Paradise Lost
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
As we enter Genesis today everything is about to change. In chapter 1 we saw the grandeur of all things being created! In chapter 2 we zoomed into the creation of man and woman and got to see their life in paradise. Tonight though we see what is often called the fall. This is where the paradise is lost. This is where sin enters the world.
When we think of the good news of the Bible, what we call the gospel, there is one crucial thing that we must consider. What we must consider is this, why do I need this good news? This good news is the good news of salvation! Why do I need saved though? This is the question that Genesis 3 answers.
The points that we see here are echoed throughout the Bible and even in the world around us we can see it. The thing is where does this all come from? Right here in Genesis. Of course what we are talking about is the origin of sin. Sin starts right here, it is a problem that needs a solution throughout the Bible, the solution comes, it is still a problem for us today except now we have the solution.
Tonight we are going to look at this story and see the origin of sin and then we are going to use our remaining time to look at the issue of sin in light of other passages of scripture as we see the great need that we have for salvation.
Before we start lets pray.
The Story
The Story
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’?”
This begins with a bit of information about the serpent. we see he is the craftiest animal that God made. The first thing that he says is “did God actually say”. The problem all starts with questioning what God said. We should never question what God says to us. The words to follow are not the words that God said either! We see what God said in Genesis 2:17 “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” before this verse he says that you can eat of any tree in the garden you want except one.
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.’ ”
The woman, Eve, responds to the serpent correcting him but she also begins to stumble over what God said herself. God never said anything about touching it. Satan uses this stumbling knowing that he has her right where he wants her.
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The serpent assures her that she will not surely die, she will just know good and evil. Though the death is not immediate, eating the fruit leads to immediate spiritual death and eventual physical death. She is being tempted with being like God. This sounds intriguing and all but to never know evil would be such a great thing. She is tempted and not even realizing how good she has 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.
They fell for the temptation. Sin has entered into the world. Paradise is lost because of this act of willful rebellion to God.
To add to this the man is present this whole time and he to takes and eats. This is the true source of sin. He is to be the leader, he was the one that God told the command to. He should have put a stop to is as soon as the serpent started to question God. But he didn’t, he ate. He had access to the tree of life but he cast it aside to do what God said not to do.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
The first thing that they feel when sin enters in is shame. They feel shame because of their nakedness, something that they never noticed before was now in the forefront of their minds. This shame drives them to make coverings for themselves to hide the shame.
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. 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?”
Now is the time that God finds out. We know that he already knows what has happened but they do not know this. They hide from God as he comes to walk with them in the garden. He says where are you, even though he knows. This is the gentle compassion of our great God. The man then comes out and says that they were hiding because of their shame of nakedness. God then ask who told them this and if they had ate from the tree. Even though he knows, he is giving them an opportunity to come clean for what they have done. What do they do though?
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.”
They go from shame to blame. Adam blames Eve, and Eve blames the serpent. So often we are the same, when sin creeps in we go to blame even if it is just in our own minds to justify it. Now comes the curses.
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.”
This curse is two parts, the first part is humiliation and the second is eventual defeat. The humiliation is that he must crawl on his belly and will eat the dust of the earth, this is referring to always having his face in the dirt.
The second part of his curse though it very significant. this Latin word of the week is proto evangelium. This is verse 15. What this word means is proto = first, evangelium = gospel. This is the first prediction of the coming good news. In other words this is the first prophecy of the coming messiah. This is the first prophecy of Jesus. The one who is to crush the head of the serpent is Jesus and here he is promised to come.
Here is the thing about this defeat though, they do not know when this will come and who it will be. The tone of Even when they have their first child is that she thinks this is the one, but its not. Imagine you are reading this book, not knowing its true, not having any background knowledge. You would probably be wondering if each character is the one that is promised here, you will see that they all fall short though.
Even in the curse there is hope.
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.”
The woman too has a two part curse. The first part is pain in childbearing, the second is she will not desire to be submissive to her husband. In this you can see the whole of the feminist movement grounded in the fall and curse of woman.
This is not as harsh as the mans or the serpents. Also we see that there is hope in it. She must bring forth children. This is pointing to life.
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 final and longest curse is on Adam. The first part of his curse is actually on the ground. The ground is cursed because of Adam and this results in work becoming a toil, this relates to him because he is to be a worker of the ground or as we would call it a farmer. His work loses its ease and joy and will be a difficult task now. The last part of his curse is the eventual death that will be faced, he will return to dust.
The curses are complete and all of life is effected by them. The biggest part of this is that they now have to live with this sin.
The man called his wife’s name 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 from 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.
Adam now names the woman Eve and God makes them proper clothing to replace their fig leaves. He makes their clothes out of skins of animals being the first death ever. Now they must be removed from the garden, taken from paradise, thus losing their access to the tree of life. Now the curse is in full effect as the garden is now guarded and they are not in it.
They are sinners.
Sin
Sin
Our second point tonight is merely titled sin. Through this passage of Genesis what we see is sin enter the world and paradise is lost. This issue of sin is one that we still have and is a very big problem. it says in Romans 3.23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
So this is an issue that we all have. So what is sin? Sin is anything that we think, say, do, or don’t do that displeases God. So absolutely everything that displeases God is sin.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
Here in Romans he is showing us that it is because of Adam that we all have sin. This is called original sin. Adam here in Genesis committed the original sin and this gives us what we call a sin nature. This means that sin is more than just something that we do, outside of our life in Christ it is who we are. We are sinners to our very core.
the end of this section says that Adam was a type of the one who was to come. He was a type of Christ, if he were to be obedient then there would be no need for the Son of God, Jesus, to come down. Because he sinned we needed a second Adam, Jesus. Jesus came down to earth like Adam but he did not sin, he prevailed against sin and lives a sinless life.
I want to pause and I want you to think in your head about one sin that you have done. I am not going to ask you what it is I just want you to have this in your mind… Okay, that one sin that you thought of no matter how small makes you guilty against God and deserving of his judgment.
This is a big deal.
Let’s continue to look at Romans, Romans 5.15-19
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
Because of one man’s trespass, because of this one sin we are all made sinners and on the path to condemnation. But it is also through one man’s act of righteousness that we are justified. We are made clean before God. We are forgiven. This one man and this one act is Jesus and his death on the cross.
Jesus’s death on the cross defeated sin. Sin no longer has a hold on those who are in Christ. Christ died as our substitute, what he got is what we deserve for our sins.
In summary, we are completely fallen in sin. We are completely ingrained into things that displease God. This is all because of our sin nature that we got from original sin here in Adam. Many in the world would say that we are mostly good but the Bible teaches something vastly different. Sin effects every area of our lives, especially our relationship with God. Our sin separates us from him and makes us deserving of judgment. Praise be to God though that through one man, Christ, forgiveness is possible. Through one mans action we all have sin, but through one mans act of righteousness forgiveness is possible.
Sin is the biggest problem that we have.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Here tonight as we conclude I have one response for you. This response is to repent.
Repentance is turning away from sin and is a necessary part of salvation. Repentance does not end at salvation though because we continue to sin. We must live in constant repentance for our sins, we must be constantly turning away from them and turning to God.
If you are not in the habit of repenting for your sins then start doing this today. Repentance is something that also results in action, or rather inaction by striving to not do that action again.
Some of you here tonight though may say that you have realized the depth of your sin and your need for salvation. Then tonight you need to repent of those sins and put your faith in Jesus. He wants to forgive you. This is salvation from the punishment that you deserve. This is forgiveness for all of your sins no matter how great or how small. This is a life as a disciple of Christ where we can worship him in spirit and in truth. This is eternity with him. This is salvation.
If you want to commit to following Christ and be forgiven of your sins then I want you to come talk to me here in just a moment after we pray I am going to go stand off to the side and we are going to have a worship song. Don’t be afraid, come and welcome to Jesus Christ.
For those of you who have put your faith in Jesus use this time to respond in repentance. Repent of all that is on your heart then worship with all of your heart. Let’s pray, then you respond.
