The whole skinny

Genesis 3 is the turning point and one of the most important chapters in all the Word of God. You find the divine explanation for the presence of evil.

“The fall of man, folks, is the only possible explanation for evil, and for sin and for sorrow and suffering in a world made by a benevolent, perfect Creator," says Jordan. “In this chapter you see the subtlety of the devil, the powerlessness of human nature, human performance and human merit. You see the effects of sin. You see the grace and love of God to guilty sinners. You see human nature’s tendency to cover up its shame with human performance. You see the seed line of a promised Redeemer.

“Genesis 3 is one of the most unsavory, objectionable passages to tear up a college education that’s ever been written. In this passage, you find the root source of all questioning of the Word of God comes from Satan. Where do people get off questioning God’s word? The devil.

“Genesis 3 shows that the desire to be godlike in knowledge is satanic in origin: ‘I gotta know, I gotta know, I gotta know.’ That isn’t something God gave you. Satan is a real force to be reckoned with when it comes to the intellectual realm.

“By the time you get to the end of Genesis 3 you see that man is a fallen, deluded, deceived, self-righteous buck-passer who’s hiding from God and using his religion as a means to disobey God’s Word. In one chapter, God lays out the whole skinny of the whole human history right here.

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“When God talks about two becoming one flesh, hey, that’s what makes marriage marriage. And when you go into that (mate) you’re doing the ultimate. Now, there’s a lot of things going up to it. There’s vows, companionship, but the covenant of agreement that you make to become one, husband and wife, and the companionship and the sharing and the molding together that you have, it all consummates and finds its ultimate expression in something that here is casually plagiarized.

“I Cor. 6:16 illustrates the heinousness of illicit sex. They’re doing what constitutes marriage and it’s a light thing to them. In our society today people object to what I’m saying because they have a light attitude toward the sinfulness of what we’re talking about. God Almighty means one man, one woman, forever, ’til death do us part. That’s the length of it and anything else is a violation of His intent and His will and His instructions and it’s sin.

“I Timothy 3, when it says the bishop is to be the husband of one wife, he’s supposed to be a one woman man just like this passage says he is. I know a lot people say if you got a divorce in your background you can’t be a pastor. Well, now wait a minute. You mean, if you went down before a judge and got separated from one wife and so forth . . . if a judge can destroy a marriage, a judge can make a marriage, can’t he? You see it isn’t a ceremony. Marriage and divorce isn’t something made like that.

“God takes Adam’s hand and Eve’s hand and places them together and He pronounces the marriage vows over them. He pronounces them one flesh and Jesus Christ said 'what God has joined together let no man put asunder.' You see, it’s God joining you together! You’re joined together on the basis of what God said in God’s institution and that’s God doing it.

"And a society and a people and a church and an individual that disregards that; it’s just going to bring wreck, ruin and havoc on himself, his family and his nation because we’re talking about the very basic bedrock upon which all social order among human beings is to be based. So when you attack the family and marriage you’re attacking the thing that’s going to destroy everything.

“Genesis 2:25. They didn’t have any physical clothes and they just had a complete openness without any fear, without any problems. Perhaps they had a garment on. Psalm 104:1. Notice there’s a garment of light involved in God’s clothing. They were clothed in a raiment of translucent light that actually did cover them.

“They weren’t standing there with the wind blowing by and getting them cold. Of course, the guy didn’t sweat too much because sweat didn’t come ’til after the fall.”