Tell The Truth

Passage covered: Genesis 3:20 – 4:8 (picking up at Genesis 4:9 next time)

Back from a short break and picking up in Genesis 3:20 through 4:8. God makes coats of skin for Adam and Eve, the first sacrifice for sin and an early picture of the cross. Plus: the “us” of Genesis 3:22 and the Trinity, why God closed off the Tree of Life, and how He gives chance after chance. Then Cain and Abel’s offerings: giving God our best, why the heart matters more than the checkbook, and God’s warning that “sin is crouching at the door — you must master it.”

Briefly recapping the Fall and the curse in Genesis 3: even in judgment, God shows Himself as a good Father. He promises a Redeemer who will crush the serpent’s head, and the thorns from the curse show up again in the crown Jesus wore on the cross. Adam names his wife Eve, “the mother of all living,” which leads into the miracle of life from conception, along with some family news about new babies and grandbabies on the way.

In Genesis 3:21, God clothes Adam and Eve in garments of skin. An animal had to die to cover their sin. That “crimson thread” runs from Eden through the Old Testament sacrifices to the Lamb of God, and it’s a big part of why communion matters: it reminds us what that covering cost.

God’s words in Genesis 3:22, “the man has become as one of us,” open up the Trinity: one God in three Persons, seen clearly at Jesus’ baptism. That turns into a candid side conversation about ordination councils, the limits of explaining God, and why believers should spend less time arguing Calvinism and Arminianism on social media and more time loving people. God is sovereign, and we are responsible for our choices.

Cherubim and a flaming sword bar the way to the Tree of Life, and that was mercy. God would not leave humanity locked into a sinful, decaying existence forever, and sanctification and glorification are His plan to bring us out of it. A little speculation follows: did the Garden last until the Flood, does the Tree of Life explain the long lifespans before the Flood, and what about its return in Revelation 22? In the end, Jesus is our true Tree of Life. There’s also a fun side trip into ancient Hebrew, the names of God, and how complicated the English language is.

In Genesis 4, Abel brings the firstlings and the fat portions of his flock, and Cain brings an offering “of the fruit of the ground.” God accepts Abel’s offering and not Cain’s. That opens an honest talk about tithing and giving, including a personal story about giving a “Cain offering” early in marriage and how faithfully God has provided since. A word of caution, too: don’t feel pressured into giving. Pray about it, and remember that God wants obedience and a cheerful heart, not just money. That includes our time, which many of us guard more tightly than our wallets. And the tithe goes back before the Law, to Abraham and Melchizedek.

Cain gets angry because he “did his duty” and expected God to owe him for it. God lovingly confronts him: “If you do well, will you not be accepted? … sin is crouching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Even before the Law, God was teaching His children and giving them a way to choose rightly. Cain ignores the warning and kills his brother. Closing with Psalm 145:8–9: the Lord is gracious, merciful, and slow to anger, and He calls us to show those same traits.

Next episode: Genesis 4:9, as God comes to Cain with a question He already knows the answer to.

We’re back in Genesis 3 for the Fall. The serpent opens with the same question the world still asks Christians: “Did God really say?” We go through Eve adding to God’s command, Satan’s lie that “you will be like God,” and Adam standing right there and saying nothing. Then come the hiding, the blame-shifting, and God’s curses on the serpent, the woman, Adam and the ground. Through all of it God gives the first promise of a Savior (Genesis 3:15), the Seed who will crush the serpent’s head. We also cover why every part of the Bible is God’s Word, not just the red letters, how to test what you read against Scripture, and why sin is a twisting of what God made good.

Genesis 1–2 describe creation. Genesis 2 zooms in on Adam and on Eve, who was made from Adam’s rib to be his helper and companion. Genesis 3 opens with the serpent, “more subtil than any beast of the field,” asking the woman, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Genesis 3:1).

That question should sound familiar to Christians today. “Did God really say?” and “Is that really what it meant?” are still the openings used to raise doubt about Scripture, whether through “that was just the culture back then” or by twisting the Greek and Hebrew. Our answer is that God doesn’t change (Hebrews 13:8) and that not one jot or tittle of His Word will pass away (Matthew 5:18).

Eve leaves out the word freely and adds “neither shall ye touch it,” which God never said. We compare this to the Pharisees, who built layers of oral tradition around the Law of Moses. Jesus called those layers the “traditions of men” (Mark 7:8–13; Matthew 15:1–9), and they kept people out of the Kingdom (Matthew 23:13). Churches can do the same thing when they set up man-made “guardrails” and treat them as tests of salvation or of spiritual maturity. The gospel is Jesus plus nothing.

Some related points from the conversation:

We encourage young people to study Scripture for themselves and to “show thyself approved unto God… rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). The memorization programs many of us grew up with (AWANA, RAs and GAs) hid God’s Word in our hearts in a way that lasts (Psalm 119:11). Good teachers like Charles Stanley, Adrian Rogers and J. Vernon McGee can point you in the right direction. With any book about the Bible, check the passages it cites, read the surrounding context, and see whether they actually say what the author claims.

Satan contradicts God directly. We talk about how much Satan knew. He knew God does not lie, and he seems to have known a Redeemer would come, which is why he has been chasing the promised Seed through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and Israel, and why he still hates the Jewish people today. We also suggest jealousy as a motive: God formed humans with His own hands and made them in His image.

Satan and his angels are not all-knowing. Their view of the future is limited. We use the slave girl with a spirit of divination in Acts 16:16–18 to show this. Her fortune-telling was a moneymaker with short-range predictions, and it ended when Paul cast the spirit out. Modern psychics are the same kind of thing, and missionaries still tell of people coming out of the occult and leaving those “abilities” behind.

The temptation itself is “ye shall be as gods,” with the hint that God is holding something back. We point out that the same lie, that a person can become a god, shows up in some modern religions. Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44). He comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10), and he seeks whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8).

Eve reasons her way into sin: the fruit is good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and able to make her wise. Each of those desires was given by God, and Satan twisted them. We connect this to a line the hosts attribute to C.S. Lewis: sin is not the opposite of holiness but a perversion of what is holy. Today the same thing happens with God’s design for intimacy within marriage.

Adam was “with her.” He heard the whole conversation, said nothing, and ate. He had dominion over every creature (Genesis 1:28) and the intelligence to name every animal (Genesis 2:19–20), yet he didn’t stop it. Men are called to step up and say “no” when their families are being tempted. Paul calls Jesus the “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45). Jesus did only what the Father told Him (John 5:19; Luke 22:42) and showed what Adam should have done.

Next time we pick up at Genesis 3:20, where Adam names Eve. Then we move into Genesis 4 and the first fight in human history, Cain and Abel.

Genesis 1–2; Genesis 3:1–19; Genesis 1:28; Genesis 2:19–20; Genesis 4; Genesis 5:5 · Psalm 22:3; Psalm 119:11 · Matthew 5:18; Matthew 15:1–9; Matthew 23:13; Matthew 27:29 · Mark 7:8–13 · Luke 22:42 · John 5:19; John 8:44; John 10:10; John 14:26 · Acts 16:16–18 · Romans 8:22 · 1 Corinthians 6:19; 1 Corinthians 15:45, 51–52 · Ephesians 5 · 1 Thessalonians 4:13–17 · 2 Timothy 2:15; 2 Timothy 3:16 · Hebrews 13:8 · 1 Peter 5:8 · 2 Peter 1:20–21 · 1 John 4:18

Episode 93: Genesis 2–3, from the First Command to the Serpent

We start by looking back on two incredible Sundays in a row. Brother Jake did his first baptisms (five of them), the altar stayed full song after song, and our youth came down without hesitating to pray with visitors. We also talk about a youth solo that knocked it out of the park, a packed choir, and the joy of seeing our young people get up and join Greg for his favorite Bible school song.

Then we go back to Genesis 2:

We finish by starting Genesis 3:1–3. The serpent asks “Has God really said?”, which is a tactic Satan still uses today. Eve adds “neither shall you touch it” to God’s command, and we talk about how adding to God’s Word leads to legalism, like the Pharisees. The fruit was never the point. Obedience and love were. We close on pride as the sin that brought Satan down, and on the humility of Christ, who left His glory to die for us.

Next time: We pick back up in Genesis chapter 3, around verses 4 and 5, and get into the heart of the Fall.

On this episode we continue discussing the Book of Genesis chapter 2.

We continue our discussion of the book of Genesis Chapter 1 following the days of creation.

On this episode we begin our discussion of the Book of Genesis.

On this episode we wrap up our discussion of the Book of Revelation. Join us next week as we begin our discussion of the Book of Genesis.

Join us as we wrap up Revelation Chapter 21.

Join us as we continue the Book of Revelation with Chapter 21.

Hope everyone has enjoyed this Memorial Day. On this episode we discuss Revelation Chapter 20.

We did not do a Livestream tonight so the next episode will post in 2 weeks.