Sermon Tone Analysis

Genesis 3:6‑19

When the Chickens Come Home to Roost

 

Within each member of the human race is the confidence that there is a God and that ultimately each individual shall give an account to that God.

There is no such critter as a “born atheist.”

The atheist is an individual who, knowing he shall face judgement, vainly attempts to deny responsibility by denying the existence of God.

Each man, I say, knows there is a God and that he shall face that God one day.

This prospect brings only dread and fear if the individual allows himself to think about it.

The dread of facing God grows out of the results of the Fall of our first parents.

When they fell they experienced three grievous reminders of their exercise of self-will.

We, as their heirs, experience these same three reminders of our fallen condition.

We experience a sense of guilt, a sense of condemnation, and a separation from God.

 

Before God, all mankind experiences a Sense of Guilt.

The eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

As soon as they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve knew they were naked.

This is more than mere consciousness of their condition, as we have discussed in a previous message.

They sinned against God and at the very moment they disobeyed, fellowship was broken.

They were guilty, but more importantly for the purpose of this particular study, they felt guilty.

In our study of *First John* this past Wednesday evening we reviewed the relationship of love and obedience.

This particular study was in relation to *1 John 2:3-6*.

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.

The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him.

This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

To know God is to submit to His commands.

Loving God is revealed through obedience to His commands.

To reinforce this point I cited several passages from *Deuteronomy*.

Perhaps one of the best known passages of Scripture cited was *Deuteronomy 6:4-7*.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

Impress them on your children.

Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

As soon as the command to love God is given it is evident that such love is contingent upon obedience to the commands of the Lord.

This relationship of love and obedience becomes more apparent still in the following verses.

Now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good [*Deuteronomy 10:12,13*]?

Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always [*Deuteronomy 11:1*].

Our first parents demonstrated that they had replaced love for the Creator with self-love through disobedience to the express command of Him who gave them life.

Immediately they felt their guilt because they were guilty before God.

They were disobedient and they had displaced love for God with love for self.

Their guilt is evident in their actions.

They attempted to cover over their nakedness, hoping God wouldn’t notice, and they attempted to hide from God.  Trying to cover over the evidence of our sin and trying to hide from God are to this day evidence of our guilt before God.

To this day we each experience a sense of guilt before God.

We are frustrated since we know we are created in the image of God.

We are to be more than we are and we are powerless to become what we should.

The guilt is always present with us.

An excellent example of the guilt we feel is found in the *38th Psalm*.

David writes:

 

O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger

or discipline me in your wrath.

For your arrows have pierced me,

and your hand has come down upon me.

Because of your wrath there is no health in my body;

my bones have no soundness because of my sin.

My guilt has overwhelmed me

like a burden too heavy to bear.

[*Psalm 38:1-4*]

 

A similar sentiment is expressed in *Psalm 69:5*.

You know my folly, O God;

my guilt is not hidden from you.

Worse still, when we are confronted by the presence of God we attempt to excuse our lack of righteousness through accusing others.

Adam blamed God for his failure.

The essence of Adam’s response to God’s query is, “Had you not placed that woman here I would not have sinned.”

Eve blamed the serpent.

How could she help herself?

After all, she was just a woman and the serpent was an expert in deceit.

To this day we think we can excuse our sin through accusing another … even God.

Nationally syndicated columnist Christie Blatchford had an insightful column in yesterday’s edition of the National Post.[1]

The article questions the commonly held view that girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, whereas boys are made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails.

Ms.

Blatchford’s position, a position readily supported by the Word of God, is that women are notorious liars … just as are men.

Karla Homolka is as capable of murder as is Paul Bernardo.

Both men and women are sinners before God and both alike, when confronted by their sinful nature, make excuses for their actions.

Though we may excuse ourselves, God weighs our motives just as Solomon states.

All a man’s ways seem innocent to him,

but motives are weighed by the LORD.

[*Proverbs 16:2*]

Perhaps we don’t think of ourselves as awful sinners, but that is because we don’t think often of the perfect standard by which God judges an individual.

God sets a standard of perfection.

He says, Be holy because I am holy [*1 Peter 1:16*].

Holiness has but one standard—perfection.

Against this standard no one can stand.

Isaiah has accurately described us when he says,

 

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to his own way.

[*Isaiah 53:6*]

 

Knowing we were created to enjoy fellowship with God, knowing we are created in the image of God, knowing we are only a little lower than God—we are frustrated to know we cannot achieve the position we were created to fill.

The nearer we draw to God in our own efforts the more we are condemned.

This is the observation which James notes in *James 2:10*.

Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

We are deluded if we imagine that we can somehow please God through our own efforts, or even think that we may somehow keep the Law which God gave through Moses.

There are over three hundred fifty prohibitions and two hundred fifty positive commands which are recorded in the Law.

I am confident that no one of us is capable of reciting those six hundred thirteen laws to say nothing of obeying them perfectly.