these animals, and the blood would cover their sin, but it could never really truly cover it until the Lamb of God came, who shed His blood, and His blood washes us white as snow! Unless you’re clothed in the righteousness of Christ, unless you’re clothed in the robes of salvation, all you have are your fig leaves!
And listen! That’s what people who come to church so many times, Sunday after Sunday, churches all over our nation, all over the world. They’ll come to church, and they have fig leaves, and that’s all they have, because they’ve never been clothed with the righteousness of Christ! They’ve never come to Him!
They have a warped view of God! They’re like the Pharisee who thinks they’re so good, and God must accept them because they’re so good! God will never accept anyone who thinks he’s good! The only way you can come to Christ is to understand you’re bad, and you’re a sinner, and you’re lost! And you need Him!
And if you come out from the trees and the leaves and the shadows, and you come to Him and you confess your sin to Him, He will forgive you! And He will wash you white as snow! And He will clothe you with the garments of salvation! He sent His own Son to die on the cross for you!
And listen: He’ll be with you always! And no matter what you go through in life, you can say with David, «Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, because You are with me!»