How God Comes to Man

How God Comes to Man

(No. 2900)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1904.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JULY
13, 1876.

"And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the
cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the Presence
ofthe LORD God among the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called
unto Adam, and said unto him, Where are you?" Genesis 3:8,9.

"How will God come to us now that we have rebelled against Him?" That
is a question which must have greatly perplexed our first parents. They
may have said to one another, "Perhaps God will not come to us at all
and then we shall be orphans, indeed. If spared to live on, we must
continue to live without God and without hope in the world." It would
have been the worst thing that could have happened to our race if God
had left this planet to take its own course and had said, concerning
the people upon it, "I will leave them to their own way, for they are
given over to idols."

But if He came to our first parents, in what way would He come? Surely
Adam and Eve must have feared that He would be accompanied by the
angels of vengeance to destroy them straight away, or, at any rate, to
bind them in chains and fetters forever. So they questioned among
themselves, "Will He come and if He does, will His coming involve the
total destruction of the human race?" Their hearts must have been
sorely perplexed within them while they were waiting to see what God
would do to them as a punishment for the great sin they had committed.
I believe they thought that He would come to them. From their past
experience they knew so much of His graciousness that they felt sure
that He would come. Yet they also understood so much of His holy anger
against sin that they must have been afraid of His coming–so they went
and hid themselves among the trees of the garden although every tree
must have upbraided them for their disobedience, for everyone of the
trees would seem to say, "Why do you come here? You have eaten of the
fruit of the tree of which you were forbidden to partake. You have
broken your Maker's command and His sentence of death has already gone
out against you. When He comes, He will certainly come to deal with you
in judgment according to His faithful word–and when He does, what will
become of you?" Every leaf, as it rustled, must have startled and
alarmed them. The breath of the evening breeze, as it passed through
the garden, must have filled them with fear and dread as to the doom
awaiting them.

Now, "in the cool of the day," or, as the Hebrew has it, "in the wind
of the evening," when the evening breeze was blowing through the
garden, God came. It is difficult for us to even imagine how He
revealed Himself to our first parents. I suppose He condescended to
take upon Himself some visible form. It was "the voice of the Lord God"
they heard in the garden and you know that it is the Word of God who
has been pleased to make Himself visible to us in human flesh. He may
have assumed some form in which they could see Him, otherwise, as a
pure Spirit, God could not have been recognized either by their ears or
their eyes.

They heard His voice speaking as He walked in the garden in the cool of
the day. And when He called to Adam, albeit that there was righteous
anger in the tone of His voice, yet His words were very calm and
dignified and, as far as they could be, even tender, for, while you may
read the words thus, "Adam, where are you?" You may also read them
thus, "Where are you, poor Adam, where are you?" You may put a tone of
pity into the words and yet not misread them. So the Lord comes thus in
gentleness in the cool of the day and calls them to account. He
patiently listens to their wicked excuses and then pronounces upon them
a sentence, which, heavy though it is towards the serpent and heavy
though it is

towards all who are not saved by the woman's wondrous Seed, yet has
much mercy mingled with it in the promise that the Seed of the woman
shall bruise the head of the serpent–a promise which must have shone
in their sad and sinful souls as some bright particular star shines in
the darkness of the night!

I learn from this incident that God will come to sinful men, sooner or
later, and we may also learn from the way in which He came to our first
parents, how He is likely to come to us. His coming will be different
to different men, but we gather, from this incident, that God will
certainly come to guilty men even if He waits till the cool of the day.
And we are also able to understand a little about the way in which He
will ultimately come to all men.

Remember this, Sinner, however far you may get away from God, you will
have to come close to Him one of these days! You may go and pluck the
fruit that He forbids you to touch and then you may go and hide
yourself among the thick trees in the forest and think that you have
concealed yourself–but you will have to come face to face with your
Maker at some time or other! It may not be today, or tomorrow. It may
not be until "the cool of the day" of time. No, it may not be till
time, itself, shall be no more–but, at last, you will have to confront
your Maker! Like the comet that flies far off from the sun, wandering
into space for an altogether inconceivable distance and yet has to come
back again, however long the time its circuit takes–so you will have
to come back to God, either willingly, repentantly, believingly, or
else unwillingly and in chains to receive your sentence of doom from
the lips of the Almighty whom you have provoked to anger by your sin!
God and you have to meet as surely as you are now living–at some time
or other, each one of you must hear the voice of the Lord God saying to
you, as He said to Adam, "Where are you?"

Now, from this meeting between God and fallen man, I learn a few
lessons which I will pass on to you as the Holy Spirit shall enable me.

I. The first is this. When God did meet with fallen man, it was not
until the cool of the day. This suggests to me GOD'S GREAT PATIENCE
WITH THE GUILTY.

Whether Adam and Eve sinned in the early morning, or in the middle of
the day, or toward evening, we do not know. It is not necessary that we
should know this, but it is probable that the Lord God allowed an
interval to intervene between the sin and the sentence. He was not in a
hurry to come because He could not come except in anger to bring their
sins home to them. You know how quick the tempers of some men are. If
they are provoked, it is a word and a blow with them, for they have no
patience. It is our littleness that makes us impatient. God is so great
that He can endure far more than we can. And though our first parents'
sin greatly provoked Him–and it is to His Glory that He is so holy
that He cannot look upon iniquity without indignation–yet He seemed to
say to Himself, "I must go and call these two creatures of Mine to
account for their sin. Yet judgment is My strange work–it is mercy in
which I delight. This morning I drew back the curtains that had
shielded them during the night and poured the sunlight in upon them,
not a second beyond the appointed time, and I was glad to do it. And
all day long I have been showering mercies upon them and the refreshing
night-dews are already beginning to fall upon them. I will not go down
to them till the latest possible moment. I will put it off till the
cool of the day." God will do nothing in the heat of
passion–everything shall be deliberate, calm, majestic and Divine!

The fact that God did not come to question His sinful creatures till
the cool of the day ought to teach us the greatness of His patience and
it should also teach us to be patient with others. How wondrously
patient God has been with some of you who are here! You have lived many
years and enjoyed His mercies, yet you have scarcely thought about Him.
Certainly, you have not yielded your hearts to Him. But He has not yet
come to deal with you in judgment. He has waited 20 years for you young
people–30 years, 40 years, for you middle-aged folk–50 years, 60
years for you who are getting past that period and perhaps 70 years, or
even 80 years He has been known to tarry for, "He delights in mercy,"
but He does not delight in judgment! Seventy years form a long life,
yet many persons spend all that time in perpetrating fresh sin. Called
to repentance over and over again, they only become the more impenitent
through resisting the call of mercy. Favored with blessings as many as
the sands of the seashore, they only prove themselves the more
ungrateful by failing to appreciate all those blessings.

It is amazing that God is willing to wait till the cool of such a long,
long day of life as 70 or 80 years make up! How patient, then, we ought
to be with one another! Yet are you, parents, always patient with your
children–your young children who may not have willingly or consciously
offended you? What patience you ought always to exercise towards them!
And have you a like patience towards a friend or a brother who may use
rough speech and provoke you? Yet such

your patience ought to be. Never should we take our brother by the
throat and say to him, "Pay me what you owe," so long as we find God
deliberately waiting till the cool of the day before He comes to those
who have offended Him–and even then uttering no more words of anger
than should be uttered and mingling even those words with mercy that
has no boundaries!

II. The second thing that I gather from the Lord's coming to Adam and
Eve in the cool of the day is HIS DIVINE CARE FOR THE GUILTY.

Though He did not come till the cool of the day, thus manifesting His
patience, He did come then, thus manifesting His care for those who had
sinned against Him. He might have left them all night long–all night
long without their God–all night long without Him after they had done
just what He had forbidden them to do. All night long–a sleepless
night, a fearful night, a night that would have been haunted with a
thousand fears–all night long with this great battle trembling in the
balance, with the great question of their punishment unsolved and an
indefinable dread of the future hanging over them! Many of you know
that the trial of being kept in suspense is almost worse than any other
trouble in the world. If a man knew that he had to be beheaded, it
would be easier for him to die at once than to have to kneel with his
neck on the block and the gleaming axe lifted up above him, not knowing
when it might fall. Suspense is worse than death! We seem to feel a
thousand deaths while we are kept in suspense of one. So God would not
leave Adam and Eve in suspense through the whole night after they had
sinned against Him, but He came to them in the cool of the day.

There was this further reason why He came to them–notwithstanding the
fact that they had disobeyed Him and that He would have to punish them,
He remembered that they were still His creatures. He seemed to be
saying within Himself, "What shall I do to them? I must not utterly
destroy them, but how can I save them? I must carry out My threat, for
My word is true, yet I must also see how I can spare them, for I am
gracious and My Glory is to be increased by the display of My Grace
towards them." The Lord looked upon them as the appointed progenitors
of His elect and regarded Adam and Eve, also, let us hope, as His elect
whom He loved notwithstanding their sin So He seemed to say, "I will
not leave them all night without the promise which will brighten their
gloom." It was only one promise and, perhaps, it was not clearly
understood by them–still, it was a promise of God, even though it was
spoken to the serpent–"I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her Seed. He shall bruise your head, and you
shall bruise His heel." So, not one night were God's poor fallen
creatures left without at least one star to gleam in the darkness for
them and thus He showed His care for them.

And still, dear Friends, though God is slow to anger, yet He is always
ready to pardon and very tender and compassionate even when He has to
pass sentence upon the guilty. "He will not always chide; neither will
He keep His anger forever." You can see His care and consideration even
for the most unworthy of us because He has not cut us off in our sin!
We are–

"Not in torment, not in Hell."

We can see the marks of His goodness in the very garments on our backs
and the food of which we partake by His bounty. Many of His gifts come
not merely to those who do not deserve them, but to those who deserve
to be filled with the gall and wormwood of Almighty Wrath!

III. Now, thirdly, I want to show you that WHEN THE LORD DID COME, HE
AFFORDED US A PATTERN OF HOW THE SPIRIT OF GOD COMES TO AWAKEN THE
CONSCIENCES OF MEN.

I have already said that sooner or later God will come to confront each
one of us. I pray that if He has never come to you, dear Friend, in the
way of awakening your conscience and making you feel yourself a sinner,
He may come to you very speedily. And when He does come to awaken
you–it is somewhat in this way.

First, He comes seasonably–"in the cool of the day." Adam's work was
done and Eve had no more to do until the next day. At that hour they
had been accustomed, in happier times, to sit down and rest. Now God
comes to them and the Spirit of God, when He comes to awaken men,
generally visits them when they have a little time for quiet thought.
You dropped in and heard a sermon–the most of it slipped from your
memory, but there were some few words that struck you so that you could
not get rid of them. Perhaps, though, you thought no more about the
message to which you had listened. Something else came in and took your
attention. But a little while later you had to watch all night by the
bedside of a sick friend–and then God came to you and brought to your
remembrance the words that you had forgot-

ten. Or it may be that some texts of Scripture which you learned when
you were a child began to speak to you throughout the watches of the
night. Or perhaps you were going along a country road or, it may be
that you were out at sea on a dark night and the billows rolled heavily
so that you could not sleep–and you even feared that you would be
swallowed up by the raging sea–then–then came the Voice of the Lord
God speaking personally to you! When other voices were silenced, there
was an opportunity for His voice to be heard!

Not only did the Lord come to Adam and Eve seasonably, but He spoke to
Adam personally and said, "Where are you?" One of the great mistakes in
connection with all preaching is that so many hearers will persist in
lending other people their ears. They hear a faithful Gospel sermon and
they say, "That message would fit neighbor So-and-So admirably! What a
pity Mrs. So-and-So did not hear it! That would have been the very word
for her." Yes, but when God comes to you, as He came to Adam and
Eve–and if you are not converted I pray that He may–the sermon He
will deliver to you will be, every word of it, for you! He will say,
"Adam," or, "John," or, "Mary," or whatever your name is, "where are
you?" The question will be addressed to you, alone! It will have no
relation to any of your neighbors, but to you, alone. The question may
take some such form as this–"Where are you? What have you been doing?
What is your condition now? Will you now repent, or will you still go
on in your sins?" Have not you, young man, had some such experience as
this? You went to the theater, but when you came home you said that you
had not enjoyed it and that you wished you had not gone. You went to
bed, but you could not sleep. It seemed as if God had come to wrestle
with you and to reason with you about your past life, bringing up one
thing after another in which you have sinned against Him. At all
events, this is the way He deals with many–and if He deals thus with
you, be thankful for it and yield yourself up to Him–do not struggle
against Him!

I am always glad when men cannot be happy in the world, for, as long as
they can be, they will be. It is always a great mercy when they begin
to be sick of the dainties of Egypt, for then we may lead them, by
God's guidance, to seek after the milk and honey of the land of
Canaan–but not till then. It is a great blessing when the Lord puts
before you, personally, a true view of your own condition in His
sight–and makes you look at it earnestly, concentrating your whole
thought upon it–so that you cannot even begin to think about others
because you are compelled to examine yourself, to see what your real
condition is in relation to God!

When the Lord thus comes to men and speaks personally with them, He
makes them realize their lost condition. Do you not see that this is
implied in the question, "Where are you?" Adam was lost–lost to God,
lost to holiness, lost to happiness. God, Himself, says, "Where are
you?"That was to let Adam know this, "I have lost you, Adam. At one
time I could speak with you as with a friend, but I cannot do so any
longer. You were once My obedient child, but you are not so now. I have
lost you. Where are you?" May God the Holy Spirit convince every
unconverted person here that he or she is lost–not only lost to
themselves, to Heaven, to holiness and to happiness–but lost to God!
It was God's lost ones of whom Christ so often spoke. He was, Himself,
the Good Shepherd who called together His friends and neighbors, saying
to them, "Rejoice with Me, for I have found My sheep which was lost."
And He represents His Father saying of His son when He has come back to
Him, "'This, My son was dead'–dead to Me–'and is alive again. He was
lost'–lost to Me, 'and is found.'" The value of a soul to God and
God's sense of loss in the case of each individual soul is something
worth thinking over and worth calculating, if it can be calculated. God
makes man realize that he is lost by His own moans and pleas, even as
He said to Adam, "Where are you?"

You will observe, too, that the Lord not only came to Adam and
questioned him personally, but He also made Adam answer Him. And if the
Lord has, in this way, laid hold of any of you, talking with you in the
cool of the day and questioning you about your lost condition, He will
make you confess your sin and bring you to acknowledge that it was
really your own. He will not leave you as Adam wanted to be
left–namely, laying the blame for the disobedience upon Eve. And He
will not leave you as Eve tried to be left–namely, passing the blame
on to the devil! Before the Lord has done with you, He will bring you
to the point that you shall feel, confess and acknowledge that you are
really guilty of your own sin and that you must be punished for it.
When He brings you down to that point and you have nothing at all to
say for yourself, then He will pardon you!

I remember well when the Lord brought me to my knees in this way and
emptied out all my self-righteousness and self-trust until I felt that
the hottest place in Hell was my due desert–and that if He saved
everybody else, but did not save me–yet He would still be just and
righteous, for I had no right to be saved! Then, when I was obliged to
feel that it

must be all of Grace, or else there could be no salvation for me–then
He spoke tenderly and kindly to me. But at first, there did not seem to
be any tenderness or pity to my soul. There was the Lord coming to me,
laying bare my sin, revealing to me my lost condition and making me
shiver and tremble while I feared that the next thing He would say to
me would be, "Depart from Me, accursed one, into everlasting fire in
Hell!" Instead, He said to me in tones of wondrous love and
graciousness, "I have put you among My children. 'I have loved you with
an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you.'"
Blessed be the name of the Lord, forever and ever, for such amazing
treatment as this meted out to the guilty and the lost!

IV. Now, fourthly, and very solemnly, I want to show you that THIS
COMING OF THE LORD TO ADAM AND EVE IS ALSO PROPHETICAL OF THE WAY IN
WHICH HE WILL COME AS A JUDGING SPIRIT TO THOSE

WHO REJECT HIM AS AN AWAKENING SPIRIT.

I have already reminded you unconverted ones that as surely as you
live, you will have to come to close terms with God like the rest of
us. Sooner or later you will have to know Him–and to know that He
knows you. There will be no way of escaping from an interview which
will be most serious and most terrible for you. It will happen "in the
cool of the day." I do not know when that may be. On my way to this
service I called to see a young lady to whom, "the cool of the day" has
come at twenty-five, or thirty years of age. Consumption has made her
life a comparatively short one, but, blessed be God, His Grace has made
it a very happy one and she is not afraid, "in the cool of the day," to
hear the voice of the Lord God calling her Home! It is well that she is
not afraid, but you who have not believed in Jesus will have to hear
that same Divine Voice in the cool of your life's day! You may be
spared to grow old–the strength of youth and of manhood will have gone
and you will begin to lean on your staff and to feel that you have not
the vigor you used to have– and that you cannot do such a hard day's
work as you used to do and you must not attempt to run up the hills as
you once did. That will be "the cool of the day" to you–and then the
Lord God will come in to you and say, "Set your house in order, for you
shall die, and not live."

Sometimes that cool of the day comes to a man just when he would have
liked it to be the heat of the day. He is making money and his children
are multiplying around him, so he wants to stay in this world a little
longer. But that cannot be–he must go up to his bed and he must lie
there for so many days and nights–and then he must hear the voice of
the Lord God as He begins to question him and say, "Where are you in
relation to Me? Have you loved Me with all your heart, and mind, and
soul, and strength? Have you served Me? Are you reconciled to Me
through the death of My Son?" Such questions as these will come to us
as surely as God made us! And we shall have to give an account of the
deeds done in the body, whether they have been good or whether they
have been evil. I pray you to think of these things and not to say,
"Ah, that will not happen just yet." That is more than any of us can
tell–and let me remind you that life is very short even at the
longest. I am especially appealing to those who are of my own age. Do
not you, dear Friends, find that when you are between 40 and 50 years
of age the weeks seem to be much shorter than they used to be when you
were young? I therefore gather that when our friends are 70 or 80 years
of age–time must seem far shorter to them than it ever was before! I
think that one reason why Jacob, when he was a 130 years old, said to
Pharaoh, "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life," was
simply this–that he was really such an old man, though not as old as
his ancestors, that time seemed even shorter to him than it did to
younger men. If that was so, then I suppose that the longer a man
lives, the shorter time would appear to be. But, short or long, your
share of it will soon be over and you will be called upon to gather up
your feet in bed and meet your fathers' God.

When that solemn and decisive hour comes, your interview with God will
have to be a personal one. Sponsors will be of no use to anyone upon a
dying bed! It will be of no use, then, to call upon Christian friends
to take a share of your burden. They will not be able to give you of
their oil, for they have not enough Divine Grace for themselves and
you. If you live and die without accepting the aid of the one Mediator
between God and man, all these questions will have to be settled
between your soul and God without anyone else coming between yourself
and your Maker! And all this may happen at any moment. This personal
talk between God and your soul at the end of your life may be ordained
to take place this very night–and I am sent, as a forerunner, to give
you this warning so that you may not meet your God altogether by
surprise, but may, at any rate, be invited and exhorted to be prepared
for that great interview!

Whenever that interview takes place, God will deal with you in solemn
earnestness–personally bringing home your sin to you. You will be
unable to deny it, for there will be One present at that interview who
has seen it all–and the en-

quiries which He will make about the state of your soul will be very
searching ones. He will not merely ask about one sin, but about allyour
sins. He will not only ask about your public life, but also about your
private life–nor yet merely enquire about your doings, but about your
sayings, your willings and your thinking–and about your whole position
in relation to Himself, even as He asked Adam, "Where are you?"

In imagination–I pray that it may be only in imagination–I see some
of you die unsaved. And I see you as you pass into the next world
unpardoned and your soul realizes, for the first time, what was the
experience of the rich man, of whom our Savior said, "In Hell he lifted
up his eyes"–as though he had been asleep and had only just awakened
to his true condition! "He lifted up his eyes" and gazed all around,
but he could see nothing except that which caused him dismay and
horror! There was no trace ofjoy or hope, no trace of ease or peace.
Then, through the awful gloom, there came the sound of such questions
as these, "Where are you, Sinner? You were in a House of Prayer a few
weeks ago and the preacher urged you to seek the Lord, but you
procrastinated! Where are you now? You said that there was no such
place as Hell, but what do you say about it now? Where are you? You
despised Heaven and refused Christ–where are you now?" What horror
will seize the disembodied spirit as it reflects that it has brought
itself into the condition of which it was warned–and from which it was
invited to escape–but which it willfully chose for itself, thus
committing eternal suicide! The Lord in mercy preserve all of you from
doing that! But if you willdo it, then shall come forth from the lips
of the justly offended God the irrevocable sentence, "Depart from Me,
you cursed."

One of the most dreadful things in connection with this meeting of God
with Adam was that Adam had to answer the Lord's questions. The Lord
said to Him, "Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you that
you should not eat?" In our courts of law we do not require men to
answer questions which would incriminate them, but God does. And at the
Last Great Day the ungodly will be condemned on their own confession of
guilt! While they are in this world they put on a bronze face and
declare that they have done no wrong to anybody–not even to God. They
say they pay their way and they are as good as their neighbors–better
than the most of them! But all their brag and bravado will be gone at
the Day of Judgment and they will either stand speechless before
God–and by their speechlessness acknowledge their guiltiness in His
sight–or if they do speak, their vain excuses and apologies will but
convict them! They will, out of their own mouths, condemn themselves
like that wicked and slothful servant who was cast into the outer
darkness where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth! God grant that
we may never know, from sad personal experience, what that expression
means!

V. Now, lastly, this meeting of God with Adam should lead us who
believe in Christ to EXPECT TO MEET HIM ON THE MOST LOVING TERMS, for
if even when He came to question guilty Adam and to pass sentence upon
him, He did it so gently and mingled with the thunder of His wrath the
soft shower of His Grace when He gave the promise that "the Seed of the
woman" should bruise the serpent's head, may we not expect Him to meet
us, by-and-by, on the most loving terms if we are in that woman's Seed
and have been saved by Jesus Christ, His Son?

He will come in the evening, Brothers and Sisters, when the day's work
is done, so do not fret about the burden and heat of the day. The
longest and hottest day will come to an end–you will not live here
forever. You will not always have to wear your fingers to the bone in
trying to earn a scanty livelihood! You will not always have to look
round upon your children and wonder where the bread will be found with
which to feed them! No, the days on earth cannot last forever and, with
many of you the sun has already climbed the hill and begun to go down
the other side–"the cool of the day" will soon come! I can look upon a
good many of you who have already reached that period. You have retired
from active service, you have shaken off a good deal of business care
and now you are waiting for your Master to come to you. Rest assured
that He will not forget you, for He has promised to come to you. You
will hear His voice before long, telling you that He is walking in the
garden and coming to you. Good old Rowland Hill, when he found himself
getting very feeble, said, "I hope they have not forgotten poor old
Rowley up there." But he knew that he was not forgotten! Nor will you
be, Beloved.

You will hear your Lord's voice before long and the mercy is that you
will know it when you do hear it! Have you not often heard it before
now? Many a time, in this house, you have heard His voice and you have
been glad. In the cool of many an evening you have sat still and
communed with God. I like to see an old Christian woman with her big
Bible open, sitting by the hour together and tracing with her finger
the precious Words of the Lord–eating them, digesting them, living on
them and finding them sweeter to her soul than honey or the droppings
of the honeycomb to her taste!

Well, then, as you have heard your Lord's voice and know its tones so
well. As you have been so long accustomed to hear it, you will not be
astonished when you hear it in those last moments of your life's day!
You will not run to hide yourself as Adam and Eve did! You are covered
with the robe of Christ's righteousness, so you have no nakedness to
fear and you may respond, "Did You ask, my Lord, 'Where are you?' I
answer, 'Here I am, for You did call me.' Did You ask where I am? I am
hidden in Your Son! I am 'accepted in the Beloved.' Did You say, 'Where
are you?' Here I stand, ready and waiting to be taken up by Him,
according to His promise that where He is, there I shall be, also, that
I may behold His Glory."

Why, surely, Beloved, as this is the case, you may even long for the
evening to come when you shall hear His voice and shall go up and away
from this land of shadows and chilly nights, into that blest place
where the Glory burns on forever and ever, the Lamb is the Light
thereof and the days of your mourning shall be ended forever! God grant
that you may all have a part and a lot in that Glory, for His dear
Son's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: GENESIS3.

Verses 1-9. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field
which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yes, has God
said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said
unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you
die. And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die: for
God knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be
opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil And when the
woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to
the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the
fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her;
and he did eat And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew
that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made
themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in
the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the Presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. And
the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where are you? In
tones of mingled pity and rebuke He asked, "Where are you?"

10, 11. And he said, I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid
because I was naked, and I hid myself. And He said. Note the calm
majesty of every word. Here is no human passion, but Divine dignity.
"And He said"–

11, 12. Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of
which I commanded you that you should not eat? And the man said, The
woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did
eat There is no sign of true confession here. Adam had been an unfallen
creature a few hours before, but now he had broken the commandment of
the Lord–and you can see how completely death was brought into his
moral nature, for if it had not been so, he would have said "My God, I
have sinned, can You and will You forgive me?" But instead of doing so,
he laid the blame for his sin upon his wife which was an utterly evil
action. "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the
tree, and I did eat." He almost seemed to lay the blame upon God
because He had given him the woman to be with him! He was guilty of
unkindness to his wife and of blasphemy against his Maker in seeking to
escape from confessing the sin which he had committed! It is an ill
sign with men when they cannot be brought frankly to acknowledge their
wrongdoing.

13. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that you have
done?Oh, that question! How far reaching it is! By her action and her
husband's, the floodgates had been pulled up and the flood of sin had
been let loose upon the world! They had struck a match and set the
world on fire with sin! And everyone of our sins is essentially of the
same nature and has in it, substantially, the same mischief. Oh, that
at any time when we have sinned, God would ask each one of us the
question, "What is it that you have done?"

13. And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat Still,
you see, there is no confession of guilt, but only the attempt to push
the blame off upon somebody else. The Lord God did not ask the serpent
anything, for He knew that he was a liar. But He at once pronounced
sentence upon him–

14, 15. And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because you have done
this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the
field. Upon your belly shall you go and dust shall you eat all the days
of your life: and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and
between your seed and her Seed. He shall bruise your head, and you
shall bruise His heel And now there is no creature so degraded as that
once bright angel who is now the devil! He is always going about with
serpentine wriggling, seeking to do more mischief. On his belly does he
go and still is dust his food. That which is foul, material, carnal, he
delights in. And his head is bruised, blessed be the name of the
woman's promised Seed! The old serpent's head is bruised with a fatal
bruising, while the wounded heel of our Savior is the joy and delight
of our hearts!

16, 17. Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and
your conception; in sorrow you shall bring forth children; and your
desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you. And unto
Adam He said, Because you have hearkened unto the voice of your wife,
and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall
not eat of it; cursed is the ground for your sake. In sorrow shall you
eat of it all the days of your life. How obliquely fell the curse! Not,
"Cursed are you," as the Lord said to the serpent, but, "Cursed is the
ground for your sake."

18-21. Thorns, also, and thistles shall it bring forth to you, and you
shall eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of your face shall you
eat bread, till you return unto the ground; for out of it were you
taken: for dust you are, and unto dust shall you return. And Adam
called his wife's name, Eve: because she was the mother of all living.
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins,
and clothed them. Some creature had to die in order to provide them
with garments and you know Who it is that died in order that we might
be robed in His spotless righteousness. The Lamb of God has made for us
a garment which covers our nakedness so that we are not afraid to stand
even before the bar ofGod!

22-24. And the LORD Godsaid, Behold the man is become as one ofUS, to
knowgood and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also
of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever: therefore the LORD God
sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from which
he was taken. 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.