Sermon Tone Analysis
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Dearly loved people of God,
The Garden of Eden had many plants; many trees.
I doubt it was an orchard with trees standing in straight lines and room for the sprayer to drive between them.
I’m not sure that Adam ever sprayed for pests or disease.
But we’re told, in the previous chapter about one two of the trees in the garden.
Gen 2:
We know from the account we just read that Adam & Eve both ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The last verses we read are significant, for their disobedience broke the relationship between them - they felt shame.
It also broke their relationship with their Creator - hiding and leaving the garden.
But it also cut them off from the tree of life.
: 22-24
Now this isn’t the last time you read about the tree of life in the Bible.
We’re read about it in the first book of the Bible, but you also find the tree of life in the last book of the Bible.
We flipped the calendar, it’s the 2nd of Dec.
Today we begin the season of Advent.
During Advent, we celebrate Jesus’ coming: 23 days until Christmas; 552 hours until we worship on Christmas.
We get a more detailed picture in the last chapter of the Bible.
I don’t want Advent to trigger anxiety.
There’s a time for everything.
There’s a time for rushing around wildly to prepare everything and there’s a time to quiet your heart and prepare to meet someone.
Right now it’s time to prepare ourselves to celebrate Jesus’ coming – both his 1st and 2nd coming.
If saying “there is a time for everything” sounds wise or biblical, it is both.
We often read at New Year’s:
: 1-
The Bible describes the way that humankind gains access to the tree of life once again.
The key to God’s rescue plan is mentioned in .
We don’t get the full scoop here yet.
But as God unfolds his plan of redemption, you can look back to this chapter and see that God had plan.
There is a time for everything,
The consequences of their actions are announced to the serpent, Eve, and Adam.
It looks vaguely like a courtroom scene as God calls all three of them to account and then pronounces their doom.
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
: 16-
GEn 3: 17-
a time to plant and a time to uproot, [etc.]
Y
Eve
(NIV)
God told Adam that it was NOT time.
Adam & Eve were not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil.
Instructions like that are hard to obey.
Serpent
Seeing a gift under the tree with your name on it,
it’s hard to wait for the right time to open it.
Now that recreational marijuana is legal for adults,
some wonder if it’s time to experiment.
Seeing others use cannabis, some find it hard to reserve THC as medication.
When you’re dating seriously or engaged,
you wonder if it’s time to move past kissing and snuggling.
It’s hard reserve sex for marriage.
Adam & Eve faced a similar challenge.
God told them not to eat from that tree, but it was hard to keep walking past it.
It was especially hard after the crafty serpent pointed out how desirable the fruit was: “good for food and desirable for gaining wisdom.”
Who wouldn’t want to be like God: knowing good and evil?
We aren’t told what would have happened.
What would have happened if they didn’t eat it?
Would the day have come when God said, “Today is the day.
With my permission and guidance, I’ll give you knowledge of good and evil.”? We’re never told.
There is a time to open Christmas presents, there is a time to use cannabis, there’s a time to enjoy sex, but doing it at the wrong time opens you up to a world of hurt!
Ask Adam & Eve.
By taking and eating the forbidden fruit in disobedience to God’s word, they opened themselves – and all of their descendants – to a world of hurt.
This was NOT the way God intended humankind to learn about good and evil.
Yet the serpent wasn’t lying.
Eating fruit from the tree did make the man & woman like their Creator.
God acknowledged it:
The Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.
(NIV)
(NIV)
It should be possible to learn about evil without participating in it.
Instead, Adam & Eve opted for an insider’s knowledge of evil.
And all their descendants share their doom.
We have an insider’s knowledge of evil, but we lost our insider’s knowledge of good.
We don’t know goodness that hasn’t been tainted by evil.
Even our best imaginations of our Creator’s holiness are tainted by experiences of relative goodness: a parent that let us down, a pastor who disappointed us, a deep friendship that went sour.
Jesus said it in Mark’s gospel, “Only God is good.”
As God summons the serpent and Adam & Eve, as God gives judgement, pronouncing their doom, we learn good and evil.
The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
(NIV)
The serpent is cursed.
The original audience knew how desert snakes were feared and hated.
They would have observed how serpents seemed to lick the dust each time their tongue flickered out of their mouth.
Desert snakes were dangerous.
They were an enemy.
Knowing more of God’s rescue plan, our understanding goes further.
The author of Genesis doesn’t identify the tempter.
It’s called a serpent.
Serpents are often associated with evil in the Bible and in culture.
When we read the NT book of Revelation we find the identity of this ancient serpent.
The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.
He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
(NIV)
He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
(NIV)
The enmity between this ancient serpent and the woman and her offspring runs deep.
What does “enmity” mean?
The word is related to “enemy.”
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