“What Is This You Have Done?”

Some people think of God as cosmic killjoy somebody who sets of rules designed to spoil our fun today on Truth for Life weekend will hear what happened to a woman who believed that Alastair biggest teaching from Genesis chapter 3. Looking at verse 13.

Those of you have traveled in Scotland and many of you have.

I know because you've told me that you've completed your educational program by going there have noted or will know it when you go that, especially when you get beyond Paris and up into the Highlands of Scotland you very quickly, on castles, which are no longer inhabited if you do what you're our teacher encourage you to do when you were doing art appreciation, namely standby far enough and squeeze your eyes, you can begin to see that even in their ruined condition. There is a splendor about these edifices that speaks to their former glory. And so while we would have to conclude that what we are looking at our ruins. Nevertheless, in one sense they are glorious ruins.

I mentioned that because that is at one way of understanding how men and women are viewed in light of the events that are described for us in Genesis chapter 3.

The Bible tells us that when God finished the work of creation.

He was absolutely satisfied, he pronounced it good and the Bible tells us that the apex of his creative handiwork was in the construction. First of Adam and then of Eve. These individuals that he made were not morally neutral.

They were not ambivalent set somewhere in a kind of neutral territory between good and evil, the Bible says that they were actually made created with a positive bias with an inclination to do what is good, but that's the event that is described here in Genesis 3 we find that as the attempt to take a giant leap upward is aware there strategy goes horribly wrong, and in lusting after a throne that they could never inhabit.

They find themselves degraded losing the place and the privileges that they were created to enjoy and their act of rebellion towards God brings with it consequences which are immediately apparent, and alienation that makes them feel vulnerable and naked and alienation not only from God, who has made them but in alienation from one another as they begin to cast aspersions on one another and as family arrived and alienation which is represented between not only husband and wife but parents and children to and it is within that context that this evening's question comes straight forward question, one that is addressed to Eve, particularly in the question you will see there in the verse is what is this you have done what is this you have done or what had she done what she'd been deceived into eating what was forbidden will come back to that she had succumbed to the subtlety of the serpent the serpent of Trenton and first of all cast doubt on what God had said once the insinuation of uncertainty has begun to permeate the mind of Eve, she thinks uncertainly about things as well.

The serpent cast doubt on what God has said in the serpent of the same time challenges the truthfulness of what God is said and having soon the seed of doubt. He then sows the seed of ambition and he says the reason that God is acting in this way with you is that he knows that if you do this you will become like God. When you read the narrative you discover that the appeal of this was more than Eve could stand. The food was good. The fruit was attractive. The opportunity was so there the opportunity for immediate gratification. I seemed to anesthetize or is aware from the possible painful consequences of the action she was about to take and inviting her husband to participate with her in this. Both of them are involved not in a moment's relapse, but both of them are involved in an act of rebellion. One of my favorite contemporary theologians in Scotland says that verse seven contains the greatest anticlimax in history because the promise was that you will have the knowledge of good and evil and you will be like God. That was the prospect and what did she know where she knew that she didn't have any clothes to let me try and summarize what she's done. What is this you have done. Number one she believed the lie I see she believed a compounded line. Essentially, she has succumbed to the idea that God could not be trusted that God is a cosmic killjoy and what is actually committed to doing with the creatures that he is made is having them miss out on all the good things of life. She's deceived into believing that God's way is not best. She believed a lie.

Secondly, she was blatantly disobedient. The reason that it was wrong for her to eat this was simply because God had told her not to eat now at this point we have to pause we need to pause and acknowledge that either we start from the position that God is a self proving God who speaks to us by a word that is true simply because it is his word or we begin from the assumption that we are not God are the final judges of all truth. And when the latter is the case then inevitably we deny to God the right to command our obedience.

Nobody is going to tell me what to do. This is David Brooks and a wonderful column entitled Saturday night light, very humorous, but in the course of it and really unrelated to the rest of it he he writes this sentence sometime over the past generation. We became less likely to object to something because it is immoral and more likely to object to something because it is unhealthy or unsafe. So smoking is not the worst evil than six of the 10 Commandments and the word sinful is most commonly associated with chocolate as natural. You see, once you have removed the creator God who speaks a word that is authoritative and true, then you have removed any basis for legislating in relationship to morality and right and wrong. She believed the lie she was blatantly disobedient. And thirdly, she sought to deny responsibility. What is this you have done. The serpent deceived me, and I hate, of course, Adams already off to the races on this one. What is this you have done.

Adam the woman you gave me. She's the problem so already, and everyone's pointing in every direction apart at the direction to themselves. Such is our willingness to blame anyone and anything other than our own willful actions. Now we could extend this list, but we won't because I wanted in the balance of the time is to wear at least lay ourselves open to the possibility that the searchlight of the Bible would turn upon us, so that with these characters.

In view, we now say well is there any point of contact between this whole concept of evading responsibility involved in blatant disobedience under the same time, being prepared to believe a lie, contrary to the commonly held view that man and I use man generically here, man, quaint man man as man and woman contrary, the commonly held view that man is basically good and needs only time and a fair chance to prove its by improving his lot.

The Bible says no man has inherited the nature that is in rebellion against God, that is deeply flawed and that is ultimately self centered.

Are you are rebellious pumps do you find it easier to do wrong things then write things you see, even when we take into account environment and ethics upbringing, education, government decisions, body chemistry, and so on. We still have to face the fact that what the Bible confronts is within this question is our own willful choice in relationship to these matters. Chesterton in an earlier era says whatever else is endowed man is not what God intended him to be so once we set aside the notion of a creator to whom we are accountable once we reject God, then it is inevitable that we must set about reinterpreting the facts that confront us to fit our denial of right.

There is no God.

Nietzsche will and let's explain the universe, Darwinian evolutionary thought is not a marriage, nor is it sustained in a moral or intellectual vacuum, it is inevitable that the coalescing of the philosophies of man once they have started from the perspective of the rejection of God in any sense must come up with an explanation of the universe. Why would it be a surprise to us that it comes out in the way that it does.

That's why I've always liked an atheist like this. Actually, I admire his honesty. I told you before, I was so excited when I read Huxley and he said the reason for not wanting to believe in God. This is honest, you know, I rejected God because I wanted to reject God because if God existed, and I was accountable to them that I couldn't sleep with anybody I want to sleep with conscience and even be watching.

I decided to reject God because I had the most bizarre political views and if I had a semblance of order in the universe that I couldn't hold to these bizarre positions. Thanks for your honesty Aldus. That's good, but not everyone is as honest.

So like Eve in the garden.

We too are susceptible to the notion that God if he exists, is bent on spoiling our final ice where young people are told we want to get involved negative religious stock selling don't want to get entertain the notion of Jesus are becoming a Christian, God's people are deadbeats as the most miserable life you could ever know. Come and join us like Eve. Most of us are attracted to the notion of immediate gratification.

Get it all now. Remember the credit card I can remember which company was, but he had a wonderful byline.

It was take the waiting out of 110.

Take a waiting. I don't want to set appeal.

Of course it does like to have that parts will take the waiting out of what we can do that for you put the thing in bring the thing out and walk out. It's as easy as that. Straighter than old Scottish Adam Smith in the wealth of Nations Calvinistic silly nonsense about your candle for doing my horn on Lord only got back to the wealth of nations.

There this. This is the gratification. Now think about it sexually and actually sexually simply because it is impossible to view our culture without recognizing that it is completely consumed and stated with thanks and is the same appeal take the waiting out of wanting but if you have a creator God before whom you are accountable and he says there is a framework for sex and he has establish the boundaries of sex then I would check in and of being in or you think that we do not want some so appealing doesn't.

What is this you well she believe that God doesn't know best. She believe that my way is better than his. She believed that she would be happier if she could become master of her own destiny and she shared the perspective with her husband like it only just be the champion of my fate, the master of my craft, you know, I can only just do it my way.

You see, that's the rub, because when we reject the true mastery of God. We don't become our own master. We just put ourselves under the mastery of all host of Masters I don't have time to articulate them, but we put ourselves under the mastery of deceit because lies lead to more lines and when our view of the world starts with a lie, then we will compound that lie in order to secure our vantage point, we put ourselves under the mastery of darkness. We put ourselves under the mastery of despair.

Member Hemingway life is a dirty trick, a short journey from nothingness to nothingness or Einstein. I discover that the man who know the most are the most miserable and ultimately we put ourselves under the mastery of death, which is what God told them would be the inevitable consequence of their turning their backs on his way.

Now I know it can be simply a rhetorical advice to do what I'm about to do. In conclusion, but I think it is true as well as rhetorically effective and that is to set before us. In conclusion to start choices choice number one is what we might call the pathway of atheistic humanism. The pathway of atheistic humanism, a pathway that is broad and crowded and on this pathway. The assumption is that there is no God. The Bible is therefore not a revelation from God, but is rather simply a collection of religious ideas and therefore the study and interpretation of the Bible is governed by those assumptions. So if you're sitting out there tonight as an atheistic humanist.

You're listening to me as I was all very well. I appreciated the way in which is trying to save the same Friendly's a little bunk because my assumption is that there is no God, there is no God that there is no revelation. There is no revelation in the Bible. The Bible is not authoritative that runaways going on about in the way the pathway of atheistic humanism is broad and crowded. In contrast to the pathway of Christian theism, which is narrow and sparsely populated, and on this pathway, the assumption is that God made every fact in the universe and that he alone can interpret all things and all events that because we are made in the image of God. We know that we are dependent upon God for any truth and that because of our participation in the rebellion described in Genesis 3. As sinners, we suppress this knowledge and we reinterpret the universe on the assumption that we are not God gave meaning to everything.

They understandably and follow the logic of that so another words, man is in a cul-de-sac man is in a dark hole man is not in a position of neutrality whereby you can either look for the good her up for the bad man is endemically flawed man is essentially blind and the very sinfulness of man makes him unable to consciously recognize the truth because of sin, our intellects are affected because of sin, we think wrongly, we tend to think that everything else is messed up. At least our minds are clear, we can make our own choices nor the Bible actually says that our minds are messed up and we are blind to the truth that I professing to you right now if you do not believe so if you are whole children did.

You are now seeing to yourself what possible whole. Is there if I am ever to get out of my predicament. That's where the gospel comes telling is that the dampness of our hearts and our hatred of God and his interference in our lives. Maybe overcome by his goodness, and goodness that reaches its apex in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ so that he dies to bear all of my rebellion. All of my forwardness. All of my skin thinking and when by the revelation of his truth by means of the Bible by means of the work of the Holy Spirit.

The third person of the Trinity, the lights go on. It is on account of his goodness which comes to.

If you like eradicate my blood hatred of and without. I remain without God and without hope in the world. So if you're still thinking then you understand now why it is that someone like myself would say to you, you better try to see see as opposed to if you would like to put up your hand.

Then tonight.

Of course all your problems will be gone and you will be a new person. No, you don't have the capacity apart from the grace and goodness of God. That's the explanation for Newton's him which we seem so tragically amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me I once was lost but now I'm found was blind but now I see only God can affect that change and he is going to the extent of sending his son in order that the hardness of our rebellion might be overwhelmed by his loving kindness is better than life was issued on believed a lie being blatantly disobedient decided to pass the buck to whoever I could to my wife to my parents to my environment to my genetics to my school to my impoverishment. Whatever it might be God changes were right into our hearts assist come off it. You know that's not the case.

You know that's not the case.

There are dangerous consequences that come from rebelling against God and doubting his word. Listening to Truth for Life weekend with Alistair Begg here Truth for Life were passionate about sharing the gospel and proclaiming God's word. In fact, our pattern is to teach the Bible verse by verse because we know God works through his word to convert unbelievers to establish believers in the strength of local churches. We hope that as you listen to Truth for Life. You have grown in your faith and deepen your relationship with Jesus. If you'd like to hear more teaching from Alister. You can access his entire teaching library online@truthforlife.org or it's available through the mobile app, simply click the servant tab.

You can browse teaching by Scripture by topic or by series title while you're online. Take a look at the many articles drawn from Alister's teaching that can be read on our website or in the mobile app find articles on a wide variety of topics that are also easy to pass along to someone by simply sharing the link again. Visit Truth for Life.org/articles Bob Lapine thanks for joining us this weekend. There are many people who assume they can somehow earn entry into God's kingdom by trying their best and being good, but as you'll hear next week and when you join us are goodness can actually block our access to heaven Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life Learning is for Living