Sermon Transcript

0:00:00.0

How you doing this morning?  Hey, I wonder if you remember a little lyric that goes something like this. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.  All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”  Whoever wrote that little lyric must have been a very perceptive person.  I imagine that he observed some things in his world much like we observe some things in our world.  Things, for instance, that were once nailed down are coming loose.  Things that were once sewn together are coming apart at the seams.  Things that we thought couldn’t happen, things that we thought wouldn’t happen are in fact actually happening.  A couple of months ago I made a trip to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky in preparation for this series from the book of Genesis.  And while I was there I went through one of the exhibits called Graffiti Alley.  Now, Graffiti Alley is a series of provocative images that are meant to sort of display for us many of the ills that deeply affect so many parts of our world.  What you saw in Graffiti Alley was loneliness, racism, crime, murder, violence, abortion, homosexuality, addiction, and the list goes on and on.  It was a picture of the brokenness, of the loss of dreams in our society.  It was what one person describes the fact that we are Humpty Dumpty people living in a Humpty Dumpty world, the fallen world in which we live.  And despite all of the pictures and the images there, the Humpty Dumpty scene, it seems, kind of repeats itself.  That was the image and the sense that you got going through Graffiti Alley.  This Humpty Dumpty scene repeats itself on a daily basis because we are sinful and fallen people.  And yet, all the king’s men want us to believe that they have the answers to what ails Humpty Dumpty.  They say things like, “Well, what Mr. Dumpty needs is an education. What Mr. Dumpty needs is a job and a new environment and better economic conditions.  He needs world peace and maybe even some more government assistance.”  And yet every time Mr. Dumpty gets on his wall, he tumbles and falls.  Despite all the help that we give Humpty Dumpty, he still tumbles and falls from the wall.  And every time he does, he is quick to blame somebody else for his bad circumstances.  Have you noticed that?  How quick we are to play the blame game or the victim game, saying, “You know, I’m just a victim of my circumstances and somebody needs to come rescue me from my victimized state.”  Reminds me of a piece of graffiti that somebody once came across in the streets of Philadelphia that read, “Humpty Dumpty was pushed.”  It kind of says it all, doesn’t it.  Kind of summarizes the mindset that some of us have in our culture today.

0:03:09.4

Well, the real story behind the problems that you and I face as fallen human beings living in a fallen world, as Humpty Dumpty people living in a Humpty Dumpty world, the real story behind all of that is found in Genesis 3.  And if you knew nothing about Genesis 3 and you had just started reading the Bible from Genesis 1:1…and you went through chapter 1 and you went through chapter 2 and learned about God creating the world in six days.  And you came upon the paradise of God.  And then you come to chapter 3 and you read these words.  “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.”  If you knew nothing about Genesis 3, you would get the sense that something bad was about to happen.  The sky is darkening.  The mood is shifting.  You get the sense that something dark and ominous is about to spoil the paradise of God.  Genesis 3 is the description of the fall of man.  And it explains for us all of the ills that deeply affect our world today, that are symptomatic of a much deeper problem that is at the root of those problems.

0:04:23.6

And so let’s read Genesis 3 beginning in verse 1.  And I just want to touch on the first few verses here.  It says, “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”?”’  The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,  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.” ’  ‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes,’” listen to this, “‘your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”  Now, one of the first questions you have as you come upon a text like this is, who or what is this talking serpent? And to get an answer to that question, we really have to go to the last book of the Bible, to the book of Revelation 12.  And also chapter 20 mentioned this, but let’s just land upon Revelation 12:9 where John the apostle on the island of Patmos, as he’s writing his apocalyptic letter, he mentions the great dragon who is thrown down, “the serpent of old who is called the devil, and Satan.”  This serpent of old who slithers his way into the garden paradise in Genesis 3 is none other than Lucifer the fallen angel, the devil, Satan himself.  This is who it is.  And he has come upon the garden paradise to spoil it.  He has a diabolical plan.  We get a glimpse into Satan’s temptation strategies here in Genesis 3.  And we’ll find out a little bit later that those strategies just kind of get repackaged and reintroduced in every generation.

0:06:24.0

But for now I want us to take a look at the four lies of the serpent.  In those verses that I just read there are four very subtle and yet cunning deceptions that the devil brought upon Eve.  And did you notice that he kind of does a backdoor on the order of creation.  He comes to the woman first.  Not because she is more gullible, but because God had given Adam the responsibility for His Word and the accountability for it.  And so in a diabolical kind of way, the devil just says, “Hey, I want to reverse that order, and I’m gonna come to the woman first.”  And he brings these four different lies.  Let’s look at them real carefully here.

0:07:09.4

The first lie I would say goes something like this.  God didn’t mean what He said.  “Eve, God didn’t mean what He said.”  The serpent says to Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”  Now, Satan always has an agenda.  The serpent always has an agenda.  And his agenda is first and foremost to cast doubt upon the Word of God.  And he does it in a very cunning way.  He insinuates through a suggestive question that “maybe God didn’t mean exactly what you thought He meant.  Maybe He didn’t say what you thought He said.  Did God really say that you must not eat from any tree in the garden?”  And He’s got you thinking a little bit.  Now, Eve’s response, if you look at it carefully, indicates she didn’t know the command of God very well.  She kind of knew it in a general sort of way.  Eve responds to the serpent by saying, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 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.’”  Well, you go back to Genesis 2:16 and you compare the verbiage here, you find that Eve subtracted from God’s command and then also added something.  God actually said, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat.”  Eve forgot the word “freely.”  She subtracted from the Word of God.  She made God to appear less generous than He really was.  And then she said that God said, “You must not touch the tree.”  Did God ever say that?  No, He didn’t, did He?  She not only subtracted from the Word of God and made God appear less generous, but she added to the Word of God, making God appear to be more restrictive than He really was.  And in that sense, Eve reminds me of the person who says something like this.  “Well, you know, the Bible says God helps those who help themselves.”  Come on now.  Show me where that’s in the Bible.  I don’t know who came up with that phrase, but you won’t find that phrase anywhere in the Bible.  But it’s kind of almost a legend.  But that’s a verse of scripture in the Bible.  God helps those who help themselves.  Some people believe that.

0:09:29.9

Eve reminds me of the person who says, “You know, money is the root of all kinds of evil.”  Well, not exactly.  Close, but close only counts in horseshoes.  Actually, what the Bible says is the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.  You see, Eve knew the Word of God generally, not precisely.  And the devil, through his suggestive questioning and casting doubt upon the Word of God…  “Did God really say that?”  And he saw something in Eve that didn’t know the Word of God very well, and he moved into to exploit that.  Do we need to know the Word of God generally or precisely?  We need to know it precisely.  We need to know exactly what God said and what He didn’t say.  And oftentimes we have spurious views of who God is.  We paint a picture of Him.  We create an image of who God is because we don’t know the Word of God very well.  He has revealed Himself in the scriptures.  And unless you want the devil to come and eat your lunch, get into this book and study and learn it.  Not generally, but precisely.

0:10:44.9

This is how Jesus won His battle in the wilderness with the devil.  Do you remember that?  In the Gospel of Matthew and Luke we have the temptation story.  And the devil comes not once, not twice, but three times to tempt Jesus.  After He had been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights the devil though, well, He’s got to be weak by now.  What he didn’t understand was Jesus was spiritually stronger at the end of his 40 days and 40 nights.  And every time the devil brought a temptation, the scripture says Jesus says, “It is written…”  And He quoted the Word of God precisely.  “It is written…  It is written…  It is written.”  Three strikes and you’re out, devil.  And the scripture says that the devil disappeared until another opportune time.  He’s always looking for an opportune time.  He’s an opportunistic serpent.  And if he can find a way to exploit you because you don’t know the Word of God very well, you repeat the experience of Eve in the garden.

0:11:48.6

So the first lie was God didn’t mean what He said.  The second lie was that you can live life without consequences.  Anybody remember from Genesis 2 that two trees appeared in the garden- the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  God established moral boundaries for Adam and for Eve and their offspring in the garden paradise by giving them the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and saying, “Don’t eat from it.”  He didn’t say don’t eat and don’t touch.  He just said, “Don’t eat from that.  And if you eat from it, Adam, you will die.”  The moral boundaries were established, and the consequences of ignoring those moral boundaries were established early on.  But the devil, the serpent comes to Eve and says, “You will not surely die.”  And here he doesn’t just cast doubt upon the Word of God.  He contradicts the Word of God and makes God to be a liar.  God said you will not die.  The devil says, “You will not surely die.”  He loves to take the Word of God and just twist it and bend it, especially for those who have just kind of a general association with it.  Consequences.

0:13:05.7

I remember an old game show when I was growing up, and maybe you do too.  It was Truth or Consequences.  This was before the day of, you know, The Price is Right and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and all those kinds of game shows.  This was one of the most popular game shows on television, Truth or Consequences.  And it was during a time when most of the people in our culture believed there was something called absolute truth and that there were consequences associated with ignoring those moral boundaries, which by the way are for our good and for our protection, not to spoil our fun.  God established moral boundaries so we could experience all that He intended for us to experience.  But there was a time in our culture not too long ago where people understood that there was something called moral truth, and consequences that went along with it.  In fact, that game show was so popular—this is amazing—that Hot Springs, New Mexico changed the name of their town to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.  Now, can you imagine that?  Going to someplace and they says, “Well, where are you from?”  “Well, I’m from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.”  I mean, that sounded strange back, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago.  But how strange that would sound today.  There are still 7000 people who live in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico I’m told.  And how strange that must sound in a culture like ours that has taken truth and said it doesn’t exist.  Your truth is your truth; my truth is my truth.  What works for you works for you; what works for me works for me.  It’s moral relativism.  And the serpent comes and says, “You will not surely die.  There are no consequences.  You can live a consequence-free life,” was the lie.  And the devil is just telling us that lie all over again today.

0:14:53.7

Jesus came in John 14:6, and He said, “I am the truth.”  You see, truth is a person.  It’s not a philosophy or a teaching.  It’s the embodiment of who Jesus is.  He said, “I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life.  I’m the way you’re looking for.  I’ll always tell you the truth and let you know what’s inbounds and what’s out of bounds, what’s good, what’s bad, what’s right for you, what’s best for you.  And I’m the life you’ve always been looking for.”  Aren’t you glad Jesus was generous enough to tell us that?  Later He said, “If you know the truth, the truth will set you free.”  If you ignore the truth, there are dire consequences to ignoring it.  And not only that, but it doesn’t produce freedom.  It produces bondage in our life, and that’s a really bad thing.

0:15:49.6

Now, lie number three goes on a little bit deeper.  And I would say it this way that the lie from the devil was this.  That God wants to keep you in the dark.  And he said it to Eve this way.  “You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it,” listen to this, “your eyes will be opened,” he said.  One of the favorite lies of the devil and schemes of the devil is that he wants us to think that God is trying to keep us from experiencing something good.  That somehow God is keeping us in the dark.  He’s holding back from us.  To the contrary, God is not keeping us in the dark.  He wants us to walk in the light.  But the devil wants us to believe that God is here to spoil our fun, to keep us in the dark, to keep something good from us.  For example, the devil tempts us with the pleasure of alcohol, but he hides the pain of alcoholism.  He allures us with sex outside of marriage, but hides the emotional pain of lost innocence, not to mention sexually transmitted diseases.  The devil tells us we can get high on drugs, but fails to mention how low an addicted person’s life goes, okay.  God wants to keep you in the dark, the devil says.  Your eyes will be opened if you just sort of erase the moral boundaries and say, “You know, that was fine for a time way back then, but we are more enlightened people today.  Aren’t we?”  Oh, it’s one of the biggest lies straight out of the pit to hell to think that we are more enlightened than people of other generations.  But the devil wants us to believe that.  Your eyes, he says, will be opened.

0:17:36.2

We went back to Indiana and visited some of the folks on my side of the family, my mother and my younger brother.  I hadn’t been back to Indiana for quite some time, and so it was just good to connect with some of my roots a little bit.  Went to the church where I came to know Christ.  My nephew had a basketball game because he goes to the Christian school there.  So I sat in the “gymatorium” where we used to worship.  Seemed a lot bigger back then, you know.  But I remember just sitting there with my Bible, hungry for the Word of God.  Sunday morning I went to a church called The Chapel, which is now on the south side of town.  We were on the northeast side of town.  My youth pastor who disciple me in the Lord planted a church on the south side of town.  It runs, I don’t know, 5-, 6-, 7000 people now.  Big church.  And got to hear him preach and connected with him a little bit after the service and just sort of connected with my roots in Indiana.  I remember growing up in Indiana, and I went away to college.  Big university, Purdue University; 35,000 students on the West Lafayette campus.  And I joined a fraternity.  And my eyes were opened to things, oh my, that I had never seen before.  You’ve got to understand.  I grew up in the second largest city in Indiana, but that’s not saying much, you know. (0:19:00.0) Ten minutes outside of where we live you run into horse and buggy, Amish country.  I literally was driving down the street last week on my way to my nephew’s baseball practice and came upon a horse and buggy.  I’m like, come on.  Get out of the way a little bit there.  This was the environment I grew up in.  And I go away to college, and, oh, my eyes were opened up.  I became the social chairman of my fraternity.  Now, you fill in the blanks there, okay.  Your eyes are opened.  Become more enlightened.  Let me tell you something.  Sometimes your eyes are opened to things and experiences that create bondages in your life, not freedom.  And by God’s grace, after a time in college the Lord rescued me, brought me back into fellowship with Him.  And that’s a whole other story.  But that little lie that says, “Oh, you need to (0:20:00.1) experience things in life.  You need to have your eyes opened out there.”  Just be careful with that.  I’m not saying live in a bubble, in a shelter and all of that.  We need to be in the world but not of the world.  But sometimes if your eyes are opened too far, it creates a bondage.  It creates something in you that is not good rather than the freedom for which we were created.

0:20:28.9

A fourth lie…and this one is very simple, but it’s very subtle, very straightforward.  The devil says to Eve, “You are a god.”  He says it this way.  “Eve, you will not surely die.  Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  Now, if you allow a little sanctified imagination here, I imagine the serpent having this conversation with Eve and looking at her and saying, “You know, Eve, you’re looking a little God-like today.  In fact, when the sun with its warm rays kind of shoot down into the garden paradise through those trees and those bushes and land upon the side of your face, Eve, I can just see the divine potential within you.  You’re just like God.  In fact, Eve, you are a god.”  And that sort of conversation sounds a lot like…at least to me.  I don’t know if you’ve picked up on this or not.  It sounds to me a lot like New Age spirituality.  You say, well, what’s New Age spirituality.  Well, in one sense, New Age spirituality is Eastern mysticism repackaged for Western consumption, okay.  But New Age spirituality is also the lies of Genesis 3 repackaged and reintroduced to a new generation of people.  You want to know what New Age spirituality is just got to your local bookstore.  Go to a Barnes & Noble or someplace like that.  Ask the person at the front desk, “Where is the New Age section?”  And you’ll find hundreds of books written by New Age gurus, a lot of them that grew up in the church who have a familiarity with the terminology of Christianity.  But they define it—be careful—they define those terms in much different ways than what we find in Orthodox Christianity.  And after you spend some time in the bookstore, here is another place you’ll find it.  And I may be trampling upon somebody’s holy ground by saying this, but just tune into the Oprah Show.  Seriously, folks.  Oprah has offered her media empire as an altar to New Age spirituality.  And after all the Hollywood people come through and the political people come through, here come the New Age gurus.  LaVar Burton, Eckhart Tolle and a whole host of others.  And if you listen real carefully with a discerning ear to what they are saying, you will hear the gentle whispers of the serpent from the Garden of Eden.

0:23:20.7

Let’s take a look at these lies in a slightly different way.  The serpent came to Eve and said, “Did God really say…”  One of the major tenets of New Age spirituality is moral relativism.  The serpent came to Eve and said, “You will not surely die.”  If you listen carefully, one of the major tenets of New Age spirituality is reincarnation.  The serpent came to Eve and said, “Your eyes will be opened.”  If you listen carefully, one of the major tenets of New Age spirituality is this idea of the higher consciousness or the Christ consciousness within you.  New Age spirituality and the human potential movement are closely associated with one another.  And what you find in the human potential movement is this idea that we need to become conscious of the god power within us.  Your eyes will be opened.  You’ll become more conscious of your power.  And then finally the serpent said to Eve, “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  And one of the major tenets of New Age spirituality is the idea that we must discover the divine within us.  And some of these guys are bold enough to say, “You are a god.”  Now, doesn’t that feel good?  Wouldn’t you like somebody to say, “You’re a god?  It’s better than pond scum.  It’s better than a worm.  But if you listen carefully with a discerning heart, you’ll hear the gentle whispers of the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  You see, if worked in Genesis 3.  And all he has to do is repackage it a little bit, reintroduce it to a new generation, and he’s got us hook, line and sinker.  “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.”  And it repeats itself every day.  Now, theologically speaking, we’ve inherited the sin nature of our spiritual parents, Adam and Eve.  And the symptoms of that sin nature are all the deep ills that affect us in so many parts of our world today.

0:25:43.4

That brings us to verse 6.  Look at it with me.  It says, “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.”  You see, all the devil had to do was just offer some suggestions.  To question a little bit here, to cast a little bit of doubt there.  And now she is gazing upon the food here.  She takes some and eats it.  She has crossed the moral boundary.  She has fallen into sin and rebellion against her Creator.  Something now in the paradise of God is spoiled, but she goes on a little bit further.  It says, “She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”  And the rest, as they say, is history.  We are Humpty Dumpty people living in a Humpty Dumpty world.  We are fallen people, sinful people receiving the inheritance of our spiritual mentors here and our spiritual parents and dealing with all of the aftereffects of their disobedience.

0:27:06.4

I find in verse 6 a strategy, a temptation strategy of the devil that’s worth exposing.  The apostle Paul said to the Corinthians, he says, “We were not unaware of the schemes of the devil.”  Paul was not about to move into an area of ministry or move his ministry team into an area without being aware of his enemy’s strategies and his schemes.  Are you aware of the enemy’s strategies?  Are you aware of the diabolical ways in which he tries to twist and turn and lead people into temptation?  Well, you can see them right here in the book of Genesis 3.  First, Eve gazed upon the food, and it was good for food.  What she saw with her eyes was good for food.  It also says it was a delight to the eyes and it was desirable to make one wise.  Have we got that chart, guys?  Can we put that up there?  See Genesis 3:6, good for food, delight to the eyes, desirable to make one wise.  It’s interesting.  It kind of aligns with what John says in his first epistle.  He talks about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, okay.  And it also aligns with…and that’s a bad reference there on Genesis 3:6.  That really should be Luke 4:1-12.  But this is how it lays out in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.  Remember, the devil comes to Him.  And he says, “Hey, You’ve got to be hungry after 40 days.  Why don’t You turn that stone into bread?”  There’s the lust of the flesh.  And then he takes Him to a high pinnacle overlooking the kingdoms of the world, and he says, “I’ll give it all to You if You just worship me.”  There is the lust of the eyes.  And then he tells Him to climb up to a high pinnacle and dive out in front of all the people.  “And the angels of heaven will come and rescue You.”  There is the boastful pride of life, because the promise was, “You’ll have worldwide recognition and everybody just eating right out of Your hand.”  You see, the devil’s strategy worked in Genesis 3- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life.  And he just repackages that, reintroduces it.  And this is his temptation strategy.  After he has lied to us and enticed us and deceived us, now he lays the temptation out.  And like Adam and Eve, we take it.  James talks about wisdom from below.  Not the wisdom from above that comes from God, but he described the wisdom from below as earthly, sensual and devilish, okay.  Those of you that have been in the military, you know how important it is to know your enemy.  Well, study that chart.  Study those patterns in the scripture, because this is a similar pattern that the devil will follow even today.

0:29:55.0

Which brings us to verse 7 and those consequences that we talked about earlier.  Take a look at this.  Then the eyes of both of them were opened.  Isn’t that an interesting statement?  And one of the deceptions of the devil is that he tells half-truths.  He told her, “Your eyes will be opened.”  Well, that’s true.  I’m not sure they’re gonna be opened to what you really want them to be opened to, but your eyes were opened all right.  And look what happened.  They realized they were naked.  It’s the loss of transparence, the loss of intimacy, the loss of innocence.  Of all that chapter 2 spoke of, that they were naked and unashamed, now shame and guilt come upon them.  How do we know that?  Because it says, “They sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for them.”  Now they know they're naked, and they ashamed and they're doing the fig leaf thing.  You know, they're hiding in the bushes.  All the king’s men and all the king’s horses…somebody came along and sold them some fig leaves and said here is how you take care of the problem.  Just a better education, a new job, a new environment, some more government assistance.  Here is a fig leaf here.  Here is a fig leaf there.  We’re gonna stop right here this week in the text, but what you’ll find next week if you come back is that all the attempts by Adam and Eve to solve the problem with fig leaves, God not only didn’t accept it, but He says, “Listen, I’ve got a better plan for this.  I’ve got a better plan.”

0:31:32.5

Friends, we are Humpty Dumpty people living in a Humpty Dumpty world.  This is the real story that explains all of the many ills and the difficulties and the challenges, the broken dreams, the shattered relationships.  It’s because somewhere in our spiritual past we inherited a sin nature from our spiritual parents, who made a decision that affects all of us today.  Now, the good news is that God’s grace is bigger than all that.  And if I could just give you a glimpse into next week, the final stage of this series, we’re gonna find God making clothes for Adam for Eve from animal skins, the first time death enters the world and the first time we find the shedding of blood for the remission of sin.  There is a picture of God’s ultimate plan that involves grace and forgiveness and the coming of a redeemer who will one day die upon a cross for all of our sins.  He will shed His blood.  Because the Bible says without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.  The Bible says that if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.  Old things are passed away and all things are become new.  All of that brokenness, all of the shame, all of the guilt, all of the broken dreams.  You can have a new life this morning in Christ.  That’s the promise of scripture.  God has a plan to fix Humpty Dumpty is what I’m saying.  And what all the king’s men and all the king’s horses cannot do and could not do, God did through His son Jesus Christ.  If any man, if any woman is in Christ, he is a brand new creation.  And old things are passed away, and all things become new.  Wouldn’t you like to have that this morning?  Have you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior?  The starting point is a recognition of the Humpty Dumpty that you and I are.  Broken and fallen, sinful and rebellious.  But God in His grace invites us into a brand new relationship.  Let’s pray together.

0:33:58.2

Father, thank You for this day.  And we want to thank You for telling us the truth in Your Word.  Thank You for taking the risk of moving us from paradise to paradise lost in the story, so that we have the real story, the rest of the story.  So that we have a deeper understanding of all the problems that we face in our world today.  And all the problems that we face personally.  Father, I’m thinking today maybe of a couple who is experiencing brokenness in their marriage.  They don’t know how to fix it.  But Christ is the answer.  I think of a single person or a young person who has tested the limits of life in some lifestyle or some way where they think they’ll be more enlightened, their eyes will opened, they’ll experience things of the world.  But they find themselves caught in a bondage.  Christ is the answer for that.  Father, we thank You for Jesus.  We thank You for the cross of Christ and His shed blood.  We thank You for His glorious resurrection where we can go from spiritual death to spiritual life, from brokenness to belief in Christ, where if any man or woman is in Christ we can be new creations where old things are passed away and all things become new.  And if that’s the desire of your heart, I want to give you an opportunity to express that desire to God.  You just say, “God, it’s Humpty calling.  It’s Humpty Dumpty here.  And You know the condition of my heart better than I do.  But I am broken.  I’m sinful.  I’m rebellious.  And I’m asking You to turn my heart toward You.  Thank You for Jesus.  Thank You for the cross.  And I receive Christ today as my Savior, my Redeemer, the One who can come and fix the Humpty Dumpty-ness in my life.  And thank You for giving me a home in heaven, God.”  And, Father, to that end we pray that You would do Your work among us today of saving and rescuing and redeeming a broken and lost creation.  And we pray this in Jesus’s name, amen.

0:36:22.7