Multiply - The Fall

Intro:

The Point of No Return

Roller Coaster - The Grizzly

Tonight we’re going to briefly look at the Fall from , and we’re going to see a similar scenario, a point of no return, that happened and the effects it had and continues to have on us, the world, all of creation today

Somethings Not Right

Have you ever looked at something, and just said to yourself, “Man, somethings just not right here?”

Students, give me some examples

I remember a time in high school, I was playing for Calvary in 10th grade, and we were playing Frankfort. ...... my dad took one look at my collarbone, said “Golly” in his classic NZ accent

Have you ever looked at our world today and said, “Man, somethings not right here?”

I’m sure you have, and you are 100% correct in saying so, because it’s not, something, many things actually, are very off

Everywhere we look in the world we can find: pain, rebellion, brokenness, hopelessness, despair

But, we can also look in our own lives, in our own hearts, and see the same thing.

What we are seeing is SIN, and the effects of it.

How’d we get here?

Remember last week, God had created this perfect world by speaking, He had mad man and woman in His own image, to rule over creation, everything was perfect. No pain, no rebellion, no brokenness, no hopelessness, no despair.

The humans walked with God, talked with God in a perfect relationship…and this was exactly how God had designed it to be.

God had given man and woman 1 single command, “Don’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil”

FREE WILL

Kid’s - lock them in their room, telling them they are free to play with anything and enjoy their toys, but then take everything out of the room, are they really free to play with anything?

They aren’t.

Conversely, if I lock them in a room full of toys and say play with anything you want except for “this”, they now are free to play with anything, but have a stipulation.

And that’s where the story ended in

Well, all you have to do is turn 1 little page in your Bible to , and you can read exactly what happened:

Satan (serpent - ) enters the scene

Where did he come from? Great question....he is a fallen angel.

Wanted to be like God - was cast from Heaven

And he poses a question to Eve: “Did God really say”

First thing we need to realize tonight - Satan is very smart. He’s not going to come at you with promises of death and destruction, pitchfork and all

What he will do is twist words very subtly to make you question either God, or His Word, or your belief system

He’ll take what is evil and make it appear to be good.

And he does that because he wants you to feel God is maybe depriving you of some sort of joy or happiness.

That’s what he did with Eve

Verse 4-5

Satan didn’t say, “Follow me” “Turn your back on God”

He just provided an opportunity for them to do so.

We were made to be dependent on God, and Satan’s goal was to make mankind think they could be dependent on themselves. To govern themselves

I know you guys think I’m old, but I remember being a teenager. I remember the rules of my parents, the rules of church, the rules of my Christian school.

And I also vividly remembering internally questioning those rules. Why can’t I do this. Why won’t my parents let me have fun. Why can’t my hair be over my ears. Why is God’s way the right way. Does He really even know what’s good for me?

This is what Satan does. He twists our views to question God’s goodness

The World’s Not Right

And instantly, the minute both Adam and Eve sinned, the world broke

Suddenly, the effects of that sin are evident. Adam and Eve were separated from God, from those around them, and from creation

Examples:

Hid from God in shame and were forced to leave paradise

Human relationships were filled with shame, distrust, and blame

blamed each other

Creation would now be cursed and would work against them.

realized their nakedness - human relationships became flawed

God cursed:

The serpent (Satan)

crawl on his belly, eat dust

Eve

pain in childbearing

strife with spouse

Adam

pain and frustration in working the ground

Creation

- subjected to futility; bondage to corruption

But the greatest consequence was death — double death

Spiritual death immediately

Physical death eventually

You may be thinking, isn’t this a bit severe? I mean, all they did was ate a piece of fruit!!!

the piece of fruit is actually irrelevant.

But the internal act was anything but!

This first sin was:

Rebellion, Idolatry, Treason, and Pride all rolled up into one single bite

Rebellion against God’s command

Idolatry of choosing to worship themselves instead of God

Treason by betraying God

Pride by deciding they knew best

And likewise, we do this daily, this is sin, this is what we have been subjected to as well. Ours may not be a piece of fruit we were told not to eat....

But I bet you can sit here right now, in fact, I want you to, start thinking about all the ways you rebel against God’s commands daily.

All of those rebellions involved those aspects of sin

It’s Getting Worse

If you keep reading through Genesis, you’ll just read that things are going from bad to worse, very quickly

Chapter 4 - Cain kills his brother

Chapter 4 - Lamech (great-great-great grandson of Cain) - brags about being more vengeful than Cain. Brags about being a better sinner!

Suddenly, sin has become something worth bragging over

Chapter 6 - Things are so bad God decides He’s going to destroy the whole world — to start again

Except for Noah

Chapter 11 - Noah and his family survived, God started again

Now you would think after seeing God destroy everything, the people would decide to get it right

And they failed

Tower of Babel

Again, showing rebellion, idolatry, treason, and pride

Thankfully, for our sake, God didn’t just decide to end it all then and there again....for good this time

Because He could have. He could have just wiped it all out, and gone back to living in perfect harmony with the trinity

But He didn’t, He chose to show mankind mercy again

And by doing so, He sets the stage for redemption, for his plan of redemption to come to fruition

The Groundwork Laid

We read this earlier, what does it mean? Did God just mean that mankind and snakes would always battle each other?

Or does He mean something more?

Here’s the picture:

The woman’s offspring = Christ

The serpent = Satan

The picture of a forthcoming battle between Satan and Christ

Meaning - Christ will be victorious - “bruise your head”

Meaning - Satan will lose - only “bruising his heel”

We also can find in , that God makes a covenant with Noah, the first of many that He will make with his chosen people throughout the OT, and one that we will look at next week

Covenant is an agreement

This covenant was a promise that He would redeem His people

And we can be His people today, because of the redemptive work of Christ on the cross

Application

But, tonight, I don’t want you to blow by this fact, and this alone:

YOU ARE A SINNER

This isn’t trivial

You, all of you, are guilty of the same thing Adam and Eve were.

Rebellion, Idolatry, Treason, and Pride

And you are destined for Hell because of it

Do you feel the weight of that? Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth?

Everyday you choose to glorify yourself over God, you are condemning yourself to Hell

There is only one thing that can save you, and that is the fact that the woman’s offspring (Christ), crushed Satan’s head on the cross, where he defeated sin and death.

Christ, died for the fact that you glorified yourself today over God, and He died for the fact that you will most likely do it tomorrow as well.

So, our only hope is to ask God for forgiveness of our past, present, and future sins

Repent and turn from those sins

And give our lives to Jesus, where we live for His glory.

If you haven’t ever done that, don’t leave tonight without talking to me.

If you walk out those doors, get hit by a car and die, without giving your life to Christ, without confessing your sins to God, without repenting…you are going to Hell

And I’m not trying to scare you into giving your life to Christ, I’m just telling you what says.

My prayer, your leaders prayer, is that each one of you know Christ as your Savior.

If you are here tonight and you are claiming Christ, your claiming Him as your Lord and Savior, let me ask you this....how is it evident?