This is the fifth and last sermon in the “Updating The Garden of Eden to the Contemporary World” series. In this series we see that today we face many of the challenges and options faced by Adam Eve.
Genesis 3:7 NIV Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
The animal skins represent God's provision for their sin. The animal skin required the sacrifice of a life, foreshadowing the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ for humanity's sins.
Scripture Reading:
Genesis 3:1-10 NIV [1] Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” [2] The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, [3] but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” [4] “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. [5] “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” [6] When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. [7] Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. [8] Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. [9] But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” [10] He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
Introduction
This is the last sermon in our series “Updating The Garden of Eden to the Contemporary World.” In this series we talked about the fact that we face many of the challenges and options faced by Adam Eve.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne must wear a red letter “A” on her dress as a symbol of her adultery. The “scarlet letter” was meant to shame her in the eyes of the community.
In the biblical narrative of the Fall, we also find that clothing signified shame. Adam and Eve had been naked without shame in the Garden of Eden, but everything changed after they chose to disobey God and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 3:6 NIV When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
The very first consequence of their disobedience was shame over their nakedness. Our text for today is
Genesis 3:7 NIV Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
All of a sudden Adam Eve realized that they were naked and they were ashamed and they tried to fix things by making clothing for themselves out of fig leaves.
When God confronted them, they received even worse consequences.
Genesis 3:16-19 NIV [16] To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” [17] To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. [18] It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. [19] By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Those were the consequences of their disobedience: they were ashamed, women would experience pain in childbirth, men would find their work difficult and unpleasant, and they would die, and return to dust.
But God also gave mercy and hope.
Genesis 3:14-15 NIV [14] So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. [15] And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
The Seed of the woman (that is, Jesus) would one day crush the head of the serpent, which was an image foreshadowing the gospel. This scripture, as we have said before, is often interpreted as a prophecy of Jesus Christ's ultimate victory over sin and death, which is good news, the gospel.
When God said “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” that was something ething that would happen in the future; so at that moment, in time, God made clothing for them from animal skins.
Genesis 3:21 NIV [21] The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
These garments of animal skin were much better than the garments they’d made for themselves with flimsy fig leaves.
The fig leaves represent Adam and Eve's attempt to cover their sin and shame on their own. They tried to hide their guilt with something they could find in the garden.
The animal skins represent God's provision for their sin. The animal skin required the sacrifice of a life, a picture of the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ for humanity's sins.
While the fig leaves provided a temporary, inadequate covering, the animal skin symbolized God's grace and the need for a true sacrifice to atone for sin.
Wearing their new, God-given clothes, Adam and Eve walked out of a perfect environment into a fallen world, a world that was no longer perfect because of the introduction of sin.
Genesis 3:22-23 NIV [22] And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” [23] So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
So let review for just a moment. What was the first thing Adam and Eve did after they rebelled against God?
According to the text, their first act was to make themselves coverings of fig leaves because they realized they were naked.
That's very interesting because in the closing verse of chapter 2, the writer, who we believe was Moses, points out that Adam and Eve could live together without clothes and feel no shame.
Genesis 2:25 NIV Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
However as soon as they ate the forbidden fruit, they needed and looked for some kind of covering to hide behind.
Evidently their sin brought with it a kind of embarrassment, a kind of shame. Adam did not want to be seen by Eve and Eve didn’t want to be seen by Adam, so they sewed clothes out of fig leaves to hide their nakedness and shame.
In other words; “It is all right for you to see this outward covering, but it is not alright for you to see me as I really am,”. Behind this act of covering themselves with fig leaves the unspoken admission was that things were not all right on the inside, that a sense of shame had driven out the feeling of innocence which they shared before they disobeyed and sinned.
Now let’s get to the meat of what the Holy Spirit wants to say to us today.
That feeling of Adam and Eve is no different than the feeling of people today who do not know Jesus Christ, nor is the act of hiding behind fig leaves any different than the acts of people today including many Christians and if we're honest some of us here today in the sanctuary or watching on Facebook Live, or YouTube. What we may be hiding behind may not be actual fig leaves, but the stuff we hide behind serves the same purpose. They become something we hold up to others and say; “You can see these, but don’t see me, don’t see what I’m really like on the inside.”
What are some of these modern-day fig leaves? Let me suggest a few today.
I. First there are our fig leaves of possessions.
A. Some of us spend our lives pursuing and accumulating possessions. That pursuit goes on until our possessions begin to possess us. We strive for the most expensive house on the block. We buy the car that tells the world we are a success. We show off the labels on our clothes. We surround ourselves with luxuries of every type.
Our possessions say something about us. They tell the world about our status in life, and status is important to us.
B.But our self-images and status are fragile and our possessions soon become inadequate. There is always someone a little better off than us, always someone ahead of us in buying a new toy we wish we had. Eventually our possessions can no longer sustain us.
We cry to the world, “Look at my fig leaves, look at my stuff but don’t look at me. Don’t see what I’m really like on the inside.”
II. Yes, possessions are modern day fig leaves and so is pleasure.
The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America declares that man has been given certain inalienable rights. Among these are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Today we have rewritten it to read. Among these are “life, liberty and the pursuit of pleasure.” We can describe today as the “Me Generation.” We live in a time characterized by the slogan, “If it makes you happy, do it.” Self-indulgence is the norm.
Personal attitudes are often evidence of our fig leaves of pleasure.
Hindus know the tragic results of pleasure seeking. They teach that there are Seven Noble Paths to finding God, one of which is pleasure. After a while a pleasure seeker will realize the futility of his or her search, the pleasures will lose their value, and the seeker will go after something higher in life. That is kind of what Solomon was talking about in the book of Ecclesiastes.
Solomon explored various aspects of life and concludes that many pursuits, including pleasure, are ultimately meaningless and unsatisfying. He concluded that worldly pleasures and achievements are temporary and ultimately unsatisfying.
Ecclesiastes 2:1-11 NIV [1] I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. [2] “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” [3] I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives. [4] I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. [5] I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. [6] I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. [7] I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. [8] I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well—the delights of a man’s heart. [9] I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me. [10] I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. [11] Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.
In essence he said the pursuit of pleasure is meaningless. When you get a chance read Ecclesiastes.
Still, people pursue pleasure as if there were no tomorrow, as if they could hide behind the fig leaves of self-indulgence forever, as if there were no God.
III. Which brings me to the next example of the fig leaves of today and that is a Christ less religion.
Let me explain. Many people believe in God then act, as if He doesn’t exist, which is my definition of a Christian Atheist. The vast majority of Americans believe in God, yet as of 2023, approximately only 30% of Americans attend church services at least once a week. This number has been declining in recent years, reflecting a trend toward secularization and a wearing of fig leaves.
A. A Christ less religion could be called the “Man Upstairs” religion. People acknowledge that some higher power exists, but they usually picture that power as a doddering old man with a long white beard who wants everyone to get along. The idea of God coming in the form of man to die for their sins is foreign to their thinking. God remains a far-off, unimportant figure with some sort of magical powers.
Some of the people in this group of fig leaf wearers place more importance on sincerity of belief than in the truth of the belief.
They say things like; “We are all headed toward the same goal anyway, so one religion is as good as another.” The important thing, they will argue, is that one sincerely believes in whatever it is he or she believes in.
In other words, they may be more concerned with how strongly they believe something, rather than whether the belief is actually true. Some people hold onto beliefs for emotional or cultural reasons, even if they don't align with the truth of scripture.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 NIV [3] For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. [4] They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
IV. Salvation through works is fig leaves
Some people believe in God and in Jesus Christ. Yet they have trouble relating toGod through Christ. This is true for some in the church as well as outside of it.
A. The unchurched person might say that they don’t consider church participation important. They may say things like “God knows my heart, I am a moral person, I’m an upright citizen, I work hard to help care for my family, “I believe God will take all of that into consideration on Judgment Day,”
That is treating God like he was part of a union negotiation. On one side is God and on the other was the non church goer, and between them, they would work out an acceptable plan for both parties.
However, God sets the standard. We either accept it or reject it. The terms never change. That was the issue with Adam and Eve. God said don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Adam and Eve rejected the command, disobeyed and ate.
B. Church members often get hung up on works alone to show that they are good Christians. The works can become fig leaves. Behind their anxious pursuit is the notion that they must earn God’s love. These people are driven by a compulsion that says, “If I can do just one more thing, God will have to love me.” They can never do enough, but instead of finding joy and fulfillment in their service, these people end up anxious, frustrated, and scared that they have left something undone that must yet be accomplished before they can make God love them. Their efforts are as futile as Adam and Eve’s trying to hide from God and each other behind fig leaves.
V. So what's the answer?
If all of these are nothing but fig leaves behind which people hide, what is the answer to knowing God, to finding forgiveness and cleansing?
Engaging in sin often starts with something small and then escalates. Think about the progression of Eve’s sin in the garden.
Genesis 3:6, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.”
Eve looked, touched, and ate the forbidden fruit. It was a gradual descent into turning away from God’s command. That’s why it is imperative that we stop before we start. It is imperative that we don't dabble in sin. Don't play with sin. Don't toy with sin. Don't flirt with sin.
It takes effort to stay on the right track; there are many things that can pull us astray. Staying on the path of righteousness is a battle; there are many forces that oppose us. There are many distractions and hindrances.
But, each day, we have a choice: will we choose God and His ways, which are better than ours
Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT [8] “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. [9] For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
Or will we choose the way of the world that leads to destruction
Matthew 7:13-14 NLT [13] “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. [14] But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.
The Bible gives us the answer.
Colossians 1:26-27 NLT [26] This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people. [27] For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.
There is no other hope than that which is built on Jesus Christ. Men and women continue to hide behind fig leaves, but God’s remedy is plain.
John 3:16-17 NIV [16] For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. [17] For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
The remedy for all of mankind's spiritual ills is Jesus Christ. He alone provides the way to the Father. He alone brings forgiveness of sin. He alone cleanses us from all unrighteousness. He alone gives us purpose and meaning. He alone accepts us as we are. He alone is the Friend who sticks closer than a brother. He alone is our hope of glory.
Jesus Christ declared, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 NIV).
Let’s Pray,
Heavenly Father, we come before You, humbled and grateful for Your Word. We thank You this word about fig leaves, which has challenged us to examine our hearts and actions.
Lord, we confess that like Adam and Eve, we have often sought to cover our shame and sin with inadequate means. We have tried to hide our imperfections from others and from You. But Your Word reminds us that You see through our disguises and know our true nature.
We ask for Your forgiveness, Lord. Help us to lay aside our fig leaves of self-justification and come to You with honesty and humility. Grant us the courage to face our shortcomings and the strength to seek Your righteousness.
In Your grace, may we be clothed with the righteousness of Christ, a garment that is pure and without blemish. May we walk in the light of Your truth and live lives that are pleasing to You.
We pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
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