The Fall
In the Beginning • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Intro
Intro
Last time we spoke we looked at God creating humans. We saw how God made Man and How credibly magnificent Gods design is. WE saw how God designed man using DNA.
I ask you the Question. If we have just walked through the 6 days of creation and saw that everything God made was good. I ask, How did we get here?
How did we get to the place where death and war are commonplace?
40 Million dead in WW1
70-85 Million in WW2
Mao's Communist Revolution killed 80 Million People.
63 Million children killed Sin Roe V Wade
So much death, so much pain. How did we get here?
Let me tell you.
You see Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden living in perfect harmony with God, One another and nature. Everything was as it should be.
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Few things of note here.
Earth is new, nothing has fully grown yet, so God plants a Garden for humans to live in. To grow and learn in. You see the word here for Garden is the Gan. Gan also means fence or protect. So God set up a place of protection so Adam and Eve could learn and Grown in God. Because though they would have been intelligent, they would still have needed the wisdom of the Lord. That only comes with time in his presence.
When God made Adam and Eve He breathed within them His divinity. at least a peace of it. In a way God was sharing His divinity with Adam.
God uses words to create.
Adam uses words to create, and God abides by Adams decision.
God has created Adam to Reflect His own divine nature.
Second thing God creates all kinds of trees including the
Tree of Life
Tree of Knowledge of Good and evil.
Many have asked why would God create the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Then withhold it from Adam.
The knowledge of good and evil is not evil in itself. the tree is not bad. It is a good thing. God possessed the knowledge and He was good. He was not corrupted by it. We see here that the tree, the knowledge isn’t the problem, but you will see that it is the man that is.
God says you can have everything in the garden except that tree. That’s the tree Adam and eve long for.
Presumably at some point God would have allowed them to eat of it at some point when they were ready for the knowledge. What see see here is that the Sin Adam is about to commit is not about knowledge but about motive.
Adam wanted this knowledge on his timing, not Gods.
After an unknown period of time, the Satan comes and begins
Genesis 3:1 (ESV)
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
Did God actually say?
Notice here, the enemy twists Truth. He doesn’t outright lie but he twists and intertwines truth with lie until the lines are blurred.
Did God actually say?
Did God actually say?
Or did you make it up? Look at at what happens here. She responds:
And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
Then Satan says, now thats not true. You Certainly will not die. But you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
Again satan is is telling the truth here. at least partial truth.
Adam like an idiot is allowing this creature to lure his wife into a trap.
Eve thinks, I want to be like god, I’m not sure what is right anymore. surely this tree is good. this knowledge is good. I will do it.
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
So She takes takes the fruit and eats it. You imagine adam standing there waiting to see if she drops dead. She doesn’t Nothing seems to have changed. So Adam Eats the fruit. When Eats its,suddenly everything changes.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Before the fruit hits the ground Adam realizes somethings different. there is a chill in the air. The knowledge the desired has exposed their greedy lustful hearts. Now they were laid bare. Broken absolutely naked. not just physically, but spiritually and emotionally. this isn’t simply physical nakedness. their souls are laid bare and dirty. grimy. So they grab leaves.
The Holiness of God exposes our brokenness.
The Holiness of God exposes our brokenness.
And 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.
So here are these 2 people. Broken and shattered in Sin. they hear the Lord walking, like He normally does only this time instead of running towards him they run away from Him.
Sin has turned their Courage into fear. Don’t let God see us. We are dirty. we are naked, we are laid bare. So they hide.
Off in the corner somewhere Satan is rejoicing.
This is what Sin does church, it drives you and I away from God. Notice here also that it was not God who pushed them away, they ran, they hid. They chose to walk away from God.
Adam chose to hide. He ran from the presence of god.
But church there is no
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
No matter where we go church we cannot run from God.
People think they can run to bar or strip club, or to a brothel. or some place where God cannot reach them. But I tell you Our God own it all. there is not one inch of Earth that is not His. You and I can go nowhere to hide from Him. His voice is always calling out to us.
“Where are you?”
“Where are you?”
But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
Where are you Adam?
Do you understand where you are?
My child, do you grasp where you are?
You see we often look at this statement as God asking Adam to come out from hiding. but culturally and contextually. What God is doing is not merely asking for Adams location, but He is calling both Adam and Eve towards repentance.
Adam, Where are you? What is going on?
God is giving them an opportunity to repent and turn.
Adam comes out and his response is arrogant and Sinful.
I was Naked and afraid,
Who told you that you were naked? I know that, how do you know that?
The Woman YOU, GOD gave me, gave me the fruit and I ate it.
It’s your fault God. Had you given me a better woman I wouldn’t have sinned.
The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”
In those 19 word Adam seals mankind's fate.
God looks at Eve, “What have you done? and she says, “the serpent deceived me.”
And so Eve was Deceived, but it was Adam that sinned.
The Hope of a new Adam
The Hope of a new Adam
So God Curses all three of them:
the Woman (Eve):
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
There will now be pain in childbirth.
You will strive to be over your husband, but I am putting him over you.
the Man (Adam)
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, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in 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.”
The Earth is now cursed and will take a ton of work to cultivate it.
You will die at the end of your life. You will go back to dust.
the Serpent is cursed above all the livestock. He will be forced to crawl on the ground forever.
The Lord 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.”
Hear this Satan, you are cursed but I am still going to win. My Son is coming.
God in the midst of all of this awful judgement brings hope to humanity there will be a day, when I new Adam will rise and He will do what this Adam failed to do.