Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: Welcome to Thru the Bible. I'm so glad that you're riding the Bible bus with us today as we enter the first deep, deep valley of our journey. If you traveled with us through Revelation, you heard Dr. McGee call it Grand Central Station where all the great themes of Scripture come together. That was the end of the line. Now we're at the very beginning where every one of those themes first takes shape. And I'll be honest, it's not a pretty picture. But here's the good news: it's not the end of the story.

So as you open your Bible to Genesis chapter 3, I want to share an uplifting note from one of our fellow travelers on the Bible bus in Kenya. She writes this: "Your teachings have brought healing to my life. I was employed and also ran a shop, but four months ago I lost both. I was ready to give up, but through the teaching, I found God as my helper. I put my trust in him, and I can say that everything I have now is made possible by God.

We have been going through tough times as refugees. Many of my friends have returned to South Sudan, but I cannot go because I am still in school. Thank you for always uplifting me and encouraging me to stick with Jesus, even when I don't know where help will come from. I trust God for all my provision." That's powerful, isn't it? As we study God's word, may we too be reminded that no matter where we live or what we face, God is faithful.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, it's because of your grace and mercy that you provided a way of salvation for us and for this lost and dying world. So we ask that many will be drawn to you through the teaching of your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Now let's open to Genesis 3 as we go through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now today, friends, we're returning back to our study in the book of Genesis, and we've come to the third chapter to the judgment of the fall. And that is in verse 14. May I say that we have now seen this man, this creature that God has made, turn aside from God, and now God must deal with him; God must judge him. And I'm reading in verse 14: "And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life."

Now all we can say about this is that the serpent is certainly not the slithering creature that we think of today. He was different at the beginning. There has been pronounced upon him this judgment. And now God pronounces a judgment upon Satan, which has a tremendous effect upon man. And I would have you memorize this verse if you are one who does memorize Scripture. But here is one that you certainly ought to know. Actually, this is the first prophecy of the coming of the Messiah, the Savior, into the world.

Let me read it, verse 15: "And I will put enmity between thee, [that is, Satan] and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it [that is, Christ] shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Now this is a tremendous statement that is given to us here. And I think that the most prominent thought that we have here is not the ultimate victory that would come, but the long continued struggle. It reveals the fact that now there's to be a long struggle between good and evil. And that is exactly what you're going to find in the rest of the Scripture.

For instance, the Lord Jesus could make the statement in his day in John 8:44 concerning this struggle, and let me read that: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth because there's no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it." Now that is, if you please, that is Satan, and that is God's judgment. You see, and now this distinction is made, and there's going to be this conflict.

John again mentions it in 1 John 3:10: "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother." So that now we have brought before us the fact that here is a conflict; here is a struggle. Here are two seeds in the world, but there would be the final victory. But the long continued struggle is important. Every man must face temptation, must win his battle, if you please. Now before Christ came, the victory was through obedience in faith.

After Christ came, we're to identify ourselves with Christ through faith. What does it mean to be saved? It means to be in Christ. And now we see this man. He was one of three orders of creation: angels, man, and animals. Animals were given no choice, but men and angels were given a choice. And here you have, if you please, man's choice. And he's held responsible for the decision that he's made here, and he's made a decision. And you'll notice something else: it says "her seed." It doesn't say the man's seed.

Here is at least the suggestion of the virgin birth. When God went into that garden looking for man, he said, "Where art thou?" Any anthology of religion tells the story of man's search for God. My friend, that's not the way God tells it. Let's tell it like it is: salvation is God's search for man. Man ran away from him. And when God said, "Where art thou?" Dr. Griffith Thomas says this is the call of divine justice, which cannot overlook sin, and it's the call of divine sorrow, which grieves over the sinner, and it's the call of divine love, which offers redemption from sin.

You have all of that in this verse here, the promise of the coming of the Savior. And this is the picture all the way through Scripture. Paul wrote, "There's none that seeketh after God." And the Lord Jesus said, "You've not chosen me; I've chosen you." And we can say today, "We love him because he first loved us." Now God seeks out man, and he offers man salvation, but there's going to be a long struggle that's going to take place, which I think is made very clear to us at this particular point.

Now as we move on down here, every man, every man now is going to have to make his decision. That is what is given. Unto the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." That's a judgment upon woman. She can't bring a child into the world without sorrow. Isn't that an interesting thing, that that should be true?

The very thing that brings joy into the life and continues the human family has to come through sorrow. That's life, if you please, and man needs to learn that. And we'll see in the next chapter he didn't learn it as quickly as he should have. Unto Adam he said, "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life."

This is the judgment upon man. "Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field." And now notice Genesis 3:19: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Now death comes to man. It did not come physically. After all, what is death? Well, physical death is a separation of the person, the spirit, the soul from the body.

The body, the writer to Ecclesiastes says, goes down to the dust, but the spirit returns unto God who gave it. You see, man ultimately must answer to God, whether he's saved or lost; he's going to have to answer to God. But you see, Adam didn't die physically the day that he ate. He didn't die until 900 and some odd years later. What about that? Well, the whole point is just simply this: that he died spiritually. He was separated from God. You see, death is separation.

Paul said to the Ephesians that they were "dead in trespasses and sins." Well, they weren't dead physically, but they were dead spiritually, separated from God. And you remember our Lord in that wonderful parable of the prodigal son, he told about this boy that got away from the father. And when he returned, the father said to the elder son, "This my son, who was dead, he is found." Dead? Sure he's dead, not physically, but he was separated from the father. And to be separated from the father means just simply that, and it means death.

And you remember the Lord Jesus said to those two sisters, "I'm the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead," dead how? Spiritually, that is, separated from God. Now man died the moment he ate. That's the reason he ran away from God. That's the reason he sewed fig leaves. And believe me, those fig leaves tell quite a story. I think frankly, as we're going to see now, that when God now clothes man—and notice this—Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living.

And at this time I'm sure Cain and Abel had been born after the fall. Now will you notice verse 21: "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." And you'll find that in order to have the skins of animals, the animals have to be slain. They just don't go around without their skins, you see. And so these animals were slain. And I believe that this is the origin of sacrifice, that God made it clear to man.

Now when God rejected the fig leaves and now he makes skins, and when Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, they looked back upon a bloody sacrifice. And they saw the cherubim there, as we shall see in a moment. And when they left the Garden of Eden and looked back, they saw exactly what God had Moses put on the mercy seat: two cherubim looking down upon the blood that was there, and that was the way to God. Now I think there are four great lessons here that we see from the fig leaves now and the fact God clothes them.

Number one is man must have adequate covering to approach God. And you can't come to God just as you are—that is, if you're bringing good works with you. You must come just as you are, a sinner. That's the way that you come. And number two: fig leaves are unacceptable. They're homemade; God doesn't take a homemade garment. Number three: God must provide the covering. And then number four: the covering is only obtained through the death of the Lord Jesus.

May I say to you, man must have a substitute between him and God's wrath. And that's important even in these days for man to consider. You know, the hardest thing in the world is for man to take his rightful position before God. And I have a little poem here, it's on prayer, that I think reveals even in our own hearts the necessity of this. Listen to this:

"I asked for strength that I might achieve; he made me weak that I might obey. I asked for health that I might do greater things; I was given grace that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy; I was given poverty that I might be wise. I asked for power that I might have the praise of men; I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life; I was given life that I might enjoy all things. I received nothing that I asked for, but all that I hoped for. My prayer was answered."

May I say to you, salvation comes when you and I take our proper place as a sinner before God. Now will you notice verse 22 of Genesis 3: "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever." Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken.

And all I can say to that is thank God that God did not let him live eternally in sin, that God's not going to let him do that. And that's really a blessing. Verse 24: "So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." Now that doesn't mean that he put up a roadblock. It really means that the way of life was kept open for man to God, and now it doesn't come through the tree of life, but now salvation must come through a sacrifice.

And when man looked back, as I've indicated, this is what he saw. Now that brings us now to the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis. Actually, we have in Genesis 3 the root of sin; in Genesis 4 the fruit of sin. You see, the first two chapters were creation; the next two chapters, 3 and 4, we've labeled sin. We have now the root of sin in chapter 3; chapter 4 the fruit of sin. Then the question arises: how bad is sin?

Well, may I say to you that we find that man just wasn't suffering from blood poisoning; some little something hadn't happened to him. May I say to you that chapter 4 reveals how much had really happened to the man, and that he had by his disbelief and his disobedience now he's turned away from God and he's sinned in such a way that he's brought upon himself and his race the judgment, because you and I are given this same kind of nature. We have the same nature that our father had.

And I tell you, Papa Adam has given us a pretty bad nature, and that's for all of us. That is something we need to see here. And it's revealed in the story of the two sons of Adam and Eve. Now they had more children than this, but we're only given these two here at this time. "And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord." Now this is Genesis 4:1, and this reveals the fact that Adam and Eve certainly did not anticipate that the struggle was going to be long.

When Cain was born, why, she said, "I've gotten the man from the Lord." God said that the seed of the woman, and here he is. But he wasn't; he was a murderer. He was no savior at all. And it'll be a long time before the Savior comes. And friends, after a minimum of 6,000 years—and if you really want to know the truth, I think it's been longer than that—the struggle's been going on between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

Now will you notice: "And she again bare his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground." Here are the two boys now that we're looking at. Now will you notice, it says, "In process of time." Actually, it means "at the end of days," which would mean on the Sabbath day, I think, on the day that God had rested. "And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought"—and the idea of "brought" here means to an appointed place.

So they are bringing an offering to God to an appointed place to worship. And all this would indicate, of course, they're doing it by revelation. In fact, I know they are. You say, how do you know? Well, if when we turn to the 11th chapter of Hebrews we read: "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." By faith. How could he offer it by faith? Well, faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. So God had to give his word about this, or this boy could never have come by faith. And that's the way he came.

Now the other boy didn't come that way. But we find here that Cain brought the fruit of the ground. And there's nothing wrong with the fruit. Don't think that he brought the leftovers. He's not giving old clothes to the mission now. I think that the fruit he brought would have won the blue ribbon in any county fair or state fair in the country. He brought delicious fruit. And he brought that as an offering to the Lord.

"And Abel, he also brought the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell." Now the thing that Cain did, somebody says, I don't see anything wrong in it at all. Well, Jude in his epistle, the 11th verse, says speaking of apostates in the last days, they've gone in the way of Cain. Well, what is the way of Cain?

Cain, when he brought an offering to God, he didn't come by faith. He came on his own. And the offering that he brought denied that human nature's evil. God said, you bring that little sacrifice which will point to the Redeemer who's coming in the world, and you come on that basis. Don't come by bringing the works of your own hand. And it also denies that man was separated from God. He acted like everything was all right. And that's what liberalism does today, talks about the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man.

Friends, things are not all right with us today. We're not born children of God; we are born again children of God. Man is separated from God. Cain refused to recognize that, and multitudes today refuse to do that. Then the third thing: he denied that man cannot offer works to God. He felt he could. God says, "It's not by works of righteousness which we've done, it's according to his mercy he saved us." And we find that actually the difference between these two boys wasn't a character difference at all; it's the offering that they brought.

These two boys had the same background. They had the same heredity. They had the same environment. There wasn't that difference between them. Don't tell me that Cain got his bad disposition from an alcoholic uncle; he didn't have an uncle. And don't say that Abel got his from a very fine aunt on his mother's side—the other was on the father's side, of course, but that wasn't true. You see, they just didn't have aunts and uncles then. And they had the same heredity and same environment.

The difference is in the offering. And that offering makes the difference in men today. And no Christian takes the position that he is better than anyone else. The thing that makes him a Christian is he recognizes that he's a sinner like everyone else, and that he needs an offering. He needs a sacrifice. He needs someone to take his place and die. And Paul says in Romans 3:25: "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood."

And therefore Paul again could write: "They being ignorant of God's righteousness they go about to establish a righteousness of their own." And that's the picture of multitudes of people today. They are attempting through religion or joining a church or doing something that they make themselves acceptable to God. May I say, God's righteousness can only come to you because you have to have a perfect one; it can only come to you through Christ providing it to you.

He was delivered for our offenses. He was raised for our justification, that is, for our righteousness. He was the one who took our place. He was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And that's the righteousness. Paul says, "That I might be found in him, not having mine own righteousness"—that's Cain—"but the righteousness which is by faith in Jesus Christ"—that's Abel, if you please. Why did Cain get angry? We'll look at that next time. May God richly bless you.

Steve Schwetz: Well, the Bible bus rolls on next time through Genesis 4 and 5. You can read it before you hop aboard yourself. You'll be amazed at how much more you get out of our study. And if you haven't yet picked up your copy of *Briefing the Bible*, which contains all of Dr. McGee's notes and outlines for our five-year journey through God's word, then visit TTB.org and download it today. Or call 1-800-65-BIBLE, and we'll mail you an abbreviated paperback edition.

App users, well, you'll find the notes and outlines right in the menu. Now as we close, would you remember to pray for this ministry? We certainly do value your intercession more than anything else. Would you pray that God's word will go out unhindered and reach receptive hearts around the world? And then pray for our global producers, our staff, and our World Prayer Team intercessors as well. The effectiveness of everything we do depends on faithful prayer, so thank you.

And if you'd like to pray with us regularly—and who would not want to do that?—just visit TTB.org and join the World Prayer Team. Every weekday, we'll send you prayer prompts and stories of lives that God is changing through the study of his word. It's a joy and a privilege to intercede together, so come along with us. Again, sign up in our app or at TTB.org. I'm Steve Schwetz, and I'll meet you right back here for our next study.

Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow. Ride the Bible bus for five years and you'll be amazed at what God teaches you from his word about what it means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. It's a blessing that keeps on going. That's what we believe at Thru the Bible.