Sister Sunny Sunday School 10/19/14

Sister Sunny Sunday School 10/19/14

We saw in the first lesson who God is and how He created man to be like Him.

We saw in the second lesson that God desires to dwell with us but cannot tolerate the presence of sin.

In the 3^rd lesson we saw how Adam and Eve sinned because they went beyond the bounds that God had set for them.  Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself.  Have the love of God shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit; walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

Gen 3:7  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.

Sin always brings shame and the knowledge it brings haunts you and you wish you could put it from you.

Gen 3:8  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 amongst the trees of the garden.

Gen 3:9  And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

God knew what had happened; He knows everything.  He still came to walk with them.  It was them that hid themselves from Him.  They could no longer be in the presence of God without shame.  They no longer bore His image. 

Gen 3:10  And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

Gen 3:11  And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

Gen 3:12  And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

Gen 3:13  And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

There is always the rationalization of why a person does what they shouldn’t.

Gen 3:14  And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

Gen 3:15  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Gen 3:16  Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Gen 3:17  And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Gen 3:18  Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

Gen 3:19  In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Gen 3:20  And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

Sin carries its own punishment in this life, not just after death.

God made a sacrifice and put them out of the garden

Gen 3:21  Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

We see that God made them clothes of animal skins.  I believe this was done not just for their clothing but there was a sacrifice of an animal for their sin.  The fact that Cain and Able are seen making sacrifices to worship God later support this.

Matthew Henry CC -  The beasts, from whose skins they were clothed, it is supposed were slain, not for man's food, but for sacrifice, to typify Christ, the great Sacrifice. Adam and Eve made for themselves aprons of fig-leaves, a covering too narrow for them to wrap themselves in, Isa_28:20. Such are all the rags of our own righteousness. But God made them coats of skin, large, strong, durable, and fit for them: such is the righteousness of Christ; therefore put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Gen 3:22  And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

Gen 3:23  Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

Gen 3:24  So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

As part of their punishment and to remove them from the tree of life, Adam and Eve were put out of the garden and a guard was placed so that they could never go back. 

Adam Clarke - A very learned man has ventured the following paraphrase, which should not be lightly regarded: “And the Lord God said, The man who was like one of us in purity and wisdom, is now fallen and robbed of his excellence; he has added לדעת  ladaath, to the knowledge of the good, by his transgression the knowledge of the evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever in this miserable state, I will remove him, and guard the place lest he should re-enter. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden,” etc.

In Gen_1:26, Gen_1:27, we have seen man in the perfection of his nature, the dignity of his office, and the plenitude of his happiness. Here we find the same creature, but stripped of his glories and happiness, so that the word man no longer conveys the same ideas it did before. Man and intellectual excellence were before so intimately connected as to appear inseparable; man and misery are now equally so.

In our nervous mother tongue, the Anglo-Saxon, we have found the word God signifying, not only the Supreme Being, but also good or goodness; and it is worthy of especial note that the word man, in the same language, is used to express, not only the human being so called, both male and female, but also mischief, wickedness, fraud, deceit, and villany.

So man fell from the perfect state that God created him in, the very image of God, to the state that we see man in today without the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Jesus Christ died on the cross and suffered without the gate for our salvation and sanctification, so that we could be restored to the image that we were created in and so that we could have access again to the tree of life and live eternally with Him.  This victory is both for this life and after this life.

Rev 2:7  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Rev 22:1  And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

Rev 22:2  In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Rev 22:3  And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:

Rev 22:4  And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.

We see that the tree is on both sides of the river of life.  There is still provision for God’s people, “Every need supplied,” as there was in the Garden of Eden.  There is no more curse; we no longer have to live a life of misery under the cruel taskmaster.  We can serve God and be joint heirs with Christ.  We can bear His name and His image. 

Psa 84:7  They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.

Cain and Abel – God has a plan.  He set up a way to worship Him when He slew animals and skinned them for clothes for Adam and Eve.  His expectation at that time was for them to follow the course that He set up and nothing less was acceptable.

Gen 4:1  And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

Gen 4:2  And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

Gen 4:3  And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.

Gen 4:4  And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:

Gen 4:5  But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

Gen 4:6  And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

Gen 4:7  If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

We see that both Abel and Cain brought an offering to offer to the Lord.  Abel’s was according to the pattern that God had set up.  It was a sheep, a blood offering for sin.  Cain’s was not according to the pattern. 

When God accepted Abel’s offering but not his, Cain was angry.  Why was he angry?  It is just as easy to learn from a mistake and go on.  The main thing that hinders a person learning from a mistake is pride. 

God asked him, “Why are you angry?” and then said, “If you do well, you will be accepted; when you don’t do well, there is a sin offering.”  It seems He was telling Cain that even now there was a sin offering lying at the door if he would just go out and offer it. 

He also gives Cain the promise that if he did well, that he would rule over Able as it was his birthright to do. 

Here the words “sin lieth at the door” mean that there is a sin offering.  In the same way that “Christ was made sin,” means that He was made a sin offering:

2Co 5:21  For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

The reason that God had a plan for Cain and Abel to follow in worshipping Him was because from the beginning He had the plan that His only begotten Son would give His life so that we could be bought back from the life of sin that we were sold under and returned to His image.  He desires us to be able to have fellowship with Him, walk and talk with Him, be lead and directed by Him, drink at His rivers of pleasure, and live with Him eternally.