Behold the Big Story of the Bible

Pastor Kevin DeYoung: I believe that I am officially outnumbered. I'm glad to be here. I live with five women. I also live with five young men. There's a lot of us. I do not live with 7,500 women, but it is a joy to be here. 

I've known Nancy and Robert for many years. Just as I was collecting my thoughts backstage, I thought, one of the reasons why God will bless a ministry like this is He loves to bless His people when they believe in the Word of God and prayer. You don't deviate from the basics. These women, and the men who are praying, believe in the power of prayer. 

We've already heard so eloquently from Nancy already about Psalm 119 and the power of God's Word. So, I hope you read it. Keep reading it. We heard about that article, “21 Books You Don't Need to Read”—Huckleberry Finn, The Lord of the Rings, the Bible. I'd go find it and figure that's probably a list of the twenty-one greatest books ever written by the time you're done with it, if it's got those three not to read. 

Kevin: My assignment this evening is a daunting one. I have been asked to talk to you about the whole story of the Bible. You might call it the biggest story. I want to look at one passage, we'll spend some minutes in this one passage to orient you to some of the characters, themes, and ideas in this passage at the beginning of the Bible. And then I want you to see how these carry through and give us different ways to tell the whole story of the Bible. I hope that the effect will be more than simply being reminded of some things, maybe learning some new things, but it will be ultimately to see and to cherish new things about Christ. 

I invite you to turn in your Bible to Genesis chapter 3. We have the story of creation, of course, in Genesis 1. And in Genesis 2 we zoom in on the creation of Adam and Eve. Then Genesis 3, we have the Fall. In the first seven verses of Genesis 3, we see why Adam and Eve sinned, this temptation from the serpent. And then the rest of the chapter, what we're going to look at, is about what happens after Adam and Eve sinned: 

• Joy replaced with sorrow 
• Comfort with cursing 
• Pleasure with pain 
• Intimacy with expulsion 

We have in Genesis 3 an all too familiar picture of the way things are, and the way things were not supposed to be, and the way things will not be forever. So I want you to notice as we pick up reading verse 8, first I want you to notice Adam and Eve's response when they are caught in sin. Let's look at this first paragraph. 

And then they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 

The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me and I ate.” (vv. 8–13) 

So pause there and notice several things. The first thing they see after their sin, they see their nakedness (v. 7). They have the experience which all of us have encountered in sin. That is an experience of shame. 

We read that they hear the Lord in the cool of the day. Now some commentators think this is ominous, but the cool or the breeze or the wind of the day might be the rushing sound of the Lord. Or as it's translated here, it gives us a sense of tranquility that is about to be interrupted. I think that this scene is not yet screaming with judgment, though judgment is coming. It is a picture of a father seeking out His children. Here with the evening breeze, the sound of the Lord, walking is a description of intimacy. 

Sometimes when we manage to get a majority of us around the table at night. So, my wife and I have nine children. Why not ten? Well, we were quitters. When we're mostly there, our younger kids love to do highs and lows, roses and thorns, very simple. Tell us about the best and worst part of your day. They usually can tell what dad's worst part of the day was already by some grumbling with all of the shoes that are out. I'm maniacal about wanting them to pick up their shoes. It will say on my tombstone someday, “Please, please, pick up your shoes.”

But I said the other day, “I'll tell you what my rose was today.” It's one many days. I said, “Susanna.” She just turned five, two days ago. I said, “When I could hold your hand and walk you into your junior kindergarten classroom in the morning, that was the best part of my day.” 

A father walking among his children. And so, the Lord walking among Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. Except, notice that instead of being comforted, their hand in His by the footsteps of the Lord, now they're afraid, hiding among the trees. And in His conversation with the man and the woman, did you notice the Lord only asks questions? It's like He's a courtroom prosecutor. He asks four questions: Where are you? Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree I commanded you not to eat? What is this you have done? 

Of course, the Lord's not asking these questions because He's ignorant of something. He knows all things, sort of like a father if he sees a teenage child stumble in after curfew and smells alcohol on his breath and says, “Where have you been?” Well, he knows where he has been. He's asking the question to hear if the child will acknowledge where he has been. Adam understands the question to be a rhetorical one. It doesn't actually explain where he is. 

The Lord addresses first the man. Even though Eve sinned first, He holds the man accountable. Not to the exclusion of the woman, He will also ask her a question. But more than the woman . . . This is something that we see Paul talk about in Romans chapter 5. Because the man was meant to be the loving head of this marriage relationship, even though Eve, the woman, sins first, He holds the man responsible. 

Paul says in Romans chapter 5 that sin entered into the world through what? One man (see v. 12). Why not through Eve? Because Adam was given as the covenant head over the whole human race. You can tell the story of the Bible as two Adams. All of us died in this first Adam. We can be raised to life in Jesus Christ, the second Adam. So though the woman was deceived, the man sinned more willfully. The man was to be the protector, the leader of his wife. 

Actually, he addresses the characters in this drama in the reverse order in which they sinned. Who was the first one to sin? Well, it was actually Satan, the serpent. We don't hear about his angelic fall here, but we get hints of that other places of Scripture. Satan sinned first, then Eve, then the man. Notice He addresses them in reverse order. First talks to the man, then to the woman, and then He'll address Satan. 

We see two responses from Adam and Eve. These are the two oldest responses to sin, and they are likely the two most common responses to sin. Number one, shame. I've been exposed. I've been found out. I am dirty. I'm embarrassed. I'm unclean. Everyone knows. Look at me; I need to hide. 

And blame. The man blames the woman. “You gave her to me.” The woman blames God. Together they blame the serpent. She was God's good gift to him, and now he dares to say that this was some kind of mistake. And so the woman blames the serpent. She has slightly more of a claim to being something of a victim, but still she ought to own her own sin. 

Doesn't this happen often when we're confronted either by someone speaking the truth to us or reading God's Word or in a sermon? We describe ourselves as passive actors when we sin, and we describe ourselves as great heroes when we do what is right. 

“I lost my temper.” Well, where'd it go? 

“I got frustrated,” or “He pushed my buttons.” They’re still your buttons.

They blame. Suddenly they are passive in life. Now it is true that the serpent was also guilty. The woman was, in a way, the victim of his malicious lying. And at the same time, she was also a sinner.

Here are two powerful truths you must never forget. Sinners in your life, the people who really bother you . . . (Don't look around, don't look around.) Those people, the one that bothers you most, is also a sufferer. And the sufferer (which you may say, “Well, that's me. I'm in this category), sufferers can still be sinners. Hurting people usually hurt people. 

Now, we have sympathy with them for the ways they've been hurt, but they also must be held responsible for the hurt that they do to others. This blame game is no respecter of persons. It happens on the left. It happens on the right. It happens with Christians. It happens with non-Christians. Shame, blame. 

Notice the Lord's response to their sin. Let's continue, verse 14. “The Lord God said to the serpent . . .” So, he's gonna address them now, the serpent, then the woman, then the man. 

TheLORD God said to the serpent, 
“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.” 

To the woman he said, 
“I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing;
and pain you shall bring forth children. 
Your desires shall be contrary to your husband [or towards your husband], 
but he shall rule over you.” 

And to Adam he said, 
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife 
and have eaten of the tree 
of which I commanded, 
‘You shall not eat of it.’ 
Cursed is the ground because of you; 
and pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, 
and you shall eat the plants of the field. 
By the sweat of your face 
you shall eat bread, 
till you return to the ground, 
for out of it you were taken; 
for you are dust, 
and to dust you shall return.” (vv. 14–19) 

Speech number one is to the serpent. Notice, no dialogue with the serpent. God does not need you to dialogue with the devil. You quote the Bible to him; you don't need to dialogue with him. That was the woman's mistake. 

He said now, “On your belly you will go.” Look at chapter 3, verse 1. “Now the serpent was more crafty . . .” There's a play on words here in the Hebrew. That's the Hebrew word arum. Now he is cursed, that's the Hebrew word arur. You were arum, now you are arur. 

There's three aspects of this curse. Notice: crawling on the belly, eating of the dust, crushed by the seed of the woman. All of those images portray the devil low to the ground. And part of what we're supposed to get here is: sin brings you low. The devil promises to bring you high, and sin always brings you low. Every time you see a snake in the grass or crossing the road on some hot summer day, it's a reminder of the curse. 

Now, when we moved to North Carolina eight years ago, people helpfully told us, “North Carolina has the largest population of venomous snakes in the country.” Well, my wife hates snakes. I mean, who really loves snakes? And when we went there, she was sort of picturing that scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. She was sort of picturing North Carolina to be like that, just slithering. 

It's not quite that bad, but we have seen a number of snakes usually one or two a year. People tell us, “Don't kill the black ones; they're the good ones. They swallow up the bad ones.” Every time you see one of those, it's not a good day. You see that snake slithering, it's a reminder of how sin brings you low. 

I want you to notice we talk about the curse of man here. Technically, only the ground and the serpent are cursed in Genesis 3. Now, Cain will be cursed later, but the man and the woman are not actually cursed. There's no curse pronounced on the man and the woman. They experience the effects of the curse. But it's striking that God never says in these three speeches, cursed are you Adam, cursed are you Eve, which is a whisper of grace. There's blessing; there's blessing left for you. 

Cain will receive a divine curse. Here, the image of God remains. He says to the woman, speech number two, you will have pain and childbearing. Right now you're saying, “Pastor, don't . . . don't even talk about it.” I have tried to say to my wife who's had nine kids, “I know, but you will never know the pain I experience to watch you.” 

And yeah, it doesn't go very far. 

This isn't to say that you can't try to mitigate the effects of the Fall. I hear epidurals are nice. It is simply to indicate the normal course of affairs, apart from the mercy of God, common grace, special grace. And, I think it's not just a reference to the act of labor, but to the whole, “in pain you shall bring forth children.” 

Now, this can be a discouraging word, moms, but maybe there's some encouragement here. You're not getting along with your daughter, you're not getting along with your son. You say, “But why? Why am I Christian? I'm doing this right. I prayed for them. I brought them to church.” In pain you shall bring forth children. It’s not just the act of pushing out a baby, but bringing forth children, raising them in the world. We live in a cursed world, and childbearing comes with pain. I heard Tim Keller say one time, “Once you become a parent, you will never be happier than your most unhappy child.” There's some truth to that. You experience all the highs and lows of being a parent. 

He tells the man, speech number three, the sentence on the man is the longest. Part of his sin is that he listened to his wife, which normally, is a good thing, but here as she led him into sin was not a good thing. And notice, the punishment fits the crime. He ate, so he will eat. Eating is mentioned five times in these three verses. His sin was eating, and so his punishment will be in what he eats. His primary sphere was the ground, and so now his work will be a chore. 

We have seen that each one is condemned to a permanent disadvantage in life, far as the curse is found. And these disadvantages occupy the primary sphere, not the sole thing they can never do, but the primary sphere. So that the woman's primary sphere is raising children, and that will be pain for her. The man's primary sphere here in the Garden will be the ground, and it will bring thorns and thistles. And we see the most devastating consequence for their sin. Verse 20: 

The man called his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever”—therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (vv. 20–24)

Here's what I want to do with the second half of this message. Having established what are perhaps familiar verses for some of you, maybe new to others, having established the basic plot line, the curse that falls upon the world. These themes, these ideas, these characters, we want to think together about how this helps us understand the whole story of the Bible. I'm going to dare to give you with my time remaining a nine point sermon. 

I want to give you nine ways, and you could probably come up with twice as many, nine ways to tell the story of the Bible.

Number one: the Bible is a story about children. Notice in the midst of these echoes of judgment, these whispers of grace. We've already seen one, that the man and woman are not actually cursed, but also that the woman will have children. And what an act of faith here by Adam. Don't let it pass you by. In verse 20, after all of this devastation because of sin, he dares to call his wife's name Eve. Why? Because she will be the mother of all living. 

In God's grace, this isn't the end of us. She is isha, we heard in chapter 2, because she was taken out of ish. Isha, woman; ish, man. Now she's called Eve, the mother of all living. 

The Bible is about children, the good of having children is everywhere in the Bible that children are mentioned. It is a gift. It's specifically about a child, the seed of the woman. 

The storyline of the Bible is about a child of Abraham, a son of David, one to be born of a virgin, this child who will conquer, who will crush the head of the sermon. 

Have you wondered why there are so many stories about a promised child? Harry Potter. The Star Wars legacy. Myth. All of that nonsense. There's this child; there's a promised one to come. We see the real story here. 

I love Romans 16:20. It’s one of the benedictions that I will give at the end of our services. “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” He has made us more than conquerors through him who loved us because Christ is that Child who comes to crush the head of the serpent. And as we are more than conquerors with Him, we also crush the head of the serpent. 

The prime verb (I know we love verbs here) in Ephesians 6 is spiritual warfare. It doesn't say go out and do battle with the devil. It doesn't say you gotta storm the devil's lair. It says stand. Why stand? Because he's been defeated. He's already been conquered. John 16 Jesus promises that. 

So we are called to be more than conquerors. You wanna know how to understand the book of Revelation, the most difficult book in the Bible, some people would say, here's a little tip . . . Revelation, singular. Revelations is not a book in the Bible, but Revelation, singular. There are revelations in it, I guess you could say. All of you can know the big idea in the book of Revelation, because some of you have it right now. I know you're wearing some nice shoes, but some of you have it on your feet. Because the point of the book of Revelation is the word nike. It's the Greek word; it means “victory, conquer, overcome.” And the word in its “now” form, nikkei, meaning "victory," or nikau, "to overcome." It's there at end of each of the seven letters: “to him who overcomes, to him who overcomes.”

The majority of all the occurrences in the New Testament are in that book of Revelation. That's what the book is about, how to be an overcomer and not a succumber. And you do it by conquering through this one, this promised Son.

So the Bible, you can tell the story, it's about children and especially about a child. 

Second, the Bible's a story about clothes. It is. Notice the provision in verse 21, “The LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” He “made” is the same word earlier in the creation account when it says that he rested from all that he had made. 

You could say this is the first time after creation he's made something new for his people. He made them clothes. Why clothes? Because they realize in their shame that they're naked. It tells us that the Creator will also be their Savior. And it tells us that your sin and my sin cannot be covered by grasping at fig leaves. You cannot grasp at the first thing in sight. 

Notice this also, what do they grasp for? They're getting leaves. Do you see the language here? And he made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin (see Gen. 3:21). Where do you get skin from animals? What's required? Death. 

In order to cover them now, death will be required. Blood will be required in order to have a covering for their sin. You can see through the rest of the Bible the priests receive special clothing because they're holy; they're set apart. Or Joshua the high priest in Zechariah 3 is filthy in his clothes, and he receives a new change of raiment (see vv. 3–40. Or finally, in the wedding supper of the Lamb, the saints are there paraded out in their pure bridal white linen. The Bible is a story of naked people who need clean clothes. 

Three: the Bible is a story about God's presence. The temple and the tabernacle will come later in the Bible. The tabernacle is the tent structure that was the temporary one that you can move around on journeys. And then when they finally made a home in the Promised Land in Jerusalem, they would build the temple, which is a permanent tabernacle. 

I don't have time to flesh all of this out, but when you look at the details, it's pretty obvious that the tabernacle and the temple are to be a kind of garden of Eden. The colors, all of those chapters that seem very boring with the building of the tabernacle and of the temple and all the cubits and all the poles and all of the colors. They're blue like the sky and like the sea, and there's pomegranates, and there's palm trees. The inside of the tabernacle was an echo of a creation garden. It was to say this garden now, the presence of God, that's what the garden represents. The presence of God now will dwell in your midst. 

The Levites, the priests and the Levites, were to guard the east entrance of the tent of meeting. We'll come back to that. The East . . . now I live on the East Coast and so do some of you. So it's not all bad out there in the East, but the East in the Bible is the place outside of Eden. That's why when God's people come into the Promised Land, they come and have to move east to west across the Jordan. 

Or Cain. It will say in chapter 4 when he's cursed, he is sent out of the land into Nod, which is east of Eden. Lot, when Abraham and Lot are looking in the land, they have too many possessions, they can't all live in the same place together. We're meant to hear a danger in Lot's choice when he says, “I'll take the land to the east.” 

So here the Levites guard the Holy of Holies. They're guarding the presence of God. The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 will be measured the same height, length, and width. It's a cube with the same three dimensions. The only other cubic dimension in the Bible is the Holy of Holies, because the New Jerusalem that comes down is that Holy of Holies. 

The storyline of the Bible can be told in this way. How can a holy God dwell in the midst of an unholy people? And so He has the garden. You notice He doesn't throw the garden out. He banishes them from the garden. It’s as if to say, “You have not destroyed My goodness. You have not destroyed My kingdom. You have not destroyed My paradise. I don't uproot My garden. I uproot you. And because of your rebellion, you're banished.” This is the first of many banishments in the Bible. 

Now before this, we read in 2 Peter and Jude that the angels when they rebelled were banished from heaven. Adam and Eve were banished from the garden. Cain was banished from the land. The nations at Babel are banished and scattered. The unclean have to go outside the camp. 

Excommunication in the church is a way of setting outside the camp the unrepentant sinner. When the Israelites accumulated after centuries covenant curses, they were finally banished from Canaan. And how does Jesus describe hell? One of the descriptions, the wicked will be banished to the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The man was supposed to keep the garden and now the garden is kept from him. 

It's the same word in Genesis 2:15, it’s translated “keep” here in 3:24. We have “guard.” 

He was to keep the garden, and now the garden is kept from him. So it's a story about God's presence. 

The Bible is a story about coming home. It's about our heavenly citizenship. It's about looking for a better country and a heavenly one. It’s about God who prepared for us a city, this garden city that we will inherit. 

Notice this next time when you read through the Bible, every book in the Pentateuch— the first five books of the Bible, five books of Moses—every one of those books ends with a geographic marker. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, each of them conspicuous. Now you won't be able to miss it. Each ends with a geographic marker telling us where God's people are. 

Genesis, they've gone down. Joseph dies there in Egypt. Exodus, they're wandering through the wilderness. Leviticus, they're receiving the law there at Mount Sinai, which is there in the Sinai Peninsula. The book of Numbers, it says that they're there looking across the river to Jericho. And then in Deuteronomy, Moses dies and he's looking out over the plains of Moab. Five times the book ends with this geographic marker, to tell us they are not yet home. They're not in the Promised Land. That's what this is all looking forward to. 

If you ever feel like, even when you have a great husband, you all do, and you have a great family, or you’ve got a great life, and you’ve got a vacation and a job; and you still have that gnawing sense that there's something more. It's because there's something more. It’s because you're not home. The Bible is a story about coming home.

Five, the Bible is a story about eating. Everything in the garden was given for food except one tree. They ate of that and now we read, verses 17–19, “they will eat by the sweat of their brow.” And in verse 22, “he shall not eat of the tree of life.” Later, the Israelites will have to distinguish between the animals they can eat and the animals they cannot eat. The feast days will be marked off by eating. 

It's a book, a big story about eating. And Jesus will say, if you want to be saved, you need to feast on me. Just like, and I'm not the first one to see this. I heard Ligon Duncan say this, and he probably stole it from someone else. Sorry, Ligon, you did. 

But when the woman says to the man, “Take and eat,” she grabs the fruit, she says, “Take and eat.” And Satan said to her before, “Look at the food; take and eat, take and eat.” Can you think of somewhere else where Somebody says, “Take and eat”? Jesus gathers His disciples, the Last Supper, and says, “This cup is my blood, this bread is my body. Take and eat” (see Matt. 26:26). 

The whole human race was damned by eating. And then we are saved by eating, by feasting in faith, upon the Son of God. That's what Jesus says. We celebrate this in your church with the Lord's Supper, which is eating to counteract the curse of the eating that happened in the garden. And what happens in the new heavens of the new earth? It's a scene of great eating. So next time you're out, maybe later tonight, you say, “Sister, the Bible is a book about eating.” 

Number six, I gotta move quickly. The Bible's a story about trees. In Genesis chapter 1 and 2, fruit trees are a sign of bountiful provision. The tree becomes the place where sin enters the world when they eat that fruit of the tree. The trees are then where they run and hide. Then verse 24, they are barred from eating the tree of life. Deuteronomy 21 tells us the tree is the place of punishment and death. Cursed is anyone who hangs upon a tree. And we know that the tree is the place where mankind receives the gift of life, the one Lord Jesus Christ who hung on a tree. The sin that entered the world by the tree now will find salvation by the one who hangs on a tree. In the new world we will eat from the tree in the middle of the garden city whose leaves will be for the healing of the nations. The Bible is a story about eating.

Seven: the Bible is a story about angels. Now, track with me here. It is possible to make too much of angels, but we can really make too little of angels. What are angels? Well, they're servants. They're bridges. You think of the ladder. “I saw angels ascending and descending” (see Gen. 28:12). That's because they're intermediaries. They connect the heavenly world and the earthly world. They're messengers. That's what the name means in Hebrew and Greek. An angel is a messenger. They're patrol officers. We read that they patrol the earth. They're guardians. 

Think about this: angels are guardians of the sacred. Who's placed here at the east of Eden to guard the entrance? An angel. Why? I’ve got Raiders of the Lost Ark on the brain. Think about the ark. The lid for the ark has two winged cherubim. Why do you have cherubim there? Because that ark represents the presence of God. It's the symbolic manifestation of God's presence. And the lid there, the mercy seat, has two cherubim because cherubim in the Bible are guardians. 

During the exodus, God says, “I sent an angel before you to guard you on the way.” We see the same thing in Daniel. Now, not personal angels, but we have corporate 

guardian angels over God's people. So I'm making the point, angels guard things. 

Now think about Jesus. Angels attended Him at His temptation. Angels were there to announce His birth. Angels strengthened Him in Gethsemane. And at every key moment—from conception to birth, to wilderness, to Garden, to his resurrection—there are angels. And on Easter Sunday morning, there's a great earthquake. An angel comes down, rolls the stone away, and sits upon it. His appearance was like lightning, clothes dazzling white. This was a dreadful scene. The guards, the human guards, became like dead men. They're irrelevant at this moment.

The angel talks to the women and says, “Do not be afraid. You're looking for Jesus. He's not here. He's risen just as He said. Come see where He lay” (see Matt. 28:5–6). Notice the stone was not rolled away so Jesus could get out. That had already happened. The stone was rolled away so the women could go in. The angel pushes the boulder aside as a proof for the sake of witness, not to help Jesus get on his feet. 

You remember that strange scene where it says the grave clothes there were folded? 

When the Bible tells you things like that, just stop and think, Why do I have this extraneous bit of information? It doesn't seem like I need to know this, and so there's probably a reason you need to know it. Why does it mention the grave clothes were folded up? I think two reasons. One, to tell us this was not a struggle. This was not a mummy coming back to life and bursting out of his cocoon. This was not hard. Death could not hold Jesus. And they're folded up because He does not need them again. 

Now you say, “What's this have to do with angels?” Well, angels guard things, but not this time. These angels are there not to guard, but to bear witness to the One whom death could not keep. Death could not keep Him in the grave. The angels who have all throughout Scripture are guarding the sacred, now they're saying, “Come, come, come, look. You're not gonna believe, but you should believe this. Come, come, look in here.” 

So for the first time, angels, instead of saying, “You can't go into the Garden of Eden. You can't go into the Ark of the Covenant. You shall not pass.” The angel is saying, “Come and see. Look who got out!” The Bible is a story about angels. Death is dead; love has won; Christ has conquered. 

Two more if I have time. The Bible is a story about marriage. This is true whether you're married or not. The Bible is a story about marriage. And here's one of the reasons why we absolutely cannot budge on what the Bible tells us about marriage, because marriage is not just one or two little places in the Bible. Marriage is one way to tell the whole story of the Bible. 

Let me go back to Revelation. Revelation gives a bunch of contrasts. Two cities—Babylon and the New Jerusalem. Two masters—a beast or a Lamb. Two women. Revelation's a book about two women—the whore of Babylon and the pure spotless Bride. Babylon’s the prostitute. He said, “Well, that's offensive. Well, that's the anti-church.” That's the woman that you're not supposed to be. The pure spotless Bride is the woman that collectively we are all supposed to be. 

So we know the Bible ends with a wedding, but there's more to it than that. Think about the complimentary nature of creation itself. In the beginning, God created what? The heavens and the earth. That is like a marital pair. And not only that, within that cosmic pairing, we find other quote, unquote, “couples.” 

Genesis 1 is all about couples: the sun and the moon, morning and evening, day and night, the sea and the dry land, plants and animals. Do you notice? It's all couples, couples, couples. We have Adam, it's not good for Adam to be alone. He needs a couple. It's not mainly about personal fulfillment and relational companionship, but that the woman and the man together needed to be. They were fitted, each for each other to fulfill that creation mandate. Only a man with a woman could fulfill this creation mandate to be fruitful and to multiply. 

This marriage, therefore, is a symbol that in each of these pairings, one belongs with the other—night goes with day, sea and dry land, man and woman. Marriage is a symbol of this divine design, two differentiated entities. You can't have same and same, you can have shame and shame. Hear me, I want to make sure you got that. Two differentiated entities uniquely fit for one another, which is why it makes perfect sense. 

Revelation 19, the wedding supper of the Lamb. Revelation 20, the bad guys lose—abyss, Satan, lake of fire. Revelation 21, “And I saw coming down out of heaven the new Jerusalem as a bride adorned for her husband” (see v. 2) It's the wedding. Heaven and earth is the first couple made in the Bible. Genesis 1:1, and it's the couple that comes together. It's the story of the marriage between heaven and earth that God made and sin separated, and then at the end, He brings together. 

So the mystical union of Christ and the Church is a picture of that marital union. It doesn't work without the differentiation of male and female. It's a picture of the eternal fittedness of heaven coming to earth. That's what we're waiting for. 

And let me give you then number nine. The Bible is a story about a man, a woman, and a snake. Now, you see that in Genesis, and I want you to see it again in Revelation. 

So I have some children's books, The Biggest Story. People read them because they have pictures, which I didn't draw, so that's why people like them. But I've gotten two complaints from people. One, I have an ABC board book of The Biggest Story. It tells the story of the Bible. It has a letter as it tells the story. I was going through, and I wanted to go in sequential order. So I was telling the plagues in Egypt, and I got to the G, and I did gnats. And so many moms have said, “Why? I'm trying to teach my kid how to read. You give him a silent G.” Well, be glad God didn't send gorillas or something. 

But He sent, more importantly, the other critique I've gotten. The first book before The Biggest Story Bible story book, book of Bible stories or whatever it's called, the first one is just the biggest story. I begin the book by saying, “Once upon a time . . .” And some people have rightfully said, “Well, Kevin, I don't know. Once upon a time is how fairy tales start. And it makes me think when I'm reading it to my kids that they're gonna register this as another fairy tale.” 

I said, “That's fair, but let me tell you what I meant.” Sort of like Tolkien and Lewis, I wanted to communicate that this is the true fairy tale of which all the others are but a copy. This is the true myth—not myth in terms of false, but the story of the world is this biggest story. It's a story of a man and a woman and a snake. 

So I'll end here. Go back to Revelation. Revelation is hard to understand, but the second half of the book, chapters 12 through 22, it works just like a play. You have to picture, curtains are shut, curtains open, because Revelation 11 ends with that line we sing: “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.”

It's sort of yay, curtains close. 

Now Revelation's gonna tell the same story in a different way. Curtain opens, and there are three people. There's a mother, and there's a child. Now, this mother is not Mary, except insofar as Mary is sort of representative of God's people, but the mother is God's people. It's the imagery from Jacob's dream or Joseph's dream back in Genesis. So the mother here represents God's people. Then the child is the Lord Jesus that came from the people of God. And then there's a dragon. 

So there's three characters. There's a man, there's a woman, there's a dragon. And then a new character enters the scene. It's a beast. And then a second beast comes on the scene. He's called the false prophet. And then as the chapters go on, another character comes on, a prostitute, Babylon, the symbol for the anti-church, the symbol for worldliness. 

And just as it happens in plays, the characters then go off the stage in the reverse order in which they came. It's very deliberate. Because in Revelation 18, Babylon is overthrown. There goes the prostitute. And then the beast and the false prophet are destroyed. And then in chapter 20, Satan is thrown into the lake of fire. Reverse order. They leave. The dragon, the snake, that ancient serpent, the devil, is gone. We get to chapter 21 in who is left? A man and a woman. Except it's not a mother and a child, now it's a bride and a groom coming together. It’s the final fulfillment of the covenant promise. 

This is the thread throughout the Scriptures. Genesis 17, what was that story about? The woman in Genesis 16 and 17? Well, she had some good chapters there. Genesis 17:8, “The whole land of Canaan where you are now as an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you” (paraphrased). 

“I will be their God (Exodus 6:7), and I will take you as my own people and I will be your God (paraphrased). Leviticus 26:12, “I will walk among you and be your God and you will be my people.” Jeremiah 7:23, “Obey me and I will be your God and you will be my people.” Jeremiah 30:22, “So you will be my people, and I will be your God.” Ezekiel 36: 28, “You will live in the land I give your forefathers. You will be my people and I will be your God.” 

You hear a theme? Why it was so significant then that John 1:14 says, “The word became flesh and his dwelling tabernacled among us.” Revelation 21:3, “Behold the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, they will be his people and he will be their God.” Revelation 21:7, “The one who conquers will have this heritage, I will be his God, he will be my son.” Revelation 21:22, “I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” 

The covenant promise all throughout the Bible is that you don't have to be alienated from God. You don't have to be strangers to God. You can be forgiven of God. You can be close with God. You can be loved by God. He promises that He will be your God and you will be His people. 

This is why Matthew 1 was so sweet. “Emmanuel which means God with us.” That's the promise. It's a story about a man and a woman and a snake that ruined everything and then they kept on ruining everything until God sent His Son to make all of the ruinous things better and to save us. 

Revelation uses that analogy of the two most intimate relationships—a parent and a child, and a husband and a wife—to point to the most intimate relationship of all—God and His people, and He will wipe away every tear from your eyes. Have you thought about that promise before? How close do you have to be to someone to wipe a tear from their eyes? You can't do it over email. You can't do it by text. You have to be face to face, close right there. It's how close God is to His people. 

It's the story we're telling. What went wrong in the garden will be set right in the garden city to come and for all of our eating and all of our feasting and all of our weddings and all of our trees and snakes and all of it. It's painting a glorious picture of what this book is all about. You can be a part of it when you put your faith in Jesus. Let's pray. 

Father in heaven, thank You for this Book, for all the many things you teach us here. Yes, and amen, all of your promises in Jesus in whose name we pray, amen.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.