We're going to pick up on our sermon series from the beginning to the end.
The last time I was here we looked at anthropology arithmetic and we got that from Genesis chapter
2.
We basically covered all of Genesis chapter 2 in one sermon.
We obviously didn't cover every detail.
There's more there to have dug into but we focused on the creation of man and woman and
what we learned with God's ideal, God's purpose, God's design when he created first Adam and
then Eve.
And putting it in the context of arithmetic we learned that God does work in objectives,
objective truths, things that are repeatable and it's one right after the other and it
doesn't end even if sometimes people think that they can rework that equation.
That equation is still steady today.
For example, God took the dirt and shaped the body of Adam and then he breathed into
that lifeless form the breath of life and then it became a living being.
So in other words the material world, dirt plus the breath of life equals a living being,
a human.
Then we looked at how God said for the first time in the creation account that it's not
good that man should be alone.
Up until then everything was good, good and very good but then Adam comes along and Adam
has a job to do and even before Adam starts to do that job naming the animals, God declares
it's not good that man should be alone.
So the equation was one plus zero equals zero, not good.
Man plus nobody else is not good.
In other words God created humans to be social creatures.
We need that social interaction, the communion, the conversations face to face and I'm glad
that we have technology where we can talk to people around the globe or in different
time zones or whatever interrupts us and keeps us from one another but it's not an exact
replacement for person to person interactions.
We're social creatures and so we should be invested in that, that hasn't changed.
And then we also looked at the creation of man and woman because Eve comes along at the
end of chapter two and Adam himself declared how joyful he was in all of this.
He said this is at last his bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called woman because she was taken of man and then we have there the original
equation for the nuclear family.
The base social unit if you will is man plus woman equals family.
God didn't intend everybody to always be single forever and it's good to have our marriages
and it's good to have the offspring that comes from it and it's good that man and woman interact
and work together because we know that there are different strengths and weaknesses and
we need each other.
I can't do it all.
I'm glad God saw fit to send a woman my way who's a perfect compliment to me and I pray
that I am to her as well.
So we saw that with the anthropology discussion in Genesis chapter two and we drove home the
point that hasn't actually ended.
There have been attempts to disrupt it always to ill effects because when God sets something
in place and designs something with that purpose if you try to interrupt that purpose it doesn't
work out generally speaking.
I don't know many instances where it has.
Today we will pick up our journey through Genesis the first couple of chapters and we
will look at Genesis chapter three the first several verses before we do that though before
we dig into the word of God we're going to look at a couple of other words that were
spoken and written and are they might be well known to you they were semi new to me in preparation
for this but if you'll bear with me one more brief word of prayer and then we'll dig in
loving Heavenly Father we thank you for these inspired words of yours and so many millennia
ago but not having lost any effect for us today when I pray that as we open up your
word that we would eat and see that it is sweet to the taste that we would drink it
deeply of these words of life that we would find you in it and your purpose for us as
we pray in your name amen amen.
In 1968 while the Vietnam War was going on presidential hopeful presidential candidate
Robert F. Kennedy had what has now become to some people he presented a speech to the
University of Kansas on March 18 1968 if you look up this speech some people listed among
some of the top speeches on leadership that we have on record and while he was doing his
usual thank yous and gratitudes and you can tell if you read the transcript he's making
some jokes along the way and and so on and so forth he gets into what is probably more
or less a stump speech for him because he was of course at that time a presidential
candidate so in typical stump speech fashion he's bemoaning the conditions of the nation
or how the previous or current administration has been doing things and he's saying I can
do better he spends a great deal of time talking about the Vietnam War and how if he were in
charge he would run it differently and how leadership should be able to make those hard
decisions even if it's unpopular he was talking about the state of the cities and the crime
and the the family structure was breaking down and how how the the predominantly black
communities were finding themselves in hard times in the late 60s and if he were in charge
he could do better leadership could do better under his administration and then he get towards
the end of it and this quote rang out and for a presidential candidate it's a great
quote it's a good quote it sends home the point that he's trying to make he says this
some people see things as they are and say why I dream things that never were and say
why not have we heard that before if you have have you wondered what it meant in that context
or if you're hearing it now consider what it could mean well in the context of the nation
is not good as it is and I can do better that statement can simply be imagine imagine what
it would be like if it weren't the way that it is it's so rough it could be better we
can improve we can elevate ourselves we can change the course of the trajectory of our
nation as a people we can we need to stop just wondering and worrying over the status
quo and the present and what's going on and oh it's so frustrating but instead think big
and think into the future and think what we could change and doesn't that sound awesome
and imaginative and adventurous some people see things as they are and say why I dreamed
things that never were and say why not sounds good it does sound good presidential hopeful
Robert F Kennedy was quoting from the playwright George Bernard Shaw in that quote not an
exact quote not word for word but he got the essence of it word for word it's something
more like this when you and Adam talk I hear you say why always why you see things and
you say why but I dream things that never were and I say why not in close pretty close
in the play back to Methuselah George Bernard Shaw though gave those words to the serpent
in the Garden of Eden leading up to it Adam and Eve are having their own conversation
as they walk through the garden and they're just kind of going back and forth and and
Eve is talking to him like he needs to he needs her help so that he can be taking better
care of himself and and he does things this way and she would do this and they're they're
having this conversation with each other but then the serpent whispers to Eve and it startles
her and the stirp the serpent says that I've been watching you I've been hiding I've been
listening to you and Eve recognizes that that was clever the serpent goes I'm the most subtle
of all the creatures of the field and she comments on how lovely the hood of the serpent
was the serpent says I adore you Eve Eve is obviously being taken in by the kind words
the adoration given to her by the serpent in the plane the snake says in answer to her
that she's a little startled that the snake can talk to her and now she's saying I might
never be alone if I have another companion to talk to the snake says I can talk of many
things I am very wise it was I who whispered the word to you that you did not know death
and she asks more about it and how it was an unhappy thought that she didn't completely
understand and the serpent says death is not an unhappy thing when you've learned how to
conquer it starting to ring familiar to us Eve goes how can I conquer it the serpent
says by another thing called birth and she asked what is birth and the serpent says the
serpent never dies someday you shall see me come out of this beautiful skin a new skin
with a new and lovelier skin that is birth I've seen that Eve says it's wonderful and
then we get what we've just quoted if I can do that what can I not do the serpent says
I tell you I am very subtle when you and Adam talk I hear you say why always why you see
things and you say why but I dream things that never were and I say why not I made the
word dead to describe my old skin that I cast when I am renewed I call that renewal being
born while it sounds great to a presidential candidate in its context from its source how
do we think of that quote now and what could it mean if we think of it in that context
because in essence that is what the serpent in the Garden of Eden essentially said if
you have your Bible still open to Genesis chapter 3 we'll look at it again beginning
with verse 1 now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the
Lord God had made and he said to the woman did God in my version adds I like this did
God actually say did God actually say what I'm about to quote you shall not eat of any
tree in the garden hath God said did he actually say it are you sure you heard correctly or
for us down the road did you read correctly hath God said is it actually there that is
such a powerful question because out the gate it does one significant thing out the gate
it causes doubt did God actually say it are you sure you got it correct what do we do
with our doubt though have you ever had those moments where you read the word of God and
you and you just wondered is this actually mean what it mean have you been confused as
you've studied the word of God and then maybe you read a commentary from someone else and
they don't really line up I've come across a few where I read the plain writing of the
Bible and then someone's comments on it and there is hundred and eighty degrees from each
other as I could imagine or one says do and the other comment says don't very different
well in those moments what do you do what do you ask how do you respond did God actually
say it did he actually mean it there are I don't want to get into too much of it I can
be on private conversation there are many conversations right now where members of the
church are being told in one way or another in your own study you might read the Bible
this way but you don't actually know the Greek or the Hebrew and so allow the educated to
tell you what it actually means and in our description the conclusion is not what you've
read on your own there's quite a few topics on that going on currently even inside our
own church not in competing denominations so what do you do well maybe you respond like
Eve or Eve said to the serpent we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden but
God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden
neither shall you touch it lest you die read back through the second chapter of Genesis
and find don't touch it now you could make the point that God said don't eat of it and
then some time passed and maybe in an unrecorded conversation God also warned don't go near
it don't do this don't but God said don't eat it and Eve quoting God adds an element
to it that we don't find in inspired writing not further the problem of doubt can that
further us a little bit farther away from taking God as he says can that encourage us
to play with the words of God and think that we can mold them and shape them and add to
or remove from so that they align a little closer to what we perceive rather than what
he says how many of us have been guilty of that at times I can raise my hand I can certainly
raise my hand I have a very clear memory in my younger years where where I was trying
to answer for something coming my way and I didn't like what was coming my way but I
was going to prove them wrong and of course when you're trying to prove someone wrong
in a Christian debate you get out the Bible and you go searching for what supports your
side right you don't read it looking for the will of God if you're trying to win the conversation
you read the Bible so you can come out on top I've done that more than once and in
this very particular memory of mine I was certainly guilty of mishandling of misappropriating
misinterpreting the will of God to my end when I wanted what I thought God wanted rather
than what God actually wanted for me and it caused doubt and it hurt relationships and
drove me farther apart.
This idea of asking the question and how George Bernard Shaw phrased it with the serpent I
I dreamed things that never were and say why not I can I can picture that being implied
in Genesis chapter three because when the serpent gets back to it and he's saying no
you will not surely die in verse four for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes
will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.
God's holding you back God doesn't mean what he says God selfish and he's oppressive and
he's restrictive and he wants to keep all of the good imaginations to himself and what
he can do with the future and you're just kind of a pawn in all of it he's repressing
you all of that is there all of that is insinuated with his statement with the snakes statement.
One God flat lied to you you won't die and if the serpent is in the tree and the serpent
is moving around through the forbidden tree and caressing the fruit that's on the tree
touching it not dying talking that might have thrown Eve for a little bit of a surprise.
A lot of these are suggestions that if I'm doing what God has said you shouldn't do look
how much better I am for it.
Why are you stuck in the here and now don't you want to question and doubt God and let
your own imaginations lead you into the future isn't that a better form of progressivism
than what God has just stuck you with.
God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God do
we do this today.
Do we read the word of God and say he didn't actually mean it.
It's not true for us it might only be true for them.
Does God still intend for things to be followed.
There's an exhaustive list where people actually they do ask these questions and play this
game and come up with those kinds of answers.
One does God still mean for men to be men and women to be women and you can't swap back
and forth.
Yes but that question is being asked and answered on the other side.
Does God still intend for us to come together and set aside a sanctified 24 hour period
that he determined for worship and fellowship and and coming together in praise.
Yes somewhere along the line someone said did God actually say that or in our imaginations
can we make it better.
Is he holding us back.
Did God actually say that when you die your breath returns to its source life just returns
and you rest and you sleep and you don't know and you don't return to your house anymore
and you don't talk and you have no emotions and did God actually say all of that.
Yes he did.
Well in my imaginations and how I rework the word of God.
No we are duelists.
We are a shell with an inherited conscious spirit or soul.
Did God actually say how many things can we think of where people use that.
I'm sure the list can go on because our sinful human nature wants us to imagine more than
God.
That original temptation of did God actually say because you yourselves can be gods.
That still runs so true for us today.
To manipulate the word of God is to play God to say that the prophecies won't occur even
though God has said is to play God to change anthropology equations is to play God to decide
that the creation account isn't how it's recorded by our maker is to play God to upset
how men and women should interact with each other or how parents should raise their kids
or how kids should honor and respect their parents to upset all of that is to play God.
You ever imagine or or think that you've fallen into the trap.
I dream of things that have not or are not or were not and ask why not.
Are you content with what God has instructed for you.
Do we think that God changes.
Let's look at whether or not God changes for a moment Malachi chapter three and verse six.
Malachi chapter three and verse six this is if you read before it a quote from God to
the prophet Malachi and because we see that there are lots of quotes because we understand
that this is God coming through a human agent we know that the words are God's and you
should take them as such because he says for I the Lord Malachi three verse six do not
change.
Therefore you oh children of Jacob are not consumed.
He's talking about drawing near to them for judgment he'll be a swift witness and so on
and so forth.
I the Lord do not change.
Has God ever changed his mind or changed his approach to things.
Yes we can see that Jonah declares over Nineveh God's going to destroy you in 40 days.
Did God destroy Nineveh at the end of those 40 days.
Famously not.
Jonah was very upset about that.
God changed if you will in that moment.
God changed or was willing to have the conversation with Abraham over Sodom and Gomorrah a beautiful
conversation on intercession and Abraham is a type of Christ in that.
God says I'm going to go destroy the cities they're wicked beyond belief they've passed
their threshold and he says would you destroy it for the righteous and he goes well I wouldn't
okay would you destroy it for so many.
No I wouldn't and Abraham says would you destroy it for so many it's a smaller number and he
keeps going smaller and smaller until he gets down to how many 10 10 would you destroy two
significant cities if only 10 righteous people were found in it and the Lord says I won't.
Now we know that there weren't 10 people in those two cities that conversation has been
lifted up as God changing that conversation is best understood as God being gracious which
means he doesn't change because that is his character.
God is love and he is gracious and destruction of the wicked God calls his strange act he
doesn't want to do it but because his character is also just he has to.
So even in that God doesn't change and in Jonah God doesn't actually change because
God always responds to repentance and confession and a turning away from sin he always responds
to that that's his nature to do so and so when these evil wicked debaucherous people
in Nineveh did that he had to respond like he always would he doesn't change.
Jesus in giving the sermon on the mount says think not that I have come to change or do
away with the law and the prophets I have not come to change or to do away but to fulfill.
Don't think that one dot or one cross or one title or the smallest mark on any letter will
be changed in the law until all things are fulfilled right.
Jesus himself says nothing is changing.
Many have made the point that he was there to upend things he was there to set it right
because man and women had gotten it wrong.
We had tried to change it and he was putting it back in its proper place.
What about in our church today.
I may not be talking about us if this applies to you then this applies to you but one example
and we can pray for people who think this way we can pray for these views and we can
pray that they be limited in scope.
An Adventist pastor wrote for one of our publications it has been said that the Lord does not change
and he mentions Malachi 3 6 we just read it likely quote likely this was an over enthusiastic
observation by a spokesperson untroubled by putting words in God's mouth.
Very different approach to the inspired words of God.
A different writer credited the same God with pledging to visit the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children under the third and fourth generation and so on.
Many hoops are jumped through to make God changeable and his theology changeable and
everything that has stood the test of time and has been for the moral and ethical good
of humanity.
This author looks to say no with each generation we should be willing to imagine something
different.
We should be willing to undo and rewrite the theology based on what is now and answering
the question why not.
It's a rather insidious question because doubting God and his word really gets in you
and then it can be shared like a virus and then it can affect a host of people and next
thing you know you have thrown so many things to the wind.
So what is the solution to the problem.
What do we do when those thoughts of doubts or imaginations come our way either on our
own or encouraged by others like Eve from the serpent.
What do we do with it.
How do we respond.
Is it sinful to ask questions of God and his word.
Let's start there.
No ask the questions ask does God say this and then study farther looking at the word
of God praying about it inviting the Holy Spirit to guide you through sometimes complex
writings.
When you read something and it steps on your toe and I know I've been there.
God's word does step on our toes.
It makes us confront things we don't want to look at and it asks us to change things
about ourselves.
We might not want to change.
Everybody asks does God actually mean this because it means I've really got to change
a lot.
What do you do then.
Pray pray that you get it right pray that the same God that inspired it will also help
you understand it and then pray that the same God who helps you understand it helps you
apply it.
Pray that God will let you see the fault in your own character in your own ways in your
own actions or your treatments of others and then really pray that he can help you be humble
in your response.
As you can see you need to change not God.
You are the one that needs to be humble and be molded by him who first molded the dirt
into Adam.
We are the clay in his hands and it's not the other way around my friends.
Where you have already done that and you are living inside of the will of God and you're
certain of it and another option comes along like even Adam had.
No one since then has been living perfectly inside of the will of God like they did until
that moment.
I can't imagine what that was like but I'm looking forward to it in the near future.
But when a new option comes your way what do you do.
You submit yourselves to the word of God.
You repress the carnal desire to do otherwise.
You keep your body in check and by that we mean though the warring carnal and spiritual
cells.
You keep that in check and you seek after what God wants you to do.
If it's worship on the Sabbath and you would much rather find out how your favorite college
team is doing repress the desire for the college team and seek a holy God who is looking to
get you to eternity.
The college team ain't going to be here for eternity my friends.
Some of them barely make it out of the first part of the season.
If your desire leads you into darker corners and it's going to upset your marriage it's
going to get you addicted to something because boy that high feels good in the moment.
If you think that that this isn't going to harm me even though it's harmed everybody
else but I'm OK I got this.
It is a positive good thing to repress those carnal desires and pray for the victory.
It is a positive good thing to seek after he who says I love you.
I care about you more than the sparrows.
I know the numbers of the hair on your head and I clothe the lilies with beauty and as
small as they are aren't you more significant than them.
Seek after him when you read the word of God and the word of God says thou shalt not or
thou shalt or someday I will return so be ready.
Take it at his word.
We have many warnings for this acts in Chapter 13 Paul preaching in I believe Ephesus.
No Antioch and Pisidia he's preaching to the people and he's saying beware therefore lest
what is said in the prophets should come about.
Look you scoffers be astounded and perish for I am doing a work in your days a work
that you will not believe even if one tells it to you.
I know of conversations in the Adventist Church looking to up end our prophetic understanding
of the end times that God didn't actually mean that there's going to be enforced worship.
God doesn't actually mean that there's going to be an attack on buying and selling and
liberty unless you do what the elites tell you to do.
God didn't actually say that we're going to have an increase in natural disasters.
He doesn't mean that those have always been.
And that certainly won't be the catalyst for his return Adventists are saying this.
It makes me pray.
It makes me pray hard that the Holy Spirit would help me not slip away from the sure
word of God.
We know that there will be scoffers even if people tell them Peter says as such in his
second letter.
He's stirring up the minds of the readers that they should remember the predictions
of the Holy Prophets the commandment of the Lord and Savior through the Apostles.
So predictions and commandments.
Knowing this first of all that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing following
their own sinful desires.
They will say where is the promise of his coming forever since the fathers fell asleep
all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.
Do we hear those rumblings today.
Have you read it.
Have you heard it.
Have you thought it.
Today from the beginning to the end we know that God did actually say a great many things.
And when God actually says it he means it.
And when God means it he intends for you to follow it to live it to apply it and where
it's challenging to keep searching to pray to come to have a study partner two minds
can go over difficult things together.
If God said well back in Genesis chapter three that question was asked and Eve our first
mother and Adam our first father should have taken that as the red flag it was and walked
away or simply said yes he did end of sentence.
Today because we worship a God who does not change regardless of the blowing winds regardless
of the moving tides in our society regardless of how good it sounds.
If God said unless it leads you to an affirmative God did say I would encourage you to hang
your doubts on some other hook.
Don't hang your doubts on the word of God.
God is consistent.
God is true.
God does not change and he will work it out according to his will in the end.
And I am thankful for that and I praise him for it.
If only our first parents and so many generations after that had listened to the word of God
and said thank you and yes we will and yes you have said I believe we'd be in a lot
less of a mess than we currently are.
God wants good for you.
He wants to lead you into a righteous life and ultimately he wants to get you to heaven.
When he says he loves you and when he says keep my commandments and when he says I'm
coming soon take him at his word and today submit to follow that word until he does come
and take you home.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father we thank you again for the surety of your word.
We thank you for its stability and we thank you for its clarity.
We thank you that where in our limited abilities we are unsure of what you're saying we thank
you that you have promised the Holy Spirit to guide us through all truths to lead us
into truth and especially to lead us to Jesus.
Lord I pray that that would be true for each one of us.
I pray that each time that we open up your word or we listen to it being proclaimed I
pray that you would inspire us to understand and apply in the same way that you inspired
the authors and the speakers.
Lord I pray that where we have gone astray or where we might be encouraged to go astray
and in those moments Lord I pray that conviction would come home and come strong that you would
lead us back onto the right path that you would lift us up again and you would encourage
us to always keep our eyes fixed on Christ who is leading us home.
Or we thank you for hearing our prayers.
We thank you that you turn your attention to us and you look upon us with favor and
you do it because Christ saw fit to shed his blood to die the death we deserve to be our
to be our substitute in this great controversy.
We thank you that it is by his righteousness and his merits that we can come before you
today.
Amen.