TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO:
Good
morning and welcome to Hope Church Clinton’s Virtual Church on Facebook Live!
My name is Chad Frizzell and I am the pastor of Hope Church Clinton. If you’d
like to know more about Hope Church, please feel free to look around our
Facebook page. We are a Christ-centered, Bible-teaching church for all ages.
And in saying that, I am pleased to announce that we will be having a church
gathering for worship on Sunday, June 7th at our normal time at 9:30
am at the Hickman County Senior Center. We do intend to continue streaming our
services that Sunday and beyond to reach those of you who don’t quite feel
comfortable gathering yet and I want you to know that it’s perfectly fine. You
come on when you feel safe to do so. I’m thankful that we have the technology to
do these livestream videos, but there is nothing like being together with our
church family and worshipping God together. I am looking forward to the day
when everyone feels safe to come back together.
All right, let’s get down to business and our business is
the Word of God! Today, I am going to be talking about something we all have in
common -sin. Sin, as I have mentioned in previous videos is simply breaking
God’s moral laws. And let’s just start at the beginning of sin by profiling our
number one enemy -Satan.
Satan was created by God as a cherub, the most powerful
of God’s angelic beings. Ezekiel 28:14-15 says, “You were an anointed guardian
cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the
stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you
were created, till unrighteousness was found in you” (ESV).
Sometime after his creation and before the creation of
man, Lucifer, or “Day Star” rebelled against God and was thrown from heaven.
Isaiah 14:12 tells us about that if you want to do the research.
One thing that we must clarify: the devil/Satan/Lucifer
is not some little guy in a red suit with horns and a pitchfork waiting at the
door of hell. The Bible indicates that angels are neither male nor female but
when they come to the earth, they sometimes take on human form, such as the
angel Gabriel. Earlier I mentioned that Satan was a cherub. When we think of
cherubim, we tend to conjure up Renaissance images of little chubby-faced baby
angels that sell toilet paper on television. However, a cherub is a large
creature up to 18 feet tall with four to six wings that span 16 feet. Ezekiel
the prophet described them as having hands under their wings, eyes all over the
wings, and four faces on their heads. Does not sound so cute after all, does
it? Even though he was a cherub, Ezekiel wrote that he was “perfect in beauty”
and the Apostle Paul referred to him as an “angel of light” (1 Corinthians
11:4). So what happened to Lucifer? One word -pride. Pride caused his downfall.
He wanted to be worshipped as God. Isaiah 14:13 says “You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High’”
(ESV).
After his fall, Satan wasn’t finished with his rebellion.
His first appearance in the Scriptures is found in Genesis chapter three and he
is doing what he does best -wreaking havoc on the earth.
Let’s look at Genesis chapter
three. We will begin with verses 1-5 in the English Standard Version:
1.
Now the serpent
was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree
in the garden?’”
2.
And the woman
said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
3.
“but God said,
‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden,
neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
4.
But the serpent
said to the woman, “You will not surely die.”
5.
“For God knows
that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,
knowing good and evil.”
In the very beginning of this
chapter, we are introduced to the devil and his temptation. The writer points
out that he was “more crafty” or “cunning, sly, subtle” than any other
creature. His crafty methods of temptation include
·
Planting seeds of
doubt. Notice he asked the woman, “Did God actually say…?” (v. 1). Satan loves
to sow seeds of doubt in our lives. He may ask you, “Does God really want you
to be unhappy in your marriage?” or “Does God really want you to go to church
today?” or “Does God really need you to lead that Bible study?” or “Does God really
think you don’t deserve such and such?
·
Slandering God’s
motives. He tried to convince Eve that God was keeping something from her -that
he was holding back blessings from her and Adam. He uses this tactic in our
lives in many ways attempting to convince us that if God really loved us, we
would have whatever we wanted, rather than just what we need.
Allow me to make a statement
right here. If Satan will tempt God in the flesh, he will tempt you. Never
think you are too spiritual for Satan’s temptations. Actually, if he isn’t
tempting you to sin, you may want to check yourself to make sure you don’t
actually belong to him instead of the Lord. If you are a follower of Christ,
prepared to be tempted. He will tempt you to sin! It’s how you respond to that
temptation that matters.
In 1 John 2:15-17, John the Apostle mentions three things
that Satan uses to lure us away from fellowship with Jesus.
1.
The lust of the
flesh – the taste of the forbidden
2.
The lust of the
eyes – the sight of the forbidden
3.
The pride of life
– the desire to be all-knowing and all-powerful
Satan appeals to our worldly
desires to keep us from God’s blessings and protections.
In Genesis 3:6, we read, “So when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the
tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she
also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate” (ESV). Over in the
New Testament, James tells us in chapter one verses 14 and 15, “But each person
is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it
has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth
death” (ESV).
In Genesis, not only did Eve fall for Satan’s tricks,
Adam did too. Then something strange happened, “Then the eyes of both were
opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves loincloths” (Genesis 3:7, ESV). Their eyes were opened.
They realized they were naked and felt ashamed. Next, they did what all of us
do, they tried to cover their shame. Isn’t that what we do? Of course, we don’t
actually go looking for leaves to sew together but try to find a “covering” for
our sin -usually excuses. “I made mistake… It only happened once… he/she led me
on… the devil made me do it!” Or the best excuse ever, “I’m just a sinner saved
by grace!” Of course, that is correct, but that doesn’t give us a license to
sin. When we commit a sin, we don’t want exposure! So we hide and make excuses
for our sin. There’s something we often forget -God sees us. Everywhere. All
the time. When my six-year-old was a toddler, I noticed the house was quiet.
She wasn’t running around playing and tearing up the house as usual. I
immediately went into panic mode looking for her. When I found her, she was in
her sister’s room covered head to toe in makeup! The first words out of her
mouth were, “Don’t look at me, Daddy!”
When we do bad, we want to hide, but the Father finds us just as he did
with Adam and Eve. Genesis 3:9 says, “But the LORD God called to the man and
said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (ESV). Imagine the conversation…
“Don’t look at me!”
“What have you done?”
“Don’t look at me!”
“Who told you that you were naked?”
“Don’t look at me!”
“Did you do something I told you not to do?”
“Don’t look at me!”
Then Adam begins the blame
game. Genesis 3:12-13, “The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me,
she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ Then then LORD God said to the
woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived
me, and I ate’” (ESV).
So there you are exposed in all your nakedness before
God. Dirty, covered in sin and trying to cover your misdeeds and transgressions
with a few fig leaves using excuses upon excuses for your behavior. Notice that
God doesn’t snatch Adam up. He doesn’t strike him dead with lightning right
there. Instead, he sets his sights on Satan himself. In Genesis 3:14-15, we see
the very first messianic prophecy in Scripture. Listen to what God says here,
“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all
beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the
days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between
your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall
bruise his heel” (ESV).
It would be nice if the story ended there. Adam standing
behind God, sticking his tongue out at the devil, laughing because he thought
he wasn’t in trouble. Adam was in trouble, because even though Satan is the
tempter, you and I must face the consequences of our choices. Adam and Eve were
evicted from paradise -the Garden of Eden. Eve experienced pain in childbirth
and Adam had to work hard his entire life. Sadly, sometimes those we love have
to pay dearly for our choices too. As I have told you many times, God is a
righteous judge. He cannot and will not turn a blind eye to sin. The wages of
sin is death and someone must pay the price. For thousands of years, the Jewish
people would sacrifice doves, bulls, goats, sheep, grain, and almost anything
they could get their hands on to cover their sins, but it wasn’t enough, so the
righteous judge became the sacrifice. He stripped off his heavenly robe and put
on a human form and took the wrath for us. Paul the Apostle writes, “For our
sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV).
The Son of God became the Son of Man so that the sons of
man could become sons of God. If you are watching this morning, or later today,
and you feel God drawing you to Jesus, calling you out of sin and rebellion,
telling you to turn to Him… don’t wasn’t a second, run to Him. Confess your
sins to Him and believe in Jesus. Receive him as your personal Savior and tell
the world what Jesus has done for you.
Start with me. Let me know what Christ is doing in your
life. I’m so thankful that Christ called me to salvation when I was nine years
old. Over the past 33 years, I haven’t always walked side-by-side with him.
I’ve wasted many years in my life kicking and screaming while Jesus dragged me
along. I praise Him because of His mercies and grace that he bestows upon me
each day. I hope you do too.
Thanks for watching this morning. I can’t wait to see you
in two weeks! We will have our first gathering on Sunday, June 7th
at 930am with some restrictions, but we will be together! I’ve talked to Devin
and we will be taking some precautions with seating and such, but I’m happy to
tell you that there will be some music and worship and as always plenty of
Jesus to go around. Until then and beyond then, keep loving God and loving
people, Hope Church! See ya soon!