Dennis Tuuri

Genesis 3:1-13. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto 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 it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.” Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.

For God knows in the day you eat of it, that 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, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and 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 coverings. 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. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” And then the man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me and I ate.”

Let’s pray. Father, we do ask for the illumination of your Holy Spirit. We thank you for the salvation affected for us by the work of our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. This historical reality that has indeed been the basis for the blessing that we have received, the gift of your Holy Spirit. And we pray that your Holy Spirit might be amongst us. Now, may we not, Lord God, hide from the cool of the day, from the spirit of God as he blows through us through his word. We thank you that word is indeed the breath of God to us. It is God breathed. And may we, Father, not hide from its truths, but expose ourselves to them, that we might indeed make a good confession of our sins before you and be strengthened and upheld that we might indeed be those who bring liberty in the context of our land.

In Christ’s name we ask it. And for the sake of his glorious liberty and freedom, amen.

Say for the most part, and therefore of understanding the liturgy that leads up to the preaching of the word in a way that most of you don’t. We’ve sung several songs this morning that are very fitting to the topic for today. The processional spoke of the stability of God’s people and of Zion in the midst of difficulties, trials, and troubles. Though the seas be raised and storms surround us, though terrible things might happen in the context of our world, God’s people are secure being based upon the freedom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We sang a song that is traditionally sung at this time of year, “A God of our Fathers” as we contemplate the God of our fathers, our forefathers in this land of liberty. And we also sang a song from the Psalter that spoke of the history of God’s people in Israel. And these two songs are very appropriately sung anytime we have a contemplation of the history of our country and where we stand today.

As America was founded, the founding fathers really saw it as a further manifestation of God’s establishment of Israel and referred to this country as a new Israel. They didn’t mean that exclusive to other nations. They meant wherever God’s people go to escape from oppression and tyranny and slavery and plant the word of God, they plant liberty and freedom and they plant what is to be essentially the planting of the Lord and he causes it to grow.

The psalm we sang, however, then spoke of may God’s people in the midst of Israel departing from his ways and turning from him and sinning. And certainly in our nation today, we must say that this nation has in great measure moved away from the liberty in Christ and as such moves in terms of bondage and enslavement.

It’s interesting to consider what things are legal and illegal. I went to an old-fashioned celebration yesterday in Canyonville, our new place of residence. It was a delight, a small town celebration. It’s almost like going back in time in many ways. They did still use electricity for the mayor’s talk and some of the events, but I don’t think they really needed it. There weren’t that many people there. A megaphone would have worked. If Y2K brings our power down, we could still do those sorts of things. It was an old-fashioned celebration in many ways, but it wasn’t in one way.

And the one way it was not an old-fashioned celebration is that there was no invocation at the start of the formal ceremonies. The flag raising, singing of the national anthem, address by the mayor, patriotic songs—no invocation, no prayer to God through Jesus Christ. This is very significant. The freedom that we celebrate on the 4th of July is of course in a very summary sense emblazoned on the Liberty Bell which has a quotation from the book of Leviticus speaking of the great fact that liberty is to be proclaimed throughout all the land.

The Liberty Bell rang out symbolically the liberty that is found in the scriptures, not in some kind of natural law or some kind of movement away from the scriptures. This country has moved away from invocations. It’s moved away from the text of the Liberty Bell, and it’s moved away, I believe, from true liberty into increasing enslavement. And I want to talk about that today.

It’s interesting to contemplate the sort of things that are allowed and not allowed. Probably a lot of you shot off fireworks yesterday and in Oregon, you know that most fireworks you could buy in any other state are illegal. Also know that they are regularly shot off in great numbers as the Fourth of July evening wanes on. And this is an interesting fact. It reminds us that when pagan man attempts to multiply laws, in many cases unreasonable laws—I’m not saying that all the prohibitions against certain kinds of armaments would be bad, but certainly to prohibit the sort of fireworks in Oregon seemed not to be in concert with the idea of personal liberty.

But when these laws multiply like they do, the ability of the state to enforce those laws declines. And as a result, people regularly break laws because they’re not enforced. And so we have this phenomena of increasing laws, regulations, and administrative rules, codes, etc., and yet declining enforcement, which leads to a population motivated by a sense of guilt and yet license.

At the same time, we have laws prohibiting children in Oregon are 16 years of age from riding a bicycle without a helmet. But those same children just before they’re born may be killed in the womb. We have laws, as I said, prohibiting a firework that might bottle rocket that might shoot up ten feet into the air, and yet we have no laws against the sin of adultery, which brings far more havoc emotionally, spiritually, and often physically than a bottle rocket can cause to come to pass.

We have increasing laws against tobacco products. Maybe not prohibiting them but taxing them out of existence is I think the idea. And yet we have no laws restricting homosexual activity. Why do we have increasing cigarette taxes and a movement toward restriction of liberty relative to the use of cigarettes? Well, we have it because there’s a statistical correlation—and it is only a statistical correlation—between the use of tobacco products and certain illnesses.

And this drives us to a contemplation of their possible being outlawed as a narcotic substance. And yet we have much more than a statistical correlation. We certainly have that between homosexual activity and all kinds of diseases including AIDS. The inconsistency of our modern world is seen very clearly. And this inconsistency, this drive for increasing laws on the one hand while rejecting the laws of God on the other—these correlations I just drew through find their origin I think in the correct understanding of what happened in the garden.

So I want to talk today about in the context of the judicial inquiry that God makes of Adam and Eve. I want to talk about Adam’s claim that the woman made him do it and the increasing loss of liberty in the context of our land. This loss of liberty is understood when we understand what true liberty is. And I want to kind of draw out then in the middle of this series which has been primarily on marriage I want to sort of take a short diversion and talk about the implications of Genesis 3 not just for marriage but for our whole culture.

Obviously Genesis 2 and 3 are not written primarily as a marriage manual or a diagnostic tool for marriages. They talk about what man is in fallen Adam and what man is also by way of implication brought to fruition in the Lord Jesus Christ the second Adam. So I want to talk about that broader sense today as we contemplate the 4th of July in our land today.

One other thing I want to mention here is I mentioned Y2K. The elders are beginning to discuss the year 2000 problem, phenomena, whatever one may call it. And I don’t know what the proper way to prepare for that is. But I do know that a land that rejects God’s law, the spirit of God, rejects biblical liberty, moves in terms of enslavement. I know that because the scriptures tell me that as we’ll see as we get into the text here in just a minute. And I also know that God’s people who stand in the liberty of Christ can stand securely in the midst of any kind of disaster or difficulty as we just sang in the processional hymn.

I know that judgment is due to a land such as ours and that judgment will bring increased in the short term increased enslavement and bondage. That’s what men do in their fallen state. We’ll see that as we go through the biblical text. Y2K will be a premise for further enslavement of you for a further restriction of personal liberties on the part of the civil state. It is guaranteed not just by history, not just by logic, but I believe it’s what the word of God tells us.

But the word of God also tells us that we need not fear as man seeks to enslave us as we are free in Christ.

Okay, so let’s talk about this topic then and we’ll begin by looking at a brief overview of the scriptural teaching of what liberty is. So, it’s Bible drill time. Take out your scriptures and we’re going to turn to several passages here in a very summary fashion looking at what the scriptures teach about liberty.

We’ll start with Leviticus 25:10. This is the quote from which the Liberty Bell inscription is taken. This is that passage of scripture which the Liberty Bell inscription is taken from. Leviticus 25, verse 10. We read in Leviticus 25:10, “Ye shall hallow the 50th year, proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you, and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”

Leviticus 25:10 speaks of the year of Jubilee. The year of Jubilee was the 50th year in a sabbatical cycle where you had not just Sabbath weeks, but every seventh year was a Sabbath year. The conclusion of seven Sabbaths. The 50th year represented that double Sabbath year at the end of the 49 years and represented the culmination of what the Sabbath and Sabbath enthronement and all is all about. And that culmination is found in liberty.

So liberty according to Leviticus 25:10 is a Sabbath fulfillment. It is related to the Sabbath. Now the Sabbath was part in the context of the instructions in Leviticus was part of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. The sacrificial system pointed to the fulfillment of Sabbath enthronement and liberty. And so liberty is also a sacrificial fact. It is related to the sacrificial system because it’s related to the sacrificial system in Leviticus 25.

It is related to personal responsibility. The sacrifices of Israel represented the sins of the people. Not just as a group, but individually as you brought your sacrifice every day and two times on the Sabbath day, you would lay your hand on this animal that would be your sacrifice for your sins. The idea is imputation and an acknowledgement of your own responsibilities for your sins and a laying of those sins on the sacrificial animal.

Okay? So, sacrifice involves responsibility. Sabbath, which is part of the sacrificial system of God in the Old Testament, involves then a sense of personal responsibility. So immediately we see in this one of these opening texts relative to liberty we see a correlation between liberty and responsibility. The people that move not in terms of personal responsibility who deny culpability for their sins do not move in terms of God’s liberty.

It is a responsible sacrificial sacramental fact. Additionally, Leviticus 25:10 tells us that liberty also involves a reconciliation or a return to land and community. In the 50th year, you would go back to the original land that your tribe, your people, your family received in the allotment as you were brought into Israel into the mighty hand of God. And so, the fulfillment of the sacrificial sabbatical system is liberty. But it’s liberty in the context of a return to a land that you have been for some reason alienated from and it’s a return to your family.

You remember Naboth’s vineyard taken over by the wicked Ahab using his death as an excuse. Naboth couldn’t sell it to the king in perpetuity because of these Sabbath regulations. So liberty is a Sabbath fact. It is a sacrificial fact. Because of that it is tied to personal responsibility and it is also tied to a return to land and community in the context of the scriptures.

Okay. Now turn if you will to Isaiah 61:1. Isaiah 61:1 we read, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.”

Okay, the Isaiah text tells us again that liberty is a community fact, but it’s not simply a community fact of one’s reconciliation to community in the context of land as we saw from Leviticus. Here we have a further dimension pointed out that part of liberty is the proclamation of liberty and the working for the liberty of those that we are in community with. Okay. So you have an obligation to extend liberty in the context of the faith community in the context of our culture. So liberty is a community fact again but it is a community fact that involves release from captivity as well.

Isaiah 61 tells us that. Now this release from captivity can speak of many things. It can speak of the enslavement of men but ultimately of course it speaks of the release from the captivity of sin. The Westminster Confession of Faith in its chapter dealing with Christian liberty, you know, the chapter heading is Christian liberty and liberty of conscience. This is chapter 20, the Westminster Confession of Faith. And you expect to read then of what things we can do and the freedoms we have in Christ.

But notice where it starts. It starts really with Isaiah 61, deliverance from captivity. The Westminster Confession says this, “The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin.” That’s the ultimate source of liberty. Freedom from the guilt of sin. As we shall see, the guilt of sin brings enslavement, not liberty. And liberty comes essentially from and at its core is freedom from bondage and specifically as the Westminster Confession correctly states freedom from the guilt of sin.

It goes on to say that it also consists in freedom from the condemning wrath of God, freedom from the curse of the moral law, and in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan and dominion of sin, from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation, as also in their free access to God, and that yielding obedience to him, not out of slavish fear, but out of a childlike love and willing mind.

Liberty is from one thing, and it is to another. It’s from sin and its guilt and the resulting enslavement, manipulation, bondage that brings and it is to service to God. And so it involves the extension of liberty in the context of our communities. Isaiah 61 clearly also tells us that liberty is found where the spirit of the Lord is. Liberty is impossible. It is defined in reference to the presence of the spirit of God.

This fact is also pointed out in 2 Corinthians 3:17. Turn to 2 Corinthians 3:17, please. 2 Corinthians 3:17 says that now the Lord is that spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.

Liberty is in the context of the spirit of God. Now we go to a third set of verses. Psalm 119:45. Turn there, please. We said that as you’re turning, you can listen. We said that liberty is a Sabbath fact. It is a sacrificial fact tied to the sacrificial system and therefore involves the concept of personal responsibility. It’s a community fact and it includes the necessity of exercising and extending liberty in the context of that community and it is ultimately finds itself in deliverance from bondage to sin and it is equated to the presence of the spirit of God.

Now when we say the spirit of God it’s a common error of the modern church to split apart spirit from what we do to make a distinction the scriptures do not make between law and grace. And these set of verses Psalm 119:45 and then the book of James tells us indeed that liberty is directly related to the law of God.

Psalm 119:45 says, “I will walk in liberty for I seek thy precepts.”

Now to modern man and to unfortunately all too many evangelicals, this statement doesn’t make any sense. Liberty is removed approval of law. But biblical liberty is the seeing a life lived in the presence of the spirit and the spirit brings us the laws of God and not as a means of attaining peace but rather because of the peace attained for us by Christ and that law gives us the liberty to walk in the context of freedom from sin.

I turn to the book of James 1 verse 25. And we read a New Testament confirmation of this fact that liberty and law are brought together in the mind of God. James 1:25 says, “Who so looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues therein. He being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work. This man shall be blessed in his deed.”

We work in the context we live as Christians in basic conformity to the law of God and that law of God is the means by which God brings us liberty. We walk in the law of liberty. This is the same term used in James 2:12. “So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.”

So liberty is essentially related to the commandments of God.

Fourth, liberty is related to the covenant of God. Jeremiah 34:15. Turn there, please. Jeremiah 34:15. And he says something about their past. He says, “You were now turned,” verse 15, “and had done right in my sight in proclaiming liberty, every man to his neighbor, and ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name.”

Liberty is a law fact and a spirit fact, and as such, it’s related to the covenant of God. And those who are covenant breakers move not in terms of liberty, but removal of liberty. And here he’s saying that at one time, nation of Israel, you moved in a proper understanding of liberty. You sought liberty and increasing liberty in the context of your community and you saw this as related to the covenant that was reaffirmed in the context of the meeting house of God.

Jeremiah 34:15 tells us then that liberty is a covenantal fact. It’s a community fact to be worked towards. We are not to be content in our own personal liberty, but we are to set our brothers and sisters in Christ free. We’re to see them increasingly liberated by the liberation of God’s law and spirit through the work of our savior. That is to be an increasing reality in the context of our land.

But Jeremiah brings this up not to commend those that he’s directly speaking to because you look in verse 16, the very next verse, and he says this, “But ye turned and polluted my name and caused every man his servant and every man his handmaid whom he had set at liberty at their pleasure to return and brought them into subjection to be unto you for servants and for handmaids.”

So the scriptures tell us that when liberty is moved away from when the spirit of God, the covenant of God, the law of God is forsaken, what we see is not just the absence of liberty. We see the positive manifestation of increasing bondage. I mean there’s no neutrality when it comes to liberty. You’re either extending liberty for yourself, your family, your community, or if you turn from that you turn then to the extension of domination, bondage and servitude in the context of the land.

Now these same truths are pointed out also by the way that this the root of this is the pollution of God’s name. The defilement of God’s name and it is a turning away from God. It’s not a forgetting God. It’s always a turning from God.

This correlation between neither liberty or enslavement is also made in Galatians 2:4 where we read “and that because of false brethren unaware is brought in who came in privy to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus that they might bring us into bondage.”

You see these are those same sort of guys as Jeremiah spoke to who had turned their back on the covenant of God the work of Christ the presence of the spirit and the work of God’s law in their heart. And because of that were now seeking out the liberty of local churches to enslave those men again into bondage. You see, there’s no neutrality. You’re either extending liberty or you’re extending or attempting to extend enslavement.

Again, in Galatians 5:1, Paul tells these Galatians, “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

You see, no neutrality, either moving one way or the other. Again, in 2 Peter 2:19, we read “while they promised them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption. For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage.”

Again, he’s telling us that there is antithesis built into the world between those who bring liberty in the context of the preaching of Christ’s gospel, the presence of the spirit, and his law to a community. And those who reject all of those things and those people bring increasing enslavement and bondage to themselves being a corrupt mind toward God and also to other men.

Now, the next three quotations really speak of the great liberator, the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, in Isaiah 61:1, this verse is cited by our savior in Luke 4:18. Our savior said, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”

By the way, keep your Jeremiah 34 passage there. We’ll return to that in a couple of minutes.

Okay. So, here in Luke 4, we of course know that the great liberator is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in whom all these other truths are brought to fulfillment.

Secondly, in the New Testament then or by way of our outline in point G, Romans 8:21 says then that the work of our savior can be correlated in this transformation from bondage to liberty. We read in Romans 8:21, “the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

Now, that means we’ve been already transferred from the bondage of corruption. The corrupt minds of men who corrupt and defile the name of God bring bondage. But then Christ comes and effects deliverance for his people and he brings us into the glorious liberty of the children of God. So he’s delivered us and he also says that deliverance is worked out in community and land. The creation itself moves in terms of increasing liberty as the sons of God are made manifest.

And then finally in 1 Corinthians 8:9 and Galatians 5:13 we read this. “Take heed that lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are weak.”

And then Galatians 5:13 says, “for brethren you have been called into liberty only. Use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.”

Now, that’s really the same truth that we said that part of the obligation of liberty is to seek increasing liberty for those in the context of our community, our faith community. And so, liberty has is not license. Liberty is from dominion to sin and bondage. It’s unto service to God. And that service to God involves the extension of liberty throughout the entire created order.

So your job is to not let your liberty cause someone else to stumble. So if you’re going to have a beer, a beer, which is okay according to the scriptures, but if you’re in the context of somebody who to them it might cause them to sin by drinking that beer, you’re to set it aside because your goal is the extension of liberty. And so you want this fella or woman not to be brought into further bondage by causing them to sin.

It’s not offending them by getting them angry at you. It’s offending them by causing them to stumble in sin so that they’re brought into bondage again to their sin. If you’re not doing it to the glory of God, if you’re not doing it out of faith, the scriptures say it’s sin. Okay? Even though the act itself may be perfectly proper.

So, we have an obligation to use our liberty in a way to bring deliverance. Now, what this means is that you don’t just abstain in the presence of such a person. You try to bring them into greater liberty as well. You pray that they may get to the place where doing this particular act would no longer cause them to stumble. They’d see that there’s liberty to do these things.

So the point is that liberty is a dynamic force in a culture. And you’re either moving in terms of liberty or you’re moving in terms of enslavement.

Now with that as a background, let’s look at Adam and what he does in Genesis 3 in relationship to some of these scripture texts. We look at Adam now. Well, we say that the first Adam that is Adam then in Genesis 3 leads to the loss of liberty. And we say first of all that rather moving in terms of Sabbath enthronement, Adam moved in terms of enthronement lost or left. He sinned. And in his sin, he didn’t make a good confession of his sin. He denied it at first. He hid. He was a liar. He added lying to the sin of disobedience, violation of God’s command.

He forsook that personal responsibility that Leviticus 25, a sabbatical regulation says is absolutely tied and critical to proper liberty. You can’t have liberty apart from the sacrificial sabbatical system of God pointing to the work of Christ. You can’t have liberty when you deny personal responsibility. And that’s precisely what Adam did. He denied it first by hiding when God comes, he should have ran out and said, you know, I’ve sinned. I’ve sinned. I’ve broken your law. He hides. He denies that he’s done anything wrong.

Then when God summons him forth, he compounds his sin because he doesn’t say right away what the problem is. He says what the results of his sin are. He’s gotten fearful. He hears the spirit of God coming, the cool of the day, and he hides himself from that. And then when he comes forth, he says, “Well, I was naked and so I hid.” See, he doesn’t own up to his sin. And then when God presses him, said, “Well, didn’t you break my law?” Adam says, “Well, the woman that you gave me gave it to me and I ate.” He’s shifting responsibility away from himself to the woman, to his environment, and ultimately very self-consciously, I think, on the part of Adam here.

This is not a penitent Adam. He is shifting away from responsibility and telling God that He is responsible for Adam’s sin because God gave him the woman. The woman gave him the fruit and that’s why he took the fruit. So Adam moves in terms not of responsibility but in terms of a forsaking of responsibility.

Well, what’s the result? He’s cast out of that good land of God and community immediately breaks down. Leviticus 25, remember it says responsibility, a return to the land, a return to family and community. Adam forsakes responsibility and he gets kicked out of the land and he also then begins this disintegration of the family unit itself. He accuses his wife. He has children, one who kills the other and he has this isolation then in terms of community.

Adam doesn’t move in terms of personal liberty because he doesn’t move in terms of responsibility and as a result he doesn’t move in terms of Leviticus 25. He moves in the opposite direction.

Now, it’s interesting in Deuteronomy 17:7, we read that God tells them to put away the evil from you. Now, he’s talking here about the execution of men who do particular sins. And so, when we read this, put away the evil from you, what we want to remember is that in the Bible, evil is not some abstract concept abstracted away from a man’s personal action.

What he’s saying is you kill the man and you put the evil away from you because that man is the evil I’m telling you to put away from you. Not an abstract concept. A removal of responsibility tends to make sin an abstract thing. Okay? I mean, Adam isn’t going to say stone Eve. She did it at the outset. What he’s doing is he’s moved away from personal responsibility and he moves towards sin or evil as an abstract concept in his world.

And that’s what men do who deny personal responsibility. All of a sudden, it’s the wife, it’s the weather, it’s the car, it’s the child, it’s the church, it’s the state, it’s something else other than your responsibility, your sin. And when you do that, you abstract sin into this impersonal evil in the context of the world round about us.

The man who believes in environmental determinism who really thinks that we’re shaped by our environment. Okay? And what we do as a result of that environment, it’s the woman, it’s God, it’s whatever God has created in the environment—ultimately, of course, is at war with God. But he doesn’t want to admit that. Adam doesn’t really want to admit that. And so what he does is he makes sin into an abstract concept to keep himself from personal responsibility.

Now, a common dictum in evangelical circles is you hate the sin, but love the sinner. What does it do? What is the common sense? Now there we can if we wanted to fine-tune and use our brilliant human minds that God gives us, we can provide a justification for that comment. But what is the obvious meaning of it? The obvious meaning is that it is a denial of personal responsibility. Sin evil is abstracted into something. You hate sin as an abstract concept, but you love the sinner. There is no sin apart from a sinner.

Sin is an action performed by a sinner. And when we accept that kind of thinking and talk in terms of that kind of reality, we are moving away from personal responsibility. And the scriptures say that you cannot have liberty without personal responsibility. We move away from liberty. We move toward bondage. And in essence, if we really get down to it, we join the environmentalist who says it’s God’s fault and we join Adam in his denunciation of God.

Adam doesn’t do too good when we judge his actions relative to Leviticus 25.

Secondly, let’s look at his actions relative to Isaiah 61. Remember Isaiah 61 in 2 Corinthians 3:17. Liberty is of the essence of the presence of the spirit of God. Well, Adam saw God coming in the cool of the day in the spirit of the day. That’s what it means. And he hides from that.

You see they and in our fallen state. This isn’t just Adam. This is us in our fallen state. We move away from responsibility. We and then we as a result get kicked out of land and out of relationships. We hide from the presence of God. And when we do that, we remove ourselves from the source of liberty. And what do we do? We move in terms of bondage and enslavement. Adam is hiding in the midst of the trees and we hide in the midst of our sin.

So Adam doesn’t do too good in relationship to Isaiah 61. Not only does he not proclaim liberty? He actually begins to produce domination over his wife by this assertion that it was her fault and she of course blames the serpent.

Third in reference to the James text and the law of God and its being essence of liberty is the obedience to God’s law. Adam of course rebelled against God’s law. He completely disobeyed God’s law and he in his disobedience decided with Eve to determine for themselves what’s the proper standard of what’s right and wrong.

We don’t think abortion is such a bad deal, but boy, it is terrible if you don’t wear a bicycle helmet. We don’t think homosexuality is so bad, but boy, don’t use a bottle rocket. You see, fallen man moves away from God’s standard, but he can never move away from a standard. Man is made in the image of God. Satan, as many have said, is God’s ape. He takes what God has given and perverts it.

And Adam takes what God has given and perverts it and Adam moves away from God’s law but he doesn’t move away from law really he establishes his own law and his law he then tries to impose on the world and that’s domination that’s manipulation that’s enslavement he moves away from the source of liberty God’s law and when he takes up his own law I don’t drink and I don’t smoke and I don’t go at the girls that do or go to movie whatever it was said of those laws you move in terms of enslavement.

Fourth, Adam doesn’t do too good in reference to Jeremiah 34:15 because Adam is a covenant breaker. Remember, it said that the essence of liberty is found in the law of God, the presence of God’s spirit in the context of covenant with God. And Adam is a covenant breaker. And covenant breakers do not increase liberty. Covenant breakers increase bondage.

Fifth, Adam moves in terms of Jeremiah 34:16. Remember that the pollution of God’s name. Adam in essence is defiling and desecrating the name of God by his sin and by his failure to make a good confession of that sin. He moves away from the absence of liberty. And Jeremiah 34:16 says that such men move in terms of enslavement. So we have a predictive truth from Jeremiah 34 that our fallen Adamic state we move in terms of manipulation and enslavement.

Okay, let’s sum up Adam’s actions on your outline. Three D’s. First of all, very practical, I think. Very true. Denial, deflection, diversion.

Denial. I didn’t do it. He hides. That’s a denial on Adam’s part. He denies his sin. Children, you do something wrong and then you make your parents come looking for you to find out what you did wrong. That is denial on your part. And, you know, it’s so interesting how the dynamic nature is pictured so clearly in young children, two, three, four year old children. How often do they come running up and make a good confession of sin? Usually they will actually deny it. I didn’t do it. Now, you’ve looked right at them and seen them do it, but they will deny it. It’s because they’re moving in terms of their Adamic nature. They deny things.

If denial doesn’t work and the parent continues to press as God pressed Adam, they deflect. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about how I’m frightened. You came and I was frightened. Gee, maybe you’re kind of overbearing in your tone, God. Now, he doesn’t want to talk about his sin. He wants to deflect the conversation to something else. You know, children, don’t make your parents be Philadelphia lawyers, big town lawyers, trying to get the truth out of you. Make a good confession of your sin. Don’t be like fallen Adam. Don’t start talking about the results of your sin or something over here.

When you do that, children, I believe that what you’re trying to do is deflect attention from your sin. Now, the third thing you do is that the parent continues to press is you divert attention. And this is different from deflection. Deflection just, you know, don’t shoot at me, go someplace else. Let’s not think about that. Diversion says, what you’re giving to me in terms of guilt or punishment, you should give to my brother, my sister. Dad, mom said I could do it. Do you know how bad you know Mary has been? Do you know what Bob said as before I punched him in the nose?

See, I don’t care at that point as a parent what Bob did or said. I will care about that. I will get to Eve after I talk to Adam. But first, children, your parents want you to confess your sin. Parents, your children in the Adamic nature will do what Adam does. He denies responsibility. He deflects the conversation and he will eventually divert the guilt to someone else.

Now, I’ve got a couple of things here. Determinism and the loss of meaning. Determinism and the loss of freedom. What I mean by this is this. Adam blames Eve. Eve blames the serpent. Adam’s and Eve’s descendants blame various factors. Determinism is a big word. All it means is that a person believes that something outside of the providence of God determines what comes to pass. It’s a false view of providence.

And there’s lots of variations on the theme. Back when I was growing up, there was a lot of discussion about nature and nurture. It really goes back to a couple of guys in the late 1800s. And some people said, “Well, you know, you’re determined. You’re genetically determined or chemically determined. So whatever your genetic structure is, that determines what you’re going to do. So if you get drunk, it’s not drunkenness, it’s alcoholism.”

It isn’t a sin. It’s a genetic determination, a chemical thing you got going on. Or if you’re a disobedient, angry, wrathful child, well, you’ve got some chemical problem and you’ve got ADD or whatever they’re calling it—attention deficit disorder, whatever they’re calling it today. And if you think everybody’s out to get you, it’s not sinful denial of God’s providence. You’re paranoid and you need certain chemical things because chemically determined.

So that’s one view. Another view is that no, it’s your nurturing. It’s how you were brought up. It’s not your, you know, you can you can say that X made me do it. The chemicals made me do it. In this case, X made me do it. The parents made me do it. The school I grew up in made me do it. Nurture did it. And that’s a whole different kind of determinism. One is chemical determinism. The other is called by some people psychic determinism. That your upbringing makes you who you are.

And today what’s probably more than those two is environmental determinism. It’s the current environment that you move in that determines what you do. And these are all dodges for responsibility for sin. You shoot somebody. Well, it’s because there are too many guns in your environment or because your parents didn’t love you enough and maybe you do have a little genetic problem as well, but it’s all in your environment.

You see, we have moved radically and quickly for the last 20 years. Now, it all been set up for 100 years before, but now we’re moving rapidly away from personal responsibility. What’s the result of that? Well, the result of that is that we need to change the environment. We need to pass gun laws. We got to do chemical analysis. President Clinton said in Eugene or Springfield, wherever it was he was in Oregon, that we’ve got to start tracking all school children for propensities to violence. We need to know what’s going to happen before it happens.

And therefore, we’re going to pass a million new regulations and laws to provide a database for us on every child in school because we need to we need to look at the environmental factors because that determines who the child is. Any form of determinism results in more enslavement and bondage. That’s why so many laws are passed. You deny a providential God who is controlling and sustaining all things and working out his decree and his providence.

And now, we have a world that is filled with fear and trembling because nobody’s in control. Collective man will seek to impose his control. Now, it’s really goofy. I mean, it’s illogical because if we’re determined, then how does the thing determined break out of its determination and decide to determine things? You see, how are we going to get away from our own determination? How do we have any idea if the laws we pass are going to do any good when all we are is a determined thing?

It’s cyclical. It’s illogical. Listen to this quote from Darwin. Darwin wrote this in a letter to someone. He says, “Nevertheless, you’ve expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the universe is not the result of chance. But then with me, the horrid doubt always arises, whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals are of any value or are at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind if there are any convictions in such a mind?”

You see, Darwin understood at this point his problem. If we say that it’s evolution that’s determined who we are, then all we are is a determined thing. And for us to assert then to change our environment is ridiculous. But that’s what man does. That’s what Darwin wanted to have happen and that’s what his successors have done.

Chemical or environmental determinism begins with a meaningless universe. There’s no mind of God controlling anything. It’s just determined things. It attributes determination maybe to—