What Happened When Adam Sinned? Genesis 3:14-24 Explained

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has taught home-style Bible classes for twenty years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les' teaching is so interesting, people say the time seems to fly by. And now, here's Les Feldick. Good evening, and we're glad to have you with us again for another look at the book of Genesis. If you remember where we left off the last time we were together, we had just watched Adam partake of the forbidden fruit, knowing that he was up against a choice. And if you'll remember, we emphasized the fact that he was evidently absent when Eve partook, and when he came on the scene, he knew what she had done, and as the New Testament tells us, he was not deceived. In other words, Adam was in a total different state of mind than Eve. Eve was caught in a moment of weakness, and before she even realized what she had done, she had eaten. But along comes Adam now, and he has to deliberate, knowing what she has already done, and where it leaves him with regard to her and with regard to the Creator. And he ate, willfully disobeyed that revealed will of God, and he ate. And we mentioned, and I think I emphasized it, and for those of you on television who have been watching this program, we trust you're catching it week by week, and also remembering that as we close our last program, we left you with the fact that when Adam sinned, immediately he died spiritually. Now, I've put three circles back up on the board, as we had several weeks ago, only for illustration purposes. And again, for those who would be supercritical, I realize that the soul and the spirit are so closely intertwined that we usually think of both of them as the same, but only for sake of illustration, and as we showed a few weeks ago, the Scripture does separate the soul and the spirit, as well as the body, and we put the three circles up there just for illustration purposes, that man is a makeup of body, the soul, and the spirit, albeit the soul and spirit are closely related. Then we showed that when Adam ate, immediately, instantaneously, his spirit died and lost fellowship with his Creator, and the body, you remember, began to die. Now Adam didn't die until 939 years later, but the moment he ate, the seeds of death entered and he began to die. He immediately died spiritually. Then if you'll remember, we went to John's Gospel, chapter 3, where Jesus said it, and we might want to look at it, because the name of the game when it comes to any kind of education is repetition, review. Always have to remember, a couple of years ago, the academic community was all shook up by a mathematics professor here in Oklahoma, if I remember correctly, it was at Rose Junior College in Oklahoma City, where he had all of a sudden taken average mathematics students and had just raised their testing level significantly so that all of academia across the country was taking notice of it, wondering how in the world he was getting these kids to learn math to the place that they were scoring so much better than the national average. You know what it amounted to? He was constantly reviewing. Instead of teaching a segment of higher mathematics and then for a week leave it and go on to something else, all through the semester he would constantly be going back, so that by the time the semester ended, these kids were ready for a test, having freshly reviewed what they had learned nine weeks earlier. And I think that's what has helped me in my Bible classes. A lot of times I will, as you well know, I will apologize for reviewing something. But every time I do, someone will come up after class and say, well, this is the first time I saw that. And so I'm trying not to apologize for reviews. So anyway, let's go back and just refresh our memories from last week in John chapter 3. And it's all because of what had happened to Adam. Remember we've been emphasizing that for the last several weeks, how that Adam was the federal head of the human race, and that it was in Adam that all of us inherited our sin nature. We're not sinners because we have done something wrong. We're not sinners because we have done something that the Bible has said not to do. We're sinners first and foremost because we're sons of Adam. Now being sons of Adam, what are we prone to do? Sin. And this is what the Bible teaches so clearly, and this is what we're going to try and show even more clearly on the blackboard using these circles, which again is a format I guess that I've had more comment on than anything I've ever taught. People will tell me over and over, let's go back and study those circles. And so this is the reason I keep at it. All right, in John chapter 3, Jesus is speaking, and He says in verse 19, and this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. Now that's the Adamic nature. That is the very first thing we saw in Adam way back in Genesis chapter 3, that even though they had sowed fig leaves, and even though they thought now they had their nakedness covered, when they heard that the Lord was now back in the garden and ready to spend that time of communication with them in the cool of the day, what did Adam and Eve do? They ran and hid. See? Oh, they didn't want to meet God, and that has never changed. This is human nature to run from God. Now, we're going to also see in the next few moments, hopefully, and again for those of you on television, we'll never get all this done in the first 30 minutes, so we trust that even though we do shut it off almost instantaneously, we'll pick it up right away again in our next program. But mankind will always run from God. But God comes right back, as Martin Luther used the expression, when I first read it I was almost aghast, and I thought, well, no, that's just not a very nice way of putting it. But the more I thought about it, the more apropos it became. When Martin Luther referred to God in his approach to sinful men as the hound of heaven, the hound of heaven, and like I say, it taught, well, what a way to put it. But really, that's exactly the way it is. How does the hound operate? He pursues and he pursues and he pursues until he finally has his quarry. And that's exactly the way God pursues the person. He just keeps after them and after them. And as I read that, I couldn't help but think of Psalms 42, verse 1. Keep your hand in John. We're going to wear our Bibles out today, I just know we are. Go back to Psalms chapter 42, because it says it so appropriately, and this is exactly as it is. In fact, after I'd used this illustration in one of my classes, a gentleman came up afterwards and he says, you know, Les, that's exactly the way it was with me, is for forty some years. He said, I ran from God, I ran from him, he said, I can see it now looking back. But he said, as soon as I was brought to the Lord, in fact, it took place in our kitchen, around that old kitchen table, I just showed him the Scriptures and he believed. And he says, ever since then, he says, I just can't get enough of the Word. He says, it's the last thing I read at night and it's the first thing I look at in the morning. All right, here's where it is. In Psalms 42, verse 1, the hound of heaven has pursued until he finally brings that person to coming into the plan of salvation and believing it, and then what happens? As David puts it so appropriately, as the heart, and I think a heart was sort of like our deer, as the heart paneth after the water brooks, so paneth my soul after thee, O God. Isn't that it? Oh, once we come into this relationship, we just can't get enough of God. But until then, what did we do? We ran. That's human nature. All right, flip back to John's Gospel then, and continue on, verse 20, for everyone that doeth evil hateth the light. Men don't love God naturally. We're going to see in Romans in just a second, they're enemies of God, naturally. All right, but read on. Neither do they come to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth, or believeth, or responds to the truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. All right, now let's turn over a little further in our New Testament to Ephesians, and again we looked at these verses a week ago, but let's look at it again as a review, as well as an introduction to our lesson this evening. Go back to Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1, and again in verse 5, Ephesians chapter 2, starting with verse 1, and then we'll also jump down to verse 5, where Paul writes, and always remember Paul writes to the believer. He always writes to the believer, and then the unbeliever has to, of course, be approached by simply the Spirit of God dealing with him. But he writes to us, the believer, and he says, and you hath he quickened, or made alive. Now that's a past tense experience, see? He writes to a believer that in some time in the past he was made alive. We were made alive, who were, again past tense verb, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Now some of you I know were in a class one time some time ago when I asked the question, how much faith can a dead man have? None. How much can a dead man do spiritually? Nothing. All right, now come down to verse 5, and it's emphasized again. Even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace are you saved. Now getting back to our circles, and while I go to the board, you can be dropping back to Matthew, if you will, and let's go back to Matthew 16. Now, the plan of salvation is so simple, of course, that a child can comprehend it, but on the other hand, as I've said before, it is so complex, it is so deep that none of us will ever really comprehend all that God accomplishes when He grants us His salvation. But here's what I want to start out with first. Adam now, as the head of the federal race, has left the condition of every child born into the human race, beginning with his own first children, Cain and Abel, were in this spiritual situation. They were functioning bodily, physically, A-OK. The seeds of death are within them. They're going to die someday, but the body is alive and well. Within the body, they have a soul. They haven't lost that, like they lost, you might say, the spirit part of them. But again, for sake of illustration only, this soul immediately, instantaneously, as the spirit died, the soul, or the very personality, became a sin nature, a sin nature. Now, again, I should have pointed out when we were there in Ephesians, where in the next verse, in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 2, Paul says that we do these things that are contrary to God. How? Naturally. And maybe we should look at it. I told you we're going to wear these books out today, but go back to Ephesians, keep your hand here in Matthew, we'll come back. But in that next verse in Ephesians 2, it says it so plainly, what I'm trying to bring across, that now as sons of Adam, we are spiritually dead, and as a spiritually dead person, this is how we operated. This is exactly how lost people around us are living. Someone has made the expression, the world is full of walking dead people, spiritually dead. All right, look at verse 2. He says, We're in in times past, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. Who's that? That's Satan. See? He's the god of this world. And when we're without Christ, He is the one who is in control of our life. All right? And so we walked according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit, that is the spirit of Satan, that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Who are they? Every child of Adam that has not experienced salvation. All right, now then, let's go back to Matthew. The thing that is hard to comprehend is that if we as individuals are what the Bible says we are, and we'll be looking also in Romans chapter 3, verse 23, where it says, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every one of us, by virtue of being sons of Adam, here's where we begin. We're nothing more than a body with a sin nature, and we've got nothing going within us that would make us want to approach God. Now when people become religious, that is something that is pressed upon them by society, by parents, or whatever. Our inhibitions are put in place, and it's fortunate that they are, or society would never operate. But that is not what is required to get right with God. Now when I can help people see this, then they can begin to understand a little more of that, well, it was almost made less than what it should be during President Carter's administration, when he used the expression, you all remember it, that he was a born -again Christian. What did that do to the term born -again? Oh, the world just picked it up, and Chrysler Corporation spoke of being born-again, and defunct professional teams who finally got back on top, oh, they had a born-again experience. That's not what the Bible was talking about. And so now, rather than using that particular term, born-again, I prefer to use what it should have been even in our Scriptures in the first place, and that is born from above. What did God do? All right, here we are now again. A body with nothing but a sin nature, and no concept of God, no communication with God. How, if we're spiritually dead, do we become capable of believing anything? Now I always maintain that the first step of faith, and remember what faith is, taking God at His Word, the first step of faith is believing that the Bible says, I'm a sinner. That's the first step, and that's the first thing that people rebel at. They say, I'm not that bad, I'm pretty good, but the Bible says we're sinners, and remember, not because of what we've done, but because we're sons of Adam. All right, so God must do something, and this, I know, can cause controversy in a hurry. In fact, it's been debated by theologians ever since the Reformation, and it's the idea of Calvinism as over against Arminianism. Now, a lot of people don't even know what that is, unfortunately, but you see back in the Reformation, men such as Calvin, and I think Luther, a lot of people probably wouldn't agree with me, but I think Luther was more Calvinistic than most people think. But you see, Calvin came up with this idea that nothing can happen spiritually unless God makes the first move. Then there were those who followed Calvin who took it a step too far, I think, and they became what today we call extreme Calvinists, and they are the folk who maintain that it doesn't make any difference if we preach the Word, or if we send missionaries, it doesn't make any difference, because if a person is going to be saved, God's going to see to it he's saved, so why worry about it? Well, that's not Scripture. But on the other hand, the Arminian view, who was contemporary, of course, with Calvin, he came up with the idea that Calvin was all wrong, that everything with regard to man's salvation was based on the man's own free will, that if a man decided to become a child of God, he was the one who made the decision. Well, that is certainly not according to Scripture. In fact, I normally don't like to read things, but I just happened to run across last night a statement by a great theologian of a bygone day—he's no longer with us—Dr. Lewis Sperry Chaffer, and he's quoted so many times on various subjects, and if I may, let me just read just one little paragraph. And he says, "...within the whole enterprise of winning the loss, there is no factor more vital than the work of the Holy Spirit, in which He, the Holy Spirit, convinces or reproves the cosmos world respecting sin, righteousness, and judgment." The Holy Spirit does that. The holy—W-H-O-L-L-Y—the completely unscripturable and untenable Arminian notion of a common grace, which asserts that all men at birth are so wrought upon by the Holy Spirit that they are rendered capable of an unhindered response to the gospel invitation, has, with the aid of human vanity, so disseminated its misleading errors that little recognition is given to the utter incapacity of the unsaved, natural man to respond to the gospel. Now, that's a rather deep way of putting it, but what he's really saying is that none of us—none of us—have anything within us that energizes us to approach God for salvation on our own. It has to be the work of the Holy Spirit. All right, now let's just show you some Scripture verses to back that very thing up. You're in Matthew now, I think. Chapter 16, Matthew 16. And let's come down to verse 13. And here we have the setting of Jesus and the Twelve shortly before He'll be going up to Jerusalem to be crucified. It's coming toward the end of His three years of earthly ministry. Verse 13 of Matthew 16, He says, When Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, Well, some say you're John the Baptist, some Elijah, others that you're Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He, Jesus, saith unto them, But whom say you that I am? And as was typical, Peter was the spokesman, and he speaks up. And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, period. But see, that was the question that had to be answered at this particular time. And this is what most Jews could not comprehend. They couldn't believe that He was the Messiah. I mentioned a little quirk last night out of the Jerusalem Post, and I thought it was so amusing, and I think the class last night thought so as well. This Jewish rabbi was having a discussion with an evangelical Christian, and the evangelical was speaking of Christ returning very soon. And this Jewish rabbi said, No. He said, He's not going to return, but He's going to come. Well, you see, they don't recognize that He's been here the first time, so he said, No. He said, The Messiah is coming. The evangelical says, Oh, no, He's been here before, and He's going to return. And the rabbi responded, Well, let's just wait till He gets here, and then we'll ask Him if He's been here before. And, you see, this is the whole idea, that they couldn't believe that Jesus was the Christ. But Peter does. All right, now let's read on. And Peter answered in verse 16, Thou art the Christ. Now verse 17, And Jesus answered and said unto him, Peter, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar -Jonah, now here it is, Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but whom? My Father who is in heaven. Now, of course, the Holy Spirit has not come down in a functional role as we know it now today, and so the term, the Father, is absolutely appropriate. All right, let's quickly go now to Acts chapter 16, if you will. Now let's back up. John 15. I want to stop at John on the way through. Stop at John, chapter 15, and then we'll go to Acts chapter 16, and then I imagine our time is gone. John, chapter 15, drop down to verse 16, if you happen to have a red-letter Bible, it's in red. Jesus is speaking. Y'all got it? John chapter 15, verse 16, Jesus says, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. All right, how did these disciples get to where they were? Jesus chose them. They were chosen. All right, let's move on now. I just said to Acts chapter 16. Now we come into Paul's ministry, and here we've got Paul in the land of Greece. He has just recently come over after that Macedonian call, and he's in Philippi, and on the particular Sabbath day, he goes out to a little, I think, a riverside park where evidently Jewish people were meeting, since they didn't have a synagogue evidently, but they're meeting out here by the riverside. And then verse 14, And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God. Now she had a concept of God, but she knew nothing of God's salvation. Now there are a lot of people like that, you know, even in Scripture. Cornelius was one, and the Ethiopian eunuch was one, and we see them scattered throughout Scripture, where they had a knowledge of God, they had a concept of God, but they knew not God. All right, now then verse 14, continuing on, This seller of purple of Thyatira, who worshipped God, heard us, whose heart who opened. The Lord opened, not Paul. It wasn't Paul's fancy preaching that got to her, but what? The Lord opened her heart, and when she opened her heart, she attended to the things which were spoken of Paul. Who made the first move? God does. All right, one more verse. Let's go to Ephesians again. Instead of Ephesians 2, let's look at Ephesians 1, Ephesians chapter 1, and now let's drop down to verse 3. And Paul writes, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, or in a better translation, He has blessed us in the heavenlies. And now verse 4, According as He, that is God, hath, what's the word, chosen us in Him, and when did He choose us? Oh, this is mind-boggling, I know it is, but we have to take it by faith. The Word says it. When were we chosen? Before the world was ever created. Now I hate to leave, I told the television audience when we began, I'd probably have to leave them hanging by a string, and they're going to have to wait a week, but nevertheless, we're going to pick it up right here, the next time we get together. And I hate to say it, but our time is gone. See you next week. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like to be part of our studio audience, call 1-800-369-7856, that's 1-800-369-7856. Or, if you would like a copy of today's Bible study on tape, send your gift of $5 or more to Les Feldick Ministries, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552.