The Lord Saves

Good evening Church.

I want to start tonight with a little something different.

Since the fire we’ve been meeting in the morning at the Fire Hall with an already established group. I know I have been learning and growing, and I’ve also been stretched and challenged in many ways.

We here in Bly have many reasons to feel down. Our Church’s home burnt down. Many memories are gone. And it’s okay to mourn. But it’s also essential to praise.

I’ve told everyone the miracle of the architect and how all that worked out. And because I see God actively working in our situation, I’ve been brought up and not let down. Since the fire, how has God reminded you that he is in control and brought you up in this trial?

(Allow for sharing)

Thank you everyone who shared. Please keep in mind that we will come out the other end of this trial.

Let’s open our Bible’s up to Genesis 3:20-24.

I’m going to put the reference up on the screen, but I really want all of us to have our Bible’s open. (If you don’t have one, there are some on the table here.)

Let’s have someone stand and read Genesis 3:20-24

Genesis 3:20–24 ESV

20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. 22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

When I started digging into scripture, I knew finding Jesus in the Old Testament wasn’t going to be a difficult task, but I didn’t know, really digging in that I would nearly find him on every page, nearly every chapter. It came to the point where I had to say, which passages am I going to have to skip.

This is the 6th week and we are only on Genesis 3. How long is this saga? Well, it’s going to be a while, but rest assured we will be out of Genesis before you know it, the only problem with that is there is 65 books of the Bible after Genesis and Jesus is in every one.

So, what are a few things going on here in our passage tonight?

Man (Adam) calls Woman Eve, God made garments of skin for them to wear God drove them out

Good list, here are three I want to focus on for tonight.

Adam was given a job. In Genesis 1 and 2 his job is described as naming everything the LORD had created and having dominion over it.

The significant part of this is that Adam had already named his wife. God named the first human “MAN” or as we say it in Hebrew

Ah daam

This neat little tool I have tells me how many times in the Bible the word Adam is translated and the words it’s translated to. Neat thing ask me about it if you want to know more.

So, God named Adam and when God performed surgery on Adam and made Woman Adam named her.

ee-sha

This simple means out of man.

I was teaching a 5th and 6th grade Sunday School class several years ago. One of the girls, very sassy and full of defiant questions asked me one day.

“Why are boys called MEN and girls called WO-MAN, can’t it be the other way around?

I had specifically learned with this young lady, that being sassy right back was what worked. So I looked her dead in the eye and said.

Great question: Woman means out of man. Everything that is man and woman was part of adam when he was created. God then took out of adam everything that was woman and createred her. If it was reversed and he took out of adam everything that was masculine and made woman, you would be sitting here today asking why God didn’t make you woman.

the boys in the class laughed and she was a great deal more respectful after that, at least with me.

But her name doesn’t stay Woman, out of man. Adam changes her name. Prior to the fall she was out of man. After the fall they had, spiritually, died and were now torn apart in that way. While she was still out of man, that as now a title, not a name. He now called her

Haw wah

This name means life giver.

Remember after the fall the woman was promised a curse and a blessing. There will be pain in child bearing and hierarchy in their marriage. But one of her children, somewhere down the line, will defeat the serpent like they couldn’t. Someone would someday be born that would give back the life Adam and Ee-sha so willingly gave up.

Now, I know who that life giver is, many of you probably know, but just to make sure we’re on the same page. The name of that life giver is???

Jesus

Good job. Jesus is the ultimate life giver and Adam understood that God’s promised blessing would come through her. So he called her haw wah, Eve, the mother of the living. They were dead, but life would come out of death. It takes time to set this up as we understand time, but it starts here.

We also have another thing God did for Adam and Eve. He made them clothes of animal skin. Let’s talk about that for a moment.

Someone read for me Genesis 3:7

Genesis 3:7 ESV

7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Ladies. If I make a wardrobe of clothes out of leaves off of a tree, how long is that going to last me?

Weeks? Probably more like days. They dry out, the sun will make them brittle. Adam and eve would have to constantly be cutting leaves and sewing them. All their effort would be in covering up their shame. What does God say about our own efforts to cover up shame?

Flip over quick to Gal 2:16

Galatians 2:16 ESV

16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

No matter what Adam and Eve tried, it would just all fall to pieces. therefore God covers them instead. With animal skin. Does animal skin clothing last forever? Nope, but it last much longer. It will cover you for a time, but only when you are clothed with God’s love and mercy will you be wearing something that will last forever

But the temporary covering meant something. It says that God clothed them in animal skin. What had to have happened to cover them in animal skin?

An animal had to die, yes. blood was shed and it covered the man and woman.

So the animal blood is a sign of what is to come. temporary. But it was never the salvation they were working for. It was a picture of the truth that God saves you. Not an animal dying or animal skins to cover.

It is only through Jesus’ blood that we are really covered.

1 John 1:7 ESV

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

What we have here right in the beginning with Adam and Eve is what we call a picture of salvation. We do not use the picture of salvation to save us. God told King Saul he desired Obedience over sacrifice. This means that the sacrifice is only an illustration to what saves us.

Adam and Eve understood that an inner change had to occur. That’s why I think Adam renamed his wife to life giver. God promised that one who would give life would come through her so therefore he called her Eve so the following generations would know that the ONE, namely Jesus, would come and give life.

The sacrifice covered them for a time, but it would take and perfect human and divine act to save them truly.

A quick aside, because a great deal of skeptics and even believers ask the question. Since Jesus came 4,000 years after creation, then doesn’t that mean that all the people prior to Jesus dying are in hell.

To quote the apostle Paul, by no means.

Jesus said in Matthew 22:32

Matthew 22:32 ESV

32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

Right there we have Jesus confirming that people prior to Jesus are in heaven. And it wasn’t because they did their sacrifices, I’m sure they did. But it was because they believed, by faith that only God could save them. Their sacrifices were their outward expression of their inner faith.

Exactly what our baptism is. An outward expression of our faith.

But there is one more thing that happened in our passage.

God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden. And this isn’t a normal eviction. There was no notice. The passage says, “he drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword.

Cherubim

Now, this is an artists rendition of the Cherubim in the book of Ezekiel. But if you came across this being or something close, would you try to get passed it?

But the big thing to remember is that God drove them out. The text isn’t very descriptive, but think of it this way.

God is 100% perfect. Sin has no place with him. Even though there seems to be understanding of the wrong and perhaps even repentance, there is still consequence. The promise must move forward. If they are allowed to stay in the garden then they will have eternal children who sin. If there is no consequence for sin then there is no need for a savior. So, God drove them out. He could not allow sin to multiply and grow eternally.

We have another instance of God driving people out.

Someone read Matthew 21:12-13

Matthew 21:12–13 ESV

12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

The temple was called God’s house. And the place where the people were buying and sell was not allowed, but the Pharisee’s and Sadducees were allowing it. God was not going to allow sin to grow and multiple in his house. So Jesus drove them out, just like he did Adam and Eve in the garden.

Now, if we are to believe that God the Son appeared in the flesh to Adam and Even, then that means the one who drove out Adam and Eve is the same one who drove out the money changers.

Sin has no place in God’s presence. Can it be there? Sure. Jesus walked the earth for over 30 years and he watched a lot of people sin and do wrong.

But sin can’t be allowed to stay near God and it can’t be allowed to grow either.

Imagine a spot of mold on your wall. About the size of a pea. Not that big of a deal right, it might even disappear on it’s own. A few days go by and it’s the size of a quarter, still no big deal, put a picture over it. It keeps getting bigger day after day until your whole wall is covered in mold.

You didn’t clean it, so it just got bigger until it was so massive it couldn’t be taken care of.

God must drive out sin or it will just get bigger and bigger until it is too big to handle.

So, sum up.

God promised that through the woman God would provide a life giver. So Adam changed his wifes name to Eve.

God killed the first animal to cover the shame of sin. This was a temporary measure meant to teach faith.

Finally, God drove Adam and Eve out of Eden. He had to remove sin from eternity and similarly he removed sin from his house by driving out the money changers from the temple.

All this is to save, God has given a great deal of time and energy to saving the human race.

The Lord Saves. What a great three words. So much of the Bible is packed into those words. The Lord saves. He drives out sin, he cleanses sin. He sends the life giver to deliver us.

The Lord saves. Three words, but you know what I think we can make it easier.

The Lord saves in Hebrew is just one word. One word that tells us the one who saves us is the Lord.

That word is Yeshua. If you know you know, but if you don’t Yeshua is translated Joshua. But is you take the Hebrew and turn it to Greek you get Iesous. And if you then turn it to latin, you get Iesus. And pop that into English you get Jesus. The Lord saves.

I am so thankful for Jesus and I hope you are too.

Let’s pray.