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[0:00] we need as we turn again to the book of Genesis in the third chapter and at verse 9 the third chapter of the book of Genesis and at verse 9 the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him where art thou the Lord called and said Adam where art thou we sought to look a little at these words briefly this morning in our impotence and ignorance too but relying on the record given to us here in Holy Rit to try to follow some of the steps that lead up to this position wherein our text is cut we mustn't go over the ground again and I would exhort you my dear friends to read it of course and read it carefully and read it with the desire that it may be seen to have some application to your own heart and life for I'm sure that it has had to be seen to each one

[1:37] I would only add to what I tried to say a little this morning that having traced our first parents here first of all in having seen themselves as a result of their rebellion against God their willful departure against God and there was no amelioration feature remember though we'll come a little closer to that perhaps in a moment but they saw that they were naked and the first thing that they did was to try and cover them are you there my dear friend or have you been there or are you still there trying to cover up I don't mean literally with any fig leaves in a literal sense but in the activities of their own mind they sowed fig leaves together made themselves acres and then after they had so diligently been occupied in fulfilling what they felt was sufficient for they would have gone on with their aprons they would have gone on they were satisfied that's enough

[3:16] I can only repeat as I repeated several times this morning where are you friend and where am I in the light of this of course you know I'm not so bad as some oh yes the fig leaves are getting together the apron is beginning to develop and if you want to know a little more I'm not guilty of this sin and that sin and the apron's growing it should be completely if you want me to go any further my dear friend if you look into your own heart you'll almost hear the needle going and the stitches forming and gathering the leaves together God came when they had completed all this and satisfied their own mind and God says now now where are you you stop to think where you are that is the substance he's not asking the position where they were he didn't want to know what they're behind what tree they were trying to hide he doesn't want to ask you that my dear friend he knows the tree you're hiding behind and if time's omitted and we could go on and on we might even have a look at some of those trees there's so much here to get

[4:52] Adam where are you he said I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid there's a difference I pray my dear friends you may hear the voice of God this evening and be glad God of Christ oh when God comes to the sinner to the sinner who has occupied his time with his apron with his activities of covering up it's not so bad you know after all really God's made a lot of a lot of all this we can soon cover this up you know with a few people he says I was a Christ first time he'd been a Christ he dwelt as I reminded you in my opening few words this morning he dwelt in the fullness of God's provision in Eden's garden and what a fullness everything he wants nothing to mar nothing to hinder nothing to molest is that right dwelling in all the mercy and the goodness of God not mercy because he didn't need it there but in all the wonderful goodness of God he never knew what it was to be a Christ nothing to be a Christ but now

[6:26] I was a Christ because I was a Christ that's what made him a Christ and that's what will make you afraid and mean my dear friend when you realise that you're naked with all a heart searching God and with all your aches and you can have them all oh my dear friend this is just such a good word I took all my hope to a little alleviation and a little blessed kindling of a God given hope in a moment let's get the steps right I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself yes and I hid myself he was satisfied he had hidden himself he didn't say I tried to hide myself I hid myself and if you hadn't have come and lied it would have been alright are you satisfied poor sinner this evening that you think have you been able to persuade your own poor deluded mind that you're safe do you mind about the trees as I have said

[7:51] I've got to pass a lot by I have to set before you everything that has gone into my poor heart and mind I just send you to be here for a week God's word speaks always speaks in the air I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself he did insult in God that he is God so all his efforts were of no avail and I bless God for that I remember even though in this evening hour you may be hiding behind the trees of your own choosing you may be semi-coloured with all your diligence of apron making I pray that God may come to you but come in mercy and not in judgment and then what is the next step

[8:53] I gather this up very briefly because I want to get to the other efforts what is the next step God is beginning to question him and what's the result there's no need to look here my dear you'll find you'll find this exactly repeated exactly repeated in your own life if you're honest and you'll have to be honest before God then one day God makes you honest now and search your own life as it really is revealed exactly before God what is the result you're not guilty you know you're not guilty see see it's her doing it's not mine you've never never blamed anybody else why my dear friend the child learns it isn't you before ever it's learned hardly anything else you'll hear the child blaming it on to somebody else

[9:56] Genesis 3 is in the child and it grows up in the child and it'll be with you if you grow to be as old as Methuselah that carnal heart heart is deceitful it doesn't deceive God it deceives you yes he blinded on to Eve he blinded on to the serpent and the serpent hasn't got anybody else to blame it on to as I have said I can own the good of breed with the fort and then you have the pronouncement of God first to the serpent we can come back to that and then to the woman I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children did you ever realise that my dear the pains of a woman in childbirth oh you say it's a physical condition then tell me my dear friend and explain to me did Eve have sorrow did Adam have sorrow when Eve was brought forth from

[11:44] Christmas no I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule it and unto Adam he said because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of the woman he takes him on his own ground and he'll meet you on your own ground Adam had charged it to the woman writes as God because thou hast hearkened to her and hast eaten that's your responsibility you've eaten you heark to her for that isn't obliged you to eat you have eaten because you have done this of which I commanded thee not to do because it is the ground for thy sake and sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life thorns also and thistle shall it bring forth to thee you ever think of genesis 3 my dear friend when you saw the thorns and the thistle they're everywhere they grow in abingdon just as they grow in every other part of the world thorns and thistle

[13:05] God has said no we pass these things by until we become so enlightened we become so advanced but they don't consider these past the not they haven't learnt the in the sweat of thy pace shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it thou wast tated dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return the man says don't believe a word of it we'll stop that we'll cremate them we'll burn them to ashes dust dust we didn't say earth and when will I wonder rest into the grave what do we say earth to earth ashes to ashes dust to dust and Adam called his wife

[14:20] Stain because she was the mother of all divoties leave these things with it's time to build to go further and one other thought here as I remind you I must dwell upon that a moment if only a moment what is the background to all this you say well of course I was born of sin and therefore I can't do anything else have a look at this there is a background to all this I know born in sin and chafen and iniquity Adam and Eve were that came after what is the background of this again I have to deal with it very very briefly so one could spend the whole evening upon this it's summarized my dear friends in one sentence only the lack of confidence and the stability in the word of

[15:31] God I could enlarge I mustn't enlarge but here it is it's before the field so I can rely upon the word itself verse 3 and the woman is now being catechized by the serpent and he is saying you may eat of the tree ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden as God said oh the woman said yes oh yes I can tell you exactly what God said but she didn't she didn't 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

[16:37] God hath said ye shall not eat of it neither shall ye touch it lest ye die where did God say that God didn't say that at all she didn't talk about anything about touching her but you see she hasn't got the grasp and she isn't now relying upon the word of God and that's where you'll come my dear friends so long as you get away from the word of God you'll slip and slide and you're breeding ground for Satan's activity what we need today beloved you and I and the church of God and the nations of the earth is to get back to the book I'm I'm summarizing as I'm and the here it is you've no need for me to remind you again of

[17:39] Revelation 22 any man add two or take one here it is right at the beginning adding two he tells the serpent this is what God said all the saints say and says now I've got her on the very ground now I can develop this in my own way and to my own advantage and he will my defense he'll show you the pieces immediately you begin in the uncertainty on this that is regret she said God said she told a lie as well as departing from the word of God but in this my dear friend she is blaming God

[18:39] I wish I could develop this my dear friend I feel I should fall so far short in this matter for thoughts are crowding into my poor mind like an ocean but here it is charging God are you charging God my dear oh you wouldn't put it into such words you wouldn't dare would you but I'm saying something like this I believe I mentioned it this morning in the other connection have you ever said this well of course you know I'm only human who made the human God made the human then if I'm only human and because I fall it's because

[19:40] I'm only human then God is responsible he made me he made me human he said it's when you and I begin to search these matters or rather God granted the rather when the spirit of God takes you and I my dear friend and begins to search your heart you'll see the meaning that you see it's not about Adam and Eve it won't be a question that God comes and says Adam where art thou it'll be coming to you and saying where are you and where am I in the life of this this is the background I can only repeat beloved I've fallen very far short of even what I wanted to say though perhaps God has taken another one and made the time go on so quickly that we can't dwell on it but this is the background very good you can trace this down the chapter again and you will find it developing and it will develop oh my dear friends let me exhort you as I exhort my own soul steep your poor mind in this dear book and be very careful in any in any company especially in the presence of

[21:15] God be very careful how you quote it and be very careful how you deal with it for as I reminded you this morning in connection with the fig leaves the fig leaves were in the garden of eton God put them there and they used what God provided to their own convenience and you can twist his book anywhere you want but you do it your own power that is the battle if if if Eve had only said to Satan this is what God said leaving out the tusk if she had only said God commanded us that we must not eat of that tree and then gone on and said and I'm not going to eat of that tree something would have been gone but no now rejoicing in the fact that he got this one just where he would have to be but if you only knew it my dear friend you're in the same case and so am I directly you begin to cast doubts upon the word of

[22:35] God Satan has got you just where he wants you and he's not going to leave that's the beginning he's going to pour in now this is the very ground that his seed will grow so quickly and he'll make faithful advance of you and so we're just that brief reference I'm a leader the next line of forth what of the self I must just look at this what of the self somebody sign well must we must we dwell upon the self well my dear friend if you want to know about God we've got to dwell upon God if you want to know anything about yourself we've got to dwell upon you and if you're going to know anything about the medium of it and the power of it we must dwell upon that just as if we are to know anything before we must dwell upon that what of the self well again here

[23:46] I can only be very brief notice my dear friends how the serpent first comes very instructive here to keep very close to the word how did satan come to the woman let me put it round the other way and remind you how he didn't come and how he doesn't come to you and to me he didn't come to her and say I am satan I've come to destroy you no he never comes like that he comes with his quiet soft soothing question hath God seen oh yes now the serpent is more subtle than he knows oh he knows how to look she's a master spirit and that is his approach to you my dear friend have you and I learned the approach of satan you and

[25:09] I have got a deceitful heart you know and he'll respond to this just as it did with him but this is the approach this is the beginning and had become like a roaring lion no she would have fled back she enters into conversation after he has cast a reflection and it seems oh my dear friend yes it seems a genuine inquiry make no mistake about this it seems genuine inquiry because you hadn't learned the same serpent yet here is a voice that is coming and saying are you quite sure that is what God said I turn over the pages into the

[26:09] New Testament and what do I find do I not find the same thing oh not with a serpent with a man and what did he say go and find the young child and when you have found him bring me word again that I may come and worship him also and in his heart he had only had them to destroy the child but never mind never mind about those all this what about you ah my dear friend there may seem to be a genuine inquiry be careful my dear friend when inquire is come and be not ashamed to give an honest heart it may bring it may bring the response of you may even lose friends

[27:18] I've lost many at least many I've lost some in the course of the years because I've tried to be honest and I know when I have spoken to tell by the reaction just what it had meant may I give you one illustration young man I knew years ago still knowing for that matter he's grown at me and that day he was quite a young man he was came to me on one occasion he was very worried and he looked at and I said what's your trouble well he said I'm worried about my work oh I said what's wrong now what he said I'll tell you perhaps you can help me what do you advise me is the thing I ought to do well I said tell me what is it well he said I'm employed in an office he was an office boy so let me tell you how young he was and he said in the course of my duties

[28:21] I have to answer the telephone people ring up and they want to speak to one of our apartments he said I've got one of them there who when I or Mrs.

[28:35] Jones is on the phone and wants to speak to you and if he can't be bothered he said oh tell him I'm out he said I have a lie there's my guess what do you advise well of course I could dealt with that very easy couldn't you but I had to be honest and I said friends the sooner you come out of it the better I knew I knew it he'd gone home for months even for years he never spoke but it seemed to be true he had to come out of it and eventually eventually he had the courage to come and show you were right I said well I hope I tried to be honest before God that I knew what it meant to you and I knew you resented it he said

[29:35] I did bitterly you may you may my friend but if you have if you have an inquiry feel that you want for if you don't you'll be responsible your responsibility is to God to be honest with him do you mind about losing a friend or losing a friend or losing everybody so have now yes here is the question arises without inquest I might I can't go further than this forgive me you'll have forgive me I want to come to something a little sweeter can we consider God in this matter oh the wonderful merciful have you felt the sweetness of mercy

[30:37] I don't mean talking about it I don't even mean thinking about it I mean partaking of it have you drunk of the sweet cordial of divine mercy have you felt the warming influence in the coldness and the barrenness of a desert God comes to them and get right against their activities of making themselves fitly and so on without going back to this provision for time for people after he had come to them after they had been diligent in their activities and then he comes to them but how did he come to them how did he come to them Adam where are they he didn't come and without a word cost him out of the garden he didn't come and pronounce as he did later in the chapter as he must write his words now

[31:48] Adam I want you to stop and think that I want you to look within for the moment after and perhaps that's where the Lord has brought you for sin and receive and he's made you look a little within to try and search where you are in the light of eternity in the light of a holy God God this is the way he approached but remember this it was God that approached Adam first and not Adam approached God first sound old doctrine call it dry if you like my dear friend it's sweet as a honey cone in my poor heart if

[32:54] God had never come to me I should never have gone to this these two people are afraid immediately they saw themselves in any sense a measure of their first reaction was to try and cover them cover their guilt and get away and run away from God and hide themselves and that's what you've been doing my dear friend for a long long time and you've gone on you'd never have come to God you dare God came to them and that is how he came not in anger but in his here and covered love intent intend oh yes he's got to heal he can't pass by their transgression and he wants yours but he's not going to gloss over your follies and mine. He's going to teach us now once and for all what they really mean, if only in the measure of it. And you'll know sadness and sorrow apart sooner or later, my dear friend, and whether it's sooner or later is in his berogance, not mine or yours.

[34:18] Let us not lay down any standards, my dear friend. Let me say this, my dear friend, and I say from experience, I know some who would infer to us, if not in actual words, that unless you've been brought to a measure of the consciousness of sin in the burden of it, in the oppression of it, and almost, I would say, unless you've been shook over hell, you have no right to draw near to God. I don't believe it.

[34:57] If I did, I wouldn't be standing before you, the seed. But God taught me something of sin after he had brought me. Don't you set any standards?

[35:11] Here he is now. Where are you? As though he would say now, you and I, let's together think about it.

[35:29] Stop, Adam, by yourself. Adam, by yourself. Separated from all others, from the serpent and from Eve. Adam, where are you?

[35:41] Where are you? Just as he said in our reading this morning to Elijah, after he had run away at the behest of a woman.

[35:54] After he had left his servant behind so that he could be alone. And you know, my dear friend, we love to be alone, don't we, when we're distressed.

[36:10] Strange, isn't it? And Elijah said, you stop it. And he goes today, he's journeyed into the wilderness and he lays down under the dew.

[36:24] And all the significance of the dew. And when the voice of God came to him, he didn't go to God again.

[36:36] God came to him. And what did he say? In the substance of these words, exactly the same. That the words were different, he said.

[36:48] What doest thou hear, Elijah? What doest thou hear, Elijah? And then Elijah pours it all out.

[37:00] It's all gone wrong, you know. Everything you told me, it's all fallen to the ground. They're all slain, didn't you know it?

[37:13] Didn't you realise I'm the only one that's left? For the seeking my life to take it away. Take away my life, oh Lord. For I'm not fit to remain in the room.

[37:29] Overly, compassion. He didn't say you're wrong. The gently, soothingly, graciously, lovingly, he said.

[37:42] He's been whispered almost in the still, small voice. I have seven thousands. I have seven thousands.

[37:56] He said, after you get this meal that I have provided in mercy.

[38:10] You're on your way to horror. And anointation. And so. Your successes are waiting.

[38:22] There's no mistake in my plan, Elijah. There's no mistake in my plan. He would say to you, poor sinners, you see. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

[38:36] And he will save them. He didn't come to try to save them. And your rebellious heart won't stop him, either. Nor hindrance.

[38:50] But Adam went up. Went up. As though he would say, yes, when you've considered where you are, then go on to consider how you came there.

[39:03] And so. This is the blessing. Adam and Eve. Very diligently gathered up.

[39:16] And very carefully spent the time gathering up the fig leaves. And sitting down and sewing them together. What good is it?

[39:30] Blessed Jehovah. Come. And make sense. Coach. Excuse me. And clothing.

[39:44] Ah, he doesn't deal in hate. He clothes him. And remember, my dear friend, you're dealing with an Eastern book and you're dealing with an Eastern custom and it's clothing.

[40:00] Forgive me, my dear friend, if I make it a topical expression. There's nothing mini about this. That's the apron. You can see more of the flesh than the pan of anything else.

[40:14] Forgive me if I put it crudely by the face. That my God deals with the clothing that goes right down. That it will. Of course, we must wear it these days because it gathers up too much dirt.

[40:33] We have decided that it's better to be with it. Yes. The man has decided that the path that God has mapped out for us is too rigid.

[40:46] We prefer our life to live. But here is amazing. Here is amazing.

[41:00] Of course, they must go out in the presence of God. That cannot be prevented. Of course, they must suffer the consequences of their sin in that respect.

[41:16] Only in that respect. It remains with glorious clothing. And I know need to spend the reminding few moments of us to remind you you can't get a skin to kill you but kill the animal.

[41:40] You can't kill the animal or anything else without the shape of it. So there is here the complete mess of the soul.

[41:55] For the art of the young world that there hadn't a vestige of merit. Now, naked, completely naked, there hadn't a vestige of covering whatever.

[42:10] Until he covered them with the rose of life that was procured by the shed of the earth. this is mercy.

[42:24] This is grace. This is all that only a God can be and is to hell deserving of sin. Oh, bless you, dear ladies, for the glory of it.

[42:39] Here are two souls. You have to get them again and here are you, my dear friends. They're having the vestige. They're having the vestige of covering.

[42:50] Though you've been diligently engaged all these years with your pigglies and with your hiding behind your trees, you have known no ground of standing.

[43:05] But in such cases that Jesus came to deal with, the blood was shed, the clothing was provided.

[43:19] Yet, and in the midst of it all, right in the midst, the glory of the truth, not only in relation to the present, but in relation to the whole span of God.

[43:35] embracing the whole of the unfoldings of the mind and purpose of God, as here in Genesis 3, you see, Calvary, completely, he arrives to see.

[43:51] verse 15, he is speaking to the serpent, he is speaking to Satan, I, the Lord God, will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed.

[44:18] It, it, notice it is in the word, it shall bruise thy head and thou shall bruise this heel.

[44:39] Need I remind you, my dear friends, that there's a great difference between the heel and the head. There's a great difference between bruising the heel and bruising the head.

[44:55] Jehovah use the symbol, the figurative language that there's saying, Calvary, thou will bruise his heel for he must suffer, bleed, and die as the wrath of God is shamed upon you.

[45:21] But it's only bruising his heel that he shall bruise die, and die, and die, and eternity to come.

[45:35] And the last grave die as John unapologetic is. North of the pirates can enter there, the chance is, but he can never enter there.

[45:54] He will and be and all thy, all his angels, all his followers, say, John, or says God, the Lord God, through John, shall be cast into the light that burns its fire.

[46:13] death, he shall bruise thy face. And here's the mercy of the presence.

[46:26] With all the failings and all that I've had to at this face, let God give you and I to know the message. As he comes with this searching, solid, penetrating, inquiring, that your heart and mine may be granted to every one of us here gathered individually, whereof, rest in all my unwindliness, in the merit of another, in the finished work of a bleeding soldier blood.

[47:10] And his atoning blood which is able to cleanse from all shit, all kinds of it, all measures of it, all characters of it, all of it.

[47:26] The blood to cleanse shall appear before him and he shall shine. behold, thou art all care my life, there is no squaw.

[47:48] The lad, at one time it was from the crown of the head that sold the feet, with wounds and bruises and pute and fine sword and every day.

[48:04]  in the midst there hangs one between two feet, for he must be numbered with the transgressors, he must bear the sin of men your measures WILL hart WILL WHEN DI NAT WHEN THEY WERE I MAT KNOW MORE MMM