The Fall of Man

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We are studying in the Book of Genesis in this morning session and we are turning today to the third Chapter, which is the chapter on The Fall of Man. And I’m asking if you will, to turn to that passage and listen as I read Versus 1 through 8 of Genesis Chapter 3.

Now the story of the creation has been given. God has created the universe, this earth, the man and the woman, and he has also put man under probation, those accounts given as in the first two Chapters. We resume with the first Verse of the third Chapter and Moses writes,

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?’ And 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. And 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 open, 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 the tree 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, I would like for you to notice that in the Hebrew text at this point, it is a simple, while consecutive, but the idea is, is the idea of them. It’s literally simple and the eyes of both of them were open, but since the connection between verse 7 and verse 6 is so close and one is the consequence of the other, then is the proper rendering of that Hebrew word or particle.

“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. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden.”

May the Lord bless this reading of his word.

The subject for this morning and the continuation of our exposition of the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible is The Fall of Man. One of the profoundest, philosophical and theological problems is the problem of evil. No serious student of philosophy, of the philosophy of the religion, or of theology has managed to avoid it. The reasons are clear. In the first place, the power of evil is great and universal. One only has to look at his television screen for a few moments to see the greatness and the universality of the problem of evil. A glance at the daily newspaper will also confirm it, or a few pages in almost any book that you may be reading today will remind you of the problem of evil.

It is a puzzling continuous blight on creation. God pronounced the creation very good, but that concerning which God said, very good never reaches its heralded expectations. There is promise, but no fulfillment. There is anticipation, but the anticipations become only fantasies or as Shakespeare put it, airy nothings.

It is clear that in spite of the fact that God said that everything that he had made was very good, but things are not very good in the world now. In the physical realm, everything tends to run down and wear out. In the living world, each animal is engaged in a perpetual struggle with other animals and against disease as well as the universal process of aging and death. Culturally, one civilization after another rises, is ascendant for a time and then declines and dies. And in the spiritual and moral realm, each individual invariably finds it easier to do wrong than to do right, easier to drift downwards than to struggle upward. And it’s a matter of our daily experience too. Every one of us knows something of it.

As we look at our newspapers or listen to the television programs concerning the news we read or hear of a plane crash, hundreds of people are killed. In the list of those who are the victims of the accident, there may be the name of an important scientist, a person engaged in some research that might well mean tremendous physical blessings for the human race. But the life is snuffed out. A scholar doing research in some area of human wisdom and knowledge and his life too snuffed out, and usually it’s traceable to the malfunction of some little nut or bolt, some insignificant little thing. There are earthquakes, which without reason seem to wipe out Thousands who are unprepared for the disaster. There is the little child that wanders out of the back gate, down the alley, into another gate that is opened into the backyard where there is a swimming pool with no one present, walks over to it, topples in and drowns, and we read in the next day of a little child, two years old, who has lost his life.

There are those who are in constant pain. I once knew a theologian, one of the truly promising theologians of the present century. He wrote a very outstanding book. He planned to finish a theology that was one volume in his theology. It was an unusually good work, but his life over the last 25 years was a life of constant pain. He frequently will lie upon the bed and look only up the ceiling. He told me, “Lewis, if I look anywhere, but at the ceiling, I cannot possibly stand the pain that I am in.”

I had a good friend who went through seminary when I did, became a missionary leader on a certain foreign field, who became the outstanding man on that field, and was given finally the last word in the decisions of that missionary agency, which and his ministry had been tremendously fruitful. But his life was snuffed out by a brain tumor when he was right just reaching the climax of his usefulness for the Lord. Why? Why all of these things? The discussion of solutions to the problem of evil, we will reserve for a future time, as a discussion for a solution may well now be impossible. G.C. Berkouwer, formerly Professor of Dogmatics at the Free University of Amsterdam said, “We are of the opinion that an explanation for sin is truly impossible.”

There is one thing however, that the Bible speaks unhesitatingly about, and that is about the entrance of evil into this world of which we are a part. And there is no question about that. The Apostle Paul speaking for the divine revelation in Romans Chapter 5 and verse 12, speaks with the outmost plainness and assurance regarding the entrance of evil into this world.

He says therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned. The Apostle claims that sin entered into this world through the fall of Adam and Eve. Later on, he writes in the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans about the creation and he says, for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it and hoped that the creation itself also will be free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. So that at the present time, what we see, what I’d been speaking about is the result of what happened in the Garden of Eden.

Now we take a closer look at that, and we look first at the temptation of man, as described for us in the first 5 Verses of this third Chapter of Genesis. Remember God had created Adam and Eve, and he had placed them in the Garden of Eden. He had given man everything that was necessary for fullness of life. He gave him the fruit from the trees of the garden for his food, he gave him a commission that he was to care for the garden and keep it, and thus through labor he would be prepared for all of the experiences of life that would be significant for him, he had the animals of the animal creation about him to challenge him, and also presume for him to subdue and in the process to learn significant things about human life.

He had the tree in the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in order that he might have moral training, and spiritual training. And let’s not forget that he also had the woman. And he had the women with him as a help made for him, to be his companion, to be his helper, and also to be the one through whom the human race would be preserved, and through whom the race would multiply. Everything seems a deal.

We think of this story sometimes as being mythological, but it is not mythological. It is a historical account. One of the Hebrew commentators on the Hebrew text has said that the temptation really is an account of what went on in the mind of Eve that we are not to think that there was a serpent present, but that these were simply the thoughts that were in the mind of the woman. It was she for example, who thought indeed has God said, “You shall not eat from any tree of the garden.” And then her own answer to her own thoughts showed that what transpired was really in the heart of the woman.

But we are taking this story to be an historical account. The context both before and after suggests that this is narrative material, historical material. The New Testament and the Old Testament, and its references do this account, and there are references both in Hosea and Isaiah, and in other places in the Old Testament and 1 Timothy Chapter 2 and Romans 5, and other places in the New Testament. The biblical references to it suggests that it was also in an historical account. The language itself is the language of history. And so, we rather than think that this is not a mythological thing, but an historical account, and if someone should ask, “Well, what about all of those stories that have some similarities to the account in the Book of Genesis that are found and other literatures? Well, they are memories of this account. They are influenced by it. But this is an historical account.

In my own opinion, I feel that the serpent was also a real serpent, and not simply a symbol of evil. Of course, the serpent has become the symbol of evil after this. The cunning of the serpent or of the snake suggests the cunning craftiness of the devil. The fact that a snake may bite and death may ensue suggests also the bite and the sting, and death that comes from sin. But so far as the Garden of Eden is concerned, we regard the serpent as real. But he was the tool of a superior spirit, and that superior spirit was Lucifer, the son of the Morning or Satan.

Now, this is not stressed in the account and I suppose that the reason for this is that Moses did not want to make it possible for us to have so many excuses over the fall of man. If great stress rest upon the fact that the man and the woman, or that the serpent was really a tool of Satan, and that the man and woman fell because of Satan, there might be a tendency on the part of men to appeal too strongly to that excuse. Well, after all, how could I be expected to stand against Lucifer?

So, that is not stressed, but it does seem to me that what we are thinking about here is, an animal that became the tool of the wicked one. One point is clear, sin is an intruder into God’s creation. It is not good in the making as some of our evolutionary psychologists and scientists would have us to believe, that what began as sin is gradually becoming righteousness and holiness as the years and centuries have followed. This account makes it plain that sin is an intruder into this universe.

Man’s problem is not his environment. After all, Adam and Eve were members of, to use a phrase of one of our late departed Presidents, “Adam and Eve were members of the original great society, but nevertheless they fail.” Man’s problem is not psychological maladjustment as some of the psychologists would have us to believe. I never have really been too much impressed by that reasoning, because if it is true that we have as our basic problem, psychological maladjustment, there must be one class of being not subject to this psychological maladjustment. And it is obvious from literature on this point that we are to understand that the one class of being who is not psychologically maladjusted is the class of the psychologists. And the very fact that you smile and some of you laugh is evidence of the fact that that is an incredible explanation of the problem of man. It is not economic exploitation either. As the Marxists would have it, there was no economic exploitation here, everything was lovely, and the scene was beautiful and the life was fullness itself. Adam and Eve’s lives were truly fulfilled in every way, but nevertheless, evil becomes a reality.

Now, you might have expected that the tempter would be introduced in quite a different way, for remember in the original creation, everything was good and we have no indication of a fall preceding this. But it is evident that there has been some fall in the angelic sphere. For the serpent, the tool of Satan is the tool of a fallen being. So, we must assume that some time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 3:1, there has been fall in the heavenly places. And now the fallen angel Lucifer, takes the serpent as his tool and seeks to tempt the man and the woman in the Garden of Eden.

How would you have expected a fallen being to come? Would you expect him to come as a beautiful past believer in God? Well, I doubt that you would, but that is exactly what he comes as. “Indeed has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?”. So, the Serpent comes as a beautiful past believer in God. There is no question about it. Satan does believe in God. As I’ve been saying over and over here these past few weeks, it is not enough to be a believer in God. Mohammedans believe in God, but they are not Christians, Buddhists believe in God, but they are not Christians. others believe in God who are not Christians. Even some Christians believe in God, who are not truly Christians. The God of the Scriptures is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has offered an atoning sacrifice for sinners upon the cross at Cavalry, and it is faith in this God, and in this God alone that is Christian faith.

“I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh under the father, but by me”. No theology professor said, no simple Christian said who didn’t understand the holiness of the divine revelation, but our Lord Jesus said. So, he is a beautiful past believer in God, at least that’s the way in which he comes. He is more pass than a preacher. And he is more knowledgeable of biblical things than many professors are of Old Testament and our theological skills. I guess we might have expected him to come and say to Adam and to Eve, “Now I am an ancient Madalyn Murray O’Hair, an atheistic monster.” But now he comes as a past believer in God and he says, “Let’s have a little discussion of religion. Let’s discuss God for a while. As a matter of fact, let’s have a weekend seminar on God and Truth.” And you might also give me a $20 for the seminar. I could use it. “Ye, have God said, is it really true?” The Hebrew text gives you that kind of a tone, is it really true that God has said you shall not eat of any tree of the garden. And this is the most disastrous dialog in human history. And it is initiated by the devil about God and in the third person. I think it is significant that it is in the third person.

Many discussions about God become discussions about God and the third person. And so, people are talking about God, but who do not have any real personal relationship to him. Now it is perfectly alright to discuss God in the third person, but those discussions ought to tend to become expressions of relationship to him in the second and first person. In other words, our theology is always to lead the party, to lead to personal experience with the Lord. No theology is of any good what so ever that is not ultimately picked or old theology, that is theology that touches the inmost being of a man and causes him ultimately, to rest in trust upon the Lord Jesus Christ and the triune God. So, it is a seminar about God in the third person.

Now the steps in Satan’s subtlety are very clear. First of all, he questions the word of God. “Ye have God said.” Is it really true that God has said, “Indeed has God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?” Notice this about him too, just like the modernists and the contemporary, unbelieving theologians, he does not begin with a point blank denial of the word of God. He does not enter his pulpit of doubt and say, “Now I want you to know, I don’t believe in divine revelation, I don’t believe in special revelation, I don’t really believe that you have ever had fellowship with the triune God. These are all your own imaginations and dreams and visions.” He doesn’t begin like that.

As a matter of fact, in the Bible, Satan has a great deal more intelligence than to begin like that. He doesn’t begin with point-blank denials, he aims his indeeds and his ifs at the Father’s honor. Can it be that he has really created you too and he does not allow you to eat up all of the trees of the garden? Has he withheld something from you? Can a loving God really withhold things from his creatures? Think of it. A creature of this great God you’re talking about, restrained from any tree in the whole of his garden? This was an attack on the sanctity of the word of God, don’t forget that. Because God has said that, “From that tree you shall not eat, in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” So, this is an attack on the sanctity of the word of God. [It’s] o easy to attack the word of God and not realize it. Eve didn’t realize it, she did not say right at the beginning, “Wait a minute, you are attacking the word of God and I refuse to be subject to that kind of testing.”

She is wavering already as you can from her answer. Incidentally, it is to me rather interesting that the alteration of the word of God is the method of most of the cults today, by all to the word of God by adding to it usually. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not attack the word of God, they say they believe the word of God. They do not attack the deity of Jesus Christ, they say they believe it though they don’t understand it and do not really believe it. But they say that they do. They attack the word of God by adding to it either some more books or some interpretations, which are contrary to the teaching of the word of God. Contemporary theologians also alter the word of God, but they do not alter it by adding to it, they alter it by deleting things from it. They will say, “We can believe this in the Bible, but we cannot believe this. We can accept this, but this is not reliable over here.”

So, now notice what Eve does in her answer. We read here that the woman said, “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.'” I don’t want to make too much over this because it is not specifically stressed here, but is quite plain that Eve has added something that was not in the original prohibition or the original probation. She has said, “Or touch it, lest you die.” Now she is seeking to defend God, but at the same time, she has become a wavering woman, because she finds it necessary to defend him. Now in the addition of the words, “Or touch it” I feel that this is truly an addition to the word of God, which she has herself given, but I don’t want to make too much of it, I just suggest to you that it seems to be from the account in Genesis 2 and also here.

The second step in Satan’s subtlety is the direct contradiction of the word. The serpent said to the woman in the Holy Verse, “You surely shall not die.” This is the first lie in the Bible. And the Satan is the liar and therefore, it is not surprising that we read in the New Testament that Jesus said that he was the Father of Liars. This is a direct assault on the word of God. He says, “You shall surely not die.” In all the words, woman, it’s not really a matter of life and death and he says it strongly too, for the Hebrew text puts it in one of the strongest of the negative prohibition types of expression in the Old Testament, “You shall surely not die.” It is not a matter of life or death, disobedience of the word of God. But of course, that is just the point it is a matter of life and death, it’s a matter of life and death today, how we respond to the word of God. This is the blackest lie in all of history and it is aimed at genocide, because Satan wished to destroy the whole of the race. And of course, ultimately it will involve theocide, because it will be necessary for the Son of God to come and to die upon the cross at Cavalry and order that the race may be saved through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now there is another thing that to me is rather interesting here. Have you ever heard people speak about preachers this way? Yes, he is very sound in the Bible, it is true, but he is a hellfire and damnation preacher. That is a very bad connotation in the minds of many. No homiletics professor in any theological seminary of which I am aware ever tells his students, now preach hellfire and damnation. I have never heard it. It may be taking place, let us hope so, but I have never heard it.

Now at the same time, I do not know of any — in conservative seminars who is saying, do not preach about hell, do not preach about damnation, but the idea of being a hellfire damnation preacher creates the impression of someone who is very illiterate, ignorant, who raves and rants, and really tells us that will be able to go hell and suffer hellfire. That is very unpopular today. He must be smoother that that. He must bring it in, but do not attract attention to it. Now there is a great deal that can be said. I am not saying that we should appear in the pulpit illiterate, ignorant. Some of us can’t help it, but I am not recommending that at all. But I do want you to notice that the first lie in the Bible concerns the doctrine of eternal judgment, “You shall not surely die.” That’s the first lie the denial of the doctrine of eternal judgment. So let the preachers of hill far in domination do that preaching we needed.

Now, notice the last step. He explains. He said, “You shall not surely die for God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. You will know good and evil.” Now this is what we would call a little well poisoning. In other words, he maligns the author of the word himself. He not only questions his word, he not only contradicts it, but he now maligns God himself. After all, what is the matter with God? Why he is afraid you will learn his tricks?

Or let me put it a way more suitable for women. He is afraid that you will learn his recipes and if you learn his recipes, well then you won’t need him. And if we know all of God’s secrets, he is afraid that we will be inclined to retire him from service. So he is afraid. Now as the French would say, there is a kind of double entendre in this particular statement in the fifth verse. God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened. That’s true, they will be opened. And you will be like God, you will know good and evil and that’s true too. You will know good and evil but, of course, you won’t know it like God knows it. You will know what is good and you will know what is evil, but unfortunately you will know what is good and be unable to do it and you will know what is evil and you cannot keep from doing it. But the woman is listening now, sin has already taken place.

You can see that Satan has left several impressions. First that the knowledge of good and evil is what makes God, but is not for later it will be said that they know good and evil, but they are not gods. Further that Adam and Eve were capable of knowing good and evil as perfectly and completely as God knows good and evil. That’s another lie.

And the third lie is the lie that God is jealous of his knowledge of good and evil and of his unique place on the universe and he is fighting to preserve his own interest. He has self-interest in this situation. How ridiculous? How ridiculous. We look at it now and say how foolish a person can be to think that God is a person who is scratching and striving and scheming in order to remain God — how foolish, even an Arminian wouldn’t believe that.

Why did Satan attack the woman? Well he knew, first of all, that she was not the federal head of the race. And he knew that since she was not the federal head of the race, she might not feel the responsibility for the race that Adam would. And second, he thought that perhaps he might have some influence on Eve win her and she would have great influence on Adam, and that he was right.

Now then the Fall is described in the sixth verse. I want you to notice this fall is both internal and external. It is important to see that there is the sinful inclination that issues in the sinful volition. Sin took place before Eve took the fruit and ate it. She had already sinned and the response of the sinful inclination was the sinful volition, “I will take the fruit,” and the eating of it the sinful action. So there is sinful inclination, sinful volition, sinful action, but the sin takes place with the inclination. Mesmerized by the serpent, listening to the creature rather than the Creator, following impressions and not instructions from the word of God, seeking self-fulfillment not the glory of God, Adam and Eve inclined to evil. They volitioned — volitionally took of the fruit and they ate off it and in that act, sin was complete. And yet in spite of that they are both still religious people. Religion doesn’t save anyone.

Now, I have I think put in the Believer’s Bible Bulletin some words about the aspects of sin that Eve saw that the tree was good for food, that is there was an appeal to the physical into the bodily appetites. It was pleasant to the eyes and appeal to the emotions and esthetic senses that it was a desire to make one wise and appeal to the mind and the spirit into one’s pride of knowledge and spiritual insight. John speaks about that in his First Epistle in the second chapter in the sixteenth verse. And I think I also made reference to the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ temptation was of the same kind, but he overcame in each part of it.

Now the simple description of the sinful volition and action in the last part of Verse six should be noted. She took from its fruit and she ate, and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate. What a simple description of these acts, but how difficult the undoing of what happened in the Garden of Eden. Eve incidentally reasoned when she have relied upon her husband and the word of God. And Adam, instead of reasoning spiritually, The New Testament seems to teach that he willfully did what he did while she was deceived. Adam instead of reasoning and using the mind that God had given him, he acted emotionally influenced by his wife — he hearkened to the voice of his wife, the Lord said — and together they sinned.

Now the consequences of the Fall are described in verses 7 and 8, and I want you to notice the word that I emphasized in the Scripture reading, it is a little word then. That’s an accurate translation of the Hebrew particle at this place. Then the eyes of both of them were open. Now I want you to notice carefully the way this is worded. It is not worded this way. She took from its fruit and ate, and her eyes were opened and she knew that she was naked. It is not worded that way. It says, she took from its fruit and ate and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate then. You see the key person in this temptation, sorry ladies, the key person is Adam. Eve ate and so far as the record is concerned nothing happened. But when Adam part took, then to use a figure of speech, which has a lot of reality to it, all hell broke lose.

Then their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked. Why is this? Because Adam was superior to Eve? No, we all know that’s not true, especially the ladies. Adam is the federal head. He is the federal head, and because he is the federal head, that’s what happens. There is the federal head, the first Adam and there is the federal head, the second federal head, the last Adam. And God deals with men through Adam and through Christ. And so when he ate then, the eyes of both of them were opened. They saw the shame due to the guilt of their realizing that the fountainhead of life, for they were told to be fruitful and multiply, but now, the very fountainhead of life, the physical body is polluted by sin. And as a consequence, they can only bring forth after their own kind and the shame of sin, of guilt, and condemnation has so gripped them that they now see their nakedness.

And it is not until a naked man hangs on the cross at Calvary centuries later that the remedy is finally given by God for remember our Lord Jesus, as he was hanging upon the cross, had his clothes stripped from him and the soldiers cast lots for him for he must not only bear the sin and the guilt and condemnation of it but the reproach of it as well and die as a naked man reminiscent of the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Every clause in the Bible is important. Don’t forget it. If you don’t see anything there it’s because you are blind at that point and mind you, I’m blind at many points too. But I’ve discovered through years of study of the Scriptures that all of the Bible is important and significant.

So, because their eyes were open and they knew that they were naked, they Thought they would make for themselves a little covering of fig leaves. Have you ever had fig leaves, have you ever felt fig leaves? What a poor covering. They make you itch, scratch. I have a fig tree in my backyard. I would not want a cloth, a piece of garment from those fig leaves. Hard shaft and marks, does not desire them. It is beautiful picture of the inadequacy of human tips to cover our nakedness, fig Leaves. But the laws of nature take over now, pain, senility and death.

C.S. Lewis has some interesting words concerning this. He says the human spirit is no longer master, but simply a lodger in the house. And now God begins to rule the human spirit, not by the laws of spirit, but by those of nature. In the footnote, he says this is the development of hooker’s conception of law. To disobey your proper law, that is the law God makes for being such as you, means to find yourself being one of God’s lower laws.

If when walking on slippery pavement, you neglect the law of prudence, you will soon be observing the law of gravitation. So, because Adam and Eve neglected the law that God had given them in the Garden, they must now obey a lower law, and instead of being master of their fate, they are now subject to the divine judgment. And so when God comes down in the Garden of Eden, they cover over in the bushes. To put it in modern terms, the terms of the psychologist, there is an altered state of interpersonal relations. You see they do know God, good and evil, but they don’t know it as God. They know their nakedness, they know they need a covering, they know that all their righteousnesses are as filthy rags now. And now they know that the only thing that will help them is some remedy from God. It’s the garments of salvation, which they don’t know about yet.

When I began by saying that, evil is an enigma in our life, here is the clue to lives in enigma. The built-in deaf principle comes from Eden, the Garden of Eden, and The Fall of Man, and the attitude of Adam and Eve is the natural attitude of man, when he thinks about the true God of the Bible. He ran and hid, “For there is none that seeketh after God, no not one.” I saw one man coming in this morning, a good friend, attends regularly here, he was bringing several of his children, and there is a little girl crying. She didn’t want to come. I shouted over to him. There is “None that seeketh after God, no not one.” That’s the natural man. He does not want to be brought into the presence of God. He wants to hide in the bushes.

When the Lord God comes in the breezy time of the day, in order to renew fellowship with him, but the Bible is the story of how God renews that fellowship. He came seeking Adam. “Where art Thou?” And then he gave him the Messianic promise of the redeemer, who would come and crush the head of the serpent, although his own heel would be crushed in the process. And then he acted out a little drama, so that they would have a lesson. He slew an animal. He took the skin off and clothed Adam and Eve in token of what he would do through the blood of the Lamb of God that would be shed. So, sin is met by grace. And God’s where art Thou, by our Lord Jesus Christ’s, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” May God speak to your heart. If you hear this morning under sin, guilt and condemnation there is a remedy. Through the Lamb of God, come to Him. Let’s stand for the benediction.

[Prayer] Father, we again, praise Thee and thank Thee for the ministry of Thy word, how rich is the Bible, and how reliable are its truths for they are words of our faithful God and Heaven. We give Thee thanks for the redeemer who now has come and who has delivered us from our sins. Father for those in this audience who have not yet come to Him, give them no rest nor peace until they rest in Christ. May grace mercy and peace go with us.

For Jesus sake. Amen.