And now would you open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 2.

I would appreciate your prayers in the next couple weeks. Monday morning I leave for India, and it's been a few years since I have "been through that place." (Indian accent) But it's always, it's always good to go, and I'm going to speak at graduation for the largest, it's the largest seminary in Asia, I believe, and a pastor's conference of ministers and workers from all over the subcontinent of India, down in the south. So we'll be there for a few days, and then on to Germany for a few days to speak to more churches. So we just appreciate your prayers in travel, especially during this time.

Genesis 2. You could sum up the history of the human race in one easy phrase. It's "From Creation to Corruption." That's our history. That's our journey. That's our path.

There is enough bad news in our world today, our modern world, to make anybody depressed—homeland security, war, terrorism. A lot of that stuff adds up, and it makes people feel stressful, antsy, worried, on edge. It makes people cynical. It makes some people want to check out. We think, "Wait a minute. Did I become an adult for this reason, to deal with this stuff?"

One person wrote his resignation. Listen to this. "I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult." Ever feel that way? Some of you already have. "I have decided that I would like to, I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of an eight year old again. I want to go to McDonald's and think that it is a four-star restaurant. I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make ripples with rocks. I want to think M & M's are better than money, because you can eat them. I want to lie under a big oak tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summer's day. I want to return to time when life was simple, when all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, nursery rhymes. But that didn't bother you, because you didn't know what you didn't know, and you didn't care. All you knew was to be happy, because you were blissfully unaware of all of the things that should make you worried or upset. I want to think that the world is fair, that everyone is good and honest. I want to believe that anything is possible. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again. I don't want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctors' bills, gossip, illness, and loss of loved ones. I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, kind words, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind, and making angels in the snow. So, here's my checkbook. Here's my car keys, my credit card, my bills, and my 401K statements. I am officially resigning from adulthood, and if you want to discuss this further you're going to have to catch me first, because "tag, you're it."

Well, it's not so easy, is it?

When we look at our world today, now, we are forced to confess that this is not, this is not what God originally intended. This was not the original design. The image has been marred. Something beautiful that once was has been lost.

Now, how did we get into this mess? Where did it all begin? Whose fault is it? Can we blame the Democrats for this, or the Republicans? Can we blame Iraq or France? No, we can't. We have to go way back further than that to the very first couple on the earth, Adam and Eve. And after having done that we need to look inside of ourselves, because the result is from what happened a long time ago. In fact, the Bible says, All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. So we need to look backwards to see what happened, and then to look inward to see what the result of that was.

What happened is that a deadly virus has infected humanity, deadlier than HIV. It's the S-I-N virus. It is endemic and pandemic to all generations. All are infected.

Once Dwight L. Moody was speaking at a church, and he was told by one of the elders that the church was notorious for having people get up and leave the service, a few of them would, before the end of the service. So Moody smiled and got up to the pulpit, and he said, "This morning I'm going to address two groups of people, sinners and saints." So he went on to address the sinners. Then he made an announcement, "Now I'm done preaching to the sinners. The sinners can now get up and leave, because I'm going to preach to the saints. He said for the first time in that church's history, every member of the church stayed 'til the end of the sermon.

I hope you'll all stay 'til the end of this sermon, because it's about all of us. And there are three words that show from the text the journey of mankind from creation to corruption. Three words describe the marring of the image, the experience of mankind. And those words are fulfilled, fallen, and forfeited. Those three words describe what we're about to read in Genesis 2 and 3.

Now, there's a fourth word that's really not written about in our text. In fact, I didn't even include it in the outline. I just put a lot of dashes. That's because you're going to have to wait to find out what that is. These three are here.

Let's go back to chapter 2 of Genesis and look at the beginning. Once again the fulfillment, how satisfied it all was at one time. Verse 8, The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there was, there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the site and good for food. Try to picture this as we read. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Verse 15, The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat." Now, how does that sound to you for a place to hang out? This sounds better than Maui. Green vegetation, fruit abounding, and it was all free. This was like a hippy's dream, man. Perfect environment, perfect menu, perfect relationship with God. This is the kind of experience people save all their lives up and retire to go do. Adam had it all in the very beginning.

In verse 19, he had a great job. Besides gardening, out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see, notice this, to see what he would name them. Whatever Adam called each living creature that was its name. What a life, man.

Now, I honestly don't know what Adam was thinking when he named animal. And I know that different languages have different renditions of them, but it, it just sort of seems that he was very creative at the beginning, and then he just got kind of tired as time went on. You know, he saw one and he thought, "Hippo-pot-a-mus." That's a long word to say; or "rhi-no-cer-os." And then as time when on, there were so many animals he got a little bit tired. "Cow. Cat." It became monosyllabic, but what a job. What a great environment, a perfect place to live. Now remember, this is the first man created in God's image. This is before the fall. The fall begins in chapter 3. This is paradise. This is Eden, before the fall. He's in the image of God. He has a mind to know God, a heart to love God, and a destiny to walk with and be with God forever.

So here it is. A pristine environment in which he could enjoy direct fellowship with the Creator, so much so that it's already described, we saw last week, God came to walk with Adam in the cool of the day. The best part of the day it seems that God and Adam had a little walk, and a little chat, and a personal time of fellowship. Everything was great. He is at peace with his environment, and he has dominion over God's creation, and yet something is missing. And we've read this before, but let's just notice it.

In verse 18, God said, "It is not good that man should be alone." So everything's great except this. The only time God says it is not good. "I will make him a helper that is comparable to him." Everything was perfect except he needed a companion. Now, he had all the animals. This just goes to show you that dog is not man's best friend according to God, because he had every kind of animal, but something was missing. "I'm going to make him a helper," God said. So, God becomes the first matchmaker. This is truly a match made in heaven.

You know, somebody once said that Adam and Eve had the ideal marriage, because he didn't have to hear about all the other men that she could've married. He was it. And she didn't have to listen to, "Well, my mother would've cooked that a little differently than you did." I mean, it was just perfect, scratch, right out of the box.

Verse 21, The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam. As he slept he took one of his ribs. He closed up the flesh in its place," no need to explain it. That's just what it says. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man. And Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She will be called woman because she was taken out of man."

I've told you before, if you have been with us in this text, that it is more animated in the original language. So much so that the Living Bible translates it this way, God brought the woman to the man, and Adam said, "This is it!" He's excited, but, you know, it's like, "Where have you been all my life" kind of a thing, even though he's only six days old. It, the idea is that he's excited to see her. So, he has the best place, the best environment. He has the best job. He has the best kind of relationship with God, but God said something is missing. So does divine surgery on him. God's the first matchmaker, the first surgeon, and creates out of part of his side, a rib, a woman.

A little boy was in Sunday School and heard this story for the first time. It so affected him that later on during the week he had a pain in his side, and he was bunched over at home, and his mommy said, "Johnny, what is wrong?"

"I think I'm going to have a wife."

Worried him.

But look at verse 25. And they were both, they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed. Now listen to that in the amplified Bible. They were not embarrassed nor ashamed in each other's presence. In other words, this was the beginning. Here's the satisfaction. Here's the fulfillment. There is a total "at easeness" before God and before each other. Nothing to hide, just an open vulnerability before God and before each other. Naked and not ashamed.

Now, we, we passed something over, but you remember it. Everything is great, but there's one negative command, right? Only one. Not five, just one commandment, and that was the tree. "Stay away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Maybe God even hung a sign over it. "Stay out. Lethal tree. Don't go near it." But you know what it's like when you see a sign? You know what it's like when you see a sign that says don't do something. You go, "Well, why?" You think that. "Wet paint." "Don't pull on the fire alarm." It gets done all the time. "Stay out." We want to go in. And that's exactly what happened.

So, we move from stage one, fulfill, to stage 2, fallen. That's now chapter 3. Chapter 3, it goes without saying really, is one of the most important chapters in all of Scripture. Without chapter 3, there is no adequate explanation for all of the troubles that have befallen humanity. Nothing quite makes sense. There's no reasonable explanation without it.

Let's look at the first few verses. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'"

And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God has said, 'You shall not eat nor shall you touch it lest you die.'"

The serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows in the day that you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God knowing good and evil."

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

Now, we are introduced in the first verse to a serpent. That's what my version calls it, a serpent. And this creature is obviously different from other creatures. This snake talks, first of all. It can say words and communicate to Eve and to Adam. We, we get some insight here into strategy, Satan's devices. Remember Paul said in the New Testament, For we are not ignorant of his devices? Since this is the very first activity of the devil, very first temptation, this becomes to us prototypical, a prototype, a model, if you will, a way in which he approaches all of us. Though it's tailored to meet our specific weaknesses, this is very prototypical of Satan's approach. We're not ignorant of his devices. He tempts us. He hassles us. He oppresses us. He nags us. He condemns us. He accuses us.

Now, you might be thinking, "Well, Skip, this doesn't apply to me. Satan doesn't hassle me." Well, there may be a very interesting reason why, and it's not a good one.

You see, there were two guys, they were friends. One was a Christian and the other was not, and the Christian always talked about the fact that Satan hassled him, and tempted him, and there was spiritual warfare going on. It drove his friend nuts. One day they were out hunting, and he brought it up again, and his friend said, "The devil never bothers me."

Well, there they are pulling the trigger, and you know, they'd kill a couple ducks and a couple ducks would be wounded. The dogs would go after those who were wounded, the live ones, so they wouldn't get away.

The Christian said, "You know, I just realized why Satan doesn't attack you."

"Why's that?"

"Because you're dead spiritually. Why bother to shoot something that's dead."

Satan only goes after those who are alive spiritually. And if you are a living duck, that is a vibrant, growing Christian, bearing forth fruit Satan has his sights on you. And if you're not getting any attack at all from Satan, not a good sign. Not a good sign.

How did Satan approach Adam and Eve? Let's look at what Adam and Eve heard. How did he approach them? Four things I want you to notice.

He's charming. He really is. He charmed God's creation. Now, I know it says serpent here. It's not a good translation. The Hebrew word nahash literally means "a shining one," and the best translation would be, Now the shining one was more cunning than the beast of the field. That's right. Satan came, as it were, as an angel of light. No horns here, no hoofs, no red suit and pitch fork in Genesis 3. No "Boo, I'm the devil. Bleh!" None of that stuff. That's too obvious. Isn't it? It's not effective. What is more effective is to come as "the shining one", "the alluring one", "the beautiful, magnificent one."

If you remember a couple weeks back, you remember his description out of Ezekiel 28. God said, You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. He was charming, and what he had to offer was charming. But she saw, in verse 6, "Hey, this is good for food. This is pleasant to the eyes."

You see, Satan knows how to market really well. And if he wants to allure you, he's going to wrap it up in something that looks so good, too good to pass up. So note that. Number one, he charmed God's creatures.

Number two, he challenged God's word, didn't he? First thing he said, "Hey, let me ask you a question. Has God said?" He's not denying that God can speak. After all, he can. But he is casting doubt as to did God say that? "Did God really say that? You know, maybe you just think God said that. You know, people are delusional who are into religion these days. Maybe he didn't say that. Oh, he said something, but are you sure that he said that?" He challenges God's word.

And then in verse 4 same thing, same challenge. But he's very blatant. You will not surely die. Now listen, long time has passed between Eden and America in 2003. The same attack continues. Things haven't changed. Satan still challenges this book that we know as the word of God, causing people everywhere to doubt it.

Roy Aldridge, great author, noted this very wisely. He said, "Satan does not waste his ammunition. Professors who are being paid to teach philosophy, English, biology, math will often take time from their class period to undermine the Bible and Christianity." Now I can attest to that personally. I had lots of professors who did that. Who even stop the class and said, "Anybody here believe in the Bible?" And then took class time to undermine it. But listen to Aldridge. He says, "Why are they not doing the same with the sacred books of other religions? The answer is that Satan, the original liar, is sympathetic with books that lie. His real enmity is directed against the book of truth, because it contains the dynamite for his defeat." That's why.

"God didn't say that? Are you sure God said that?"

Number three, he charged God's motives. Now, it, it's not explicit. It is implicit in questioning God. "Did God say that? Oh, you won't surely die." What he is doing is charging that God is not a God of love. "Eve, God wouldn't say that. If God really loves you, he wouldn't keep you from the best tree in the garden. He knows you're going to be like him in the day that you eat of it."

Does that sound familiar to you? Isn't that how Satan approaches so many of us? "Well if God is truly good, why would God deny you pleasure if that's something that feels good to you? If you want that relationship, why would God say it's bad? Or why would God dare keep you in that marriage if God is a God of love?" You see, he did the same thing to Jesus, didn't he? He challenged God's love for Jesus. "Oh, if you're God's beloved Son, why are you out here hungry? Take these stones and make them into bread. You've got the power." That's an attack on the motive of God's love.

Number four, finally, in his approach in this fall, he changed God's truth. He just changes it all together. He lies. He says, For God knows that in the day that you eat of it, your eyes are going to be opened. You're going to see like you've never seen before. And God knows also that you will be like God."

Satan has always tried to pervert what God did in creation. And this is what God did in creation. God created man in his own image, but Satan tries to cast doubts into what God originally did so that we will create God in our image. We'll make up our own God. And today, by and large, people worship themselves. It's all about me. It's all about how I look, how I feel. Me, me, me. And here's the temptation, see, once you create God in your own image, you start making up what you believe you think God is like rather than revelation like we mentioned last time, there's no end to it. There's no end to it at all. You see, what happens is that, in our culture we have a moving toward spirituality that is sort of a smorgasbord spirituality. Very few people say, "I believe in the God of the Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ alone to save."

"You do?"

You see, most people would say it's something like this, "I'll have a medium order of Christianity. No, no, make that a small order of Christianity, and put a little bit of Islamic spices on top of it, a side of Buddhism, served up by the Dali lama." See, I'll just pick and choose little parts of things that I agree with here, that I agree with there. Put it together and call that "My way. My belief system." Once you go down that path, anything goes. We're even renaming vices and sins.

I was given a copy of, and here's a little quote from it, The Official Politically Correct Dictionary. Now, it's the same old sins, just new names. Instead of promiscuous or immoral it's now called sexually active. One time it was called immoral. Oh, not anymore. It's just sexually active. Instead of dishonest, you are ethically disoriented or differently honest. How's that one? "I'm not dishonest. I'm differently honest." Yeah, really different. Instead of drug addiction, it's a person with a pharmalogical difference. Instead of drunk, it's chemically inconvenienced, sobriety deprived. It's not stealing and looting, it should be called non-traditional shopping. A serial killer is defined as socially misaligned or one with difficult to meet needs. And a bum is no longer called that, but non-goal oriented member of society.

So I guess if they were to write the Ten Commandments all over again, they could not say, Thou shalt not kill. "Thou shalt not be socially misaligned." "Thou shalt not be a non-traditional shopper." Same stuff that happened in Genesis 3.

Well, what did Adam do? Well, verse 6, so When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves covering, and they heard the sound 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 among the trees of the garden.

You notice a stage here with Eve? She saw, she took, and she ate. Whereas with Adam, it just says, he ate. You know, it really is the difference between a gal and a guy. And I got to tell you something. The Bible places the blame squarely on Adam's shoulders, not Eve's. Did you know that? All the way through the Bible it's what Adam did. Now, guys would read this and go, "Wait. Wait a minute. I read it. She started it." But that is because Eve was deceived. Adam knew exactly what he was doing. He knew exactly what he was doing. It was willful.

Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2, and he says, Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. That's why it's worse for Adam. See, there's Eve. She's listening. She's engaging in conversation. She's pondering what is being said. She reasons a little bit, not Adam, just grunts, (gulp), eats it. It's over.

Verse 6, you may want to just put a mark by it. I did, because it is the darkest day in human history. This is where humanity fell. This is where all the trouble began. Up until verse 6 of chapter 3 innocence flowed through the bloodstream of humanity with our first couple. But beginning in verse 6, at that awful moment, a fatal contaminate entered our bloodstream. S-I-N. And from that moment through history creation was marred. Fulfilled, but then fallen.

Leads to a third, forfeited. They gave something up. We saw in verse 8 that they gave up God's fellowship. They're hiding from God. They're separated from God. Hiding is the instinctive reaction to guilt. When you're guilty you hide. If you're not guilty, you have nothing to hide. Why is it, why is it when somebody we think of, "Hey, why, they haven't been around the fellowship for a long time."

"Oh, well, I saw him at a bar last week."

"Well, why won't they come, come to church?"

"Are you kidding?" Because the last place they'd want to be is around Christians. They feel uncomfortable around them. They have something to hide.

Some years back when my son got a, a bad report card, I never saw the report card. He hid it. We had to dig for it. Why? Who taught him that? Adam did. That's part of the package, you see. Hiding is the instinctive response to guilt.

And notice they're self-conscious. They go, "Hey, we're naked." We read that, go, "Duh. Like you never noticed that before?" Exactly. They never did notice it before this moment. See, up to this moment, they were not self-conscious. They were self-less, but now they are self-absorbed. And they noticed themselves, and they're worried about what they noticed. "We're naked. Let's cover ourselves up." And they did.

Go back to verse 17 of chapter 2 for just a moment, because they not only forfeited fellowship for separation. They forfeited something worse. They forfeited life for death. Verse 17, God said, "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely" what? Die.
The word die means "be separated from." The idea is a separation will take place; could be either spiritual or physical. Now, when they did eat, when Adam and Eve sinned, they began to die physically. But they died immediately spiritually. They were separated from God. And see, folks, listen carefully. Here's the rub. Here's the rub. Satan's sin promises fulfillment, satisfaction. It gives you separation, not satisfaction, not fulfillment. It promises you one thing, but it never, ever produces it. The wages of sin is death, and the day that you eat, you will surely die.

Now something happened at that point, and I want you to keep your marker here and go over to Romans 5 where we're going to end. Romans 5. Well, almost end. Two verses, three verses I want you to look at. Romans 5. I'm turning here, because Paul just neatly sums it all up, what that means to us. What happened, what it means to us. Romans 5, verse 12, Therefore, just as through one man—who would that one man be? Adam.—sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread—now the virus is abreast everywhere—to all men, because all sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reined from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of him who is to come.

Notice in those three verses, four stages. Verse 12, sin entered. Verse 12 again, death entered. Notice then, death spread. And then the fourth, in verse 14, death reined. Death entered, sin entered, death entered, death spread, and death reined. That's the fallout. That means one word to you and me, depravity. You and I are depraved. We're depraved. You go, "I don't like what you've just called me. You called me depraved." Now, that's not our estimation of ourselves. Our estimation, "Well, I'm a nice guy. I'm a pretty good guy."

The word depraved does not mean you are as bad you could ever be. It means you are as bad off before God as you could ever be. "Well, I reject that." You, you probably would, especially if you're an unbeliever. That's not our estimation of ourself. That's God's estimation of us. Romans 3, God says, There is none righteous. No, not one. And he paints a black picture of humanity.

Now, this answers for us, "Why is the world the way it is? Why is there thievery, and connivery, and murder, and terrorism, and cheating, and stealing? Why? You can't blame it on the United Nations or a political party. It goes way, way back, and we haven't gotten any better.

Now listen, when Adam sinned he generated a constitutional change in character that spread through his progeny. Every person born into the world is born with a sin nature. He went from innocence to sinfulness, from purity to pollution.

This is what it's like. Have you ever stood before a lake, a mountain lake, early in the morning when there's no wind? And I'll tell you what I'm thinking of, because I saw it as a boy. Jackson Lake, Wyoming. The Grand Tetons perched on the other side. Early in the morning when there's no wind, you can see a perfect reflection, an image perfectly mirrored on the lake of the mountains. It's beautiful. But, you know, that one flat stone tossed and skipped across the surface of that mars the image.

That's what happened. The devil, Satan, threw one stone. I'll rephrase that. Really Adam, because he gave in. Adam tossed one stone across the surface of humanity's lake, and the image of God was marred. It's still there, but it's marred. Just one stone, and we feel the results of it.

Every now and then I'll play a trick on somebody if I'm eating lunch in a restaurant. And they'll order tea, or coke, or water, and get up and go to the restroom, and while they're gone I'll just do something funny like pour a bunch of salt in the tea or the water and stir it up, and just carry on a normal conversation until they're about halfway done. They're going (smack, smack) "Man, I'm thirsty, but that tastes weird." And then I have to confess, "Yeah, I put salt in it." When the tea is polluted, there's no way you can separate pure water from salt water. At that point it, it has touched every part of the water, every part of that drink. You can't remove it. So our nature is touched by the pollution that happened in Adam. So we are born with a sin nature.

It's like when a dog barks. You don't say, "It's a dog, because it barked." Well, I can bark. No. We say, "It barked because it's a dog. That's its nature." And the same with us. We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners. That's our nature. We're marked by corruption. Every human being is corrupted, and therefore, every human being needs redemption.

Now, those three words mark the journey of humanity—fulfill, fallen, forfeited. That's the journey.

There is a fourth word that's not really in here, but it's hinted at, and it's a possibility if you want it. It's the word forgiven. It's where the creation is restored upward. It's where it takes a positive turn. It's hinted at if you look in verse, verse 15. What I love about it, it shows me God doesn't sit still. Man is corrupted. God goes to work immediately.

Chapter 3, verse 15. He says, I will put enmity between you, the serpent/Satan, and the woman, between your seed and her seed, and he will bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. In other words, a promised redeemer is mentioned here that will crush Satan's dominion forever. That's the first hint of it, and then look down one more verse, verse 21.

Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them. Isn't that nice? Sheep skin. Sheep skin rugs for Adam and Eve. I don't know if you've ever felt a fig leaf in a very sensitive part of your anatomy, anywhere. Just put it on the back of your wrist, and say, "Oooh, its just so itchy."

What a relief to have sheep skin coverings. But that required something, didn't it? The death, the first death, the death of an animal. Now, the first creatures that should have died physically were Adam and Eve, but God didn't do that. He killed innocent animals. Shed blood atoned, in a sense, for their sin and covered them, clothed them.

This is a hint, is it not, of the ultimate sacrifice that would come one day when the Lamb of God would be killed for the sins of the world? It's a shadow of a substitute. Someone would die in our place.

So, yes, these three words mark us. All of us. Fulfilled, but fallen; forfeited, but possibly, if you want it, forgiveness. Forgiven. You see, what Jesus did is that he undid everything Adam did. The Bible calls him the last Adam, or the second Adam. And in Romans 5, I didn't read it to you, but I'll just read it to you now. For this one man, Adam, brought death to many through his sin, but this other man, Jesus Christ, brought forgiveness to many through God's bountiful gift.

Yes, Adam's one sin brought condemnation upon everyone, but Christ's one act of righteousness makes people right in God's sight and gives them life. So you are ruined by one man's misdeed. You are saved by one man's merit, Jesus Christ.

There was a story that ran in a newspaper in Kilgore, Texas. A man got in an accident. He's still alive, but got in a bad wreck. The car went into a ditch. They took him to the nearest gas station where he came to. When he came to he went into a fit. He went, he went nuts. He just started shaking violently. They took him to the hospital, and as they spoke to him as he got better in the ER, here was the problem.

After the accident the first thing he saw was a Shell gas station. As he looked up at the sign, the "s" had fallen off. So this poor, injured man the first thing that he sees after an accident is "hell open 24 hours," and it really bothered him.

Folks, hell is open 24 hours. That's the whole intention of chapter 3 and the fall. But heaven is open 24 hours, too. And yes, we have forfeited through Adam great riches. We have marred the image of God, but because of forgiveness, it doesn't just have to be from creation to corruption. It can be from creation to corruption to redemption, because we've all been polluted by one stream, the stream of Adam. We call all be cleansed by one strain.

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

And so, Father, we have learned through your word that we're part of the mess, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We're sinners by nature. As David said, I was born speaking lies. But we're also sinners by choice. We, we all see the signs, and we think, "Well, why should I, or why shouldn't I?" Lord, I pray that that last word would be true of us—forgiven. That our trust would not be in ourselves, our works, but in the work of the substitute who by his death covered all of us, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, Amen.