Sermon Tone Analysis

God’s Got You Covered!

Intro: What do you do when someone sins against you or wrongs you.

What kind of punishment did you devise for your children or grandchildren because they disobeyed your wishes?

Is it fair that God threw Adam and Eve out of the Garden when they sinned?

Is God someone who just wants everything his way?

Is it fair that Jesus died on the cross for the sins that you commited?

Why is it important for us to know God’s word?

Read Verses:

MP: God has already covered you for your sins.

I. God Allows Temptation (1-7)

God garden was perfect and man and woman were there enjoying everything that God had made.

But one day the crafty serpent, who is an embodiment of Satan, spoke to Eve and asked her a few questions.

The Serpent asks the woman, He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden.

3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’”

Now is that what God said in ?

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”

Notice that Eve adds “or touch it” to the command of eating from the Tre of knowledge.

And so she admits on one level her desire perhaps to just want to touch the fruit.

And so we get caught in a fight with ourselves and what we know and what we want.

And so we open the door just a crack; we tweak God’s command to fit our needs and wants so we think we are not really breaking the rules.

And so the serpent replies, “No!

You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman.

5 “In fact, God knows that when

you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God,[b] knowing good and evil.”

6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom.

So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Have you ever been inveigled?

Adam and Eve just were.

Inveigle means to entice, lure, or ensnare by flattery or artful talk or inducements.

I learned this word this week too.

Maybe you were talked into buying a car you didn’t really want or need.

Maybe you invite the vacuum salesman in because your floors are dirty and it is the perfect time to have someone else do the work, but then you bought that canister vacuum from the door to door salesman because he was smooth talking.

We see Satan here talking Eve into sinning, going against God’s command, to eat the fruit of the tree.

How does Satan do it?

Why does God let it happen?

Satan wanted to overthrow God, so anytime he can upset God’s creation or needle God, he will take the opportunity, especially because Man is God’s greatest creation.

Which means we are greater than the angels.

Satan is presumably jealous and goes after Eve.

Eve desired to have knowledge and as Satan said “to be like God.”

Eve’s own desires lower her guard just enough to fall prey to the tricks that happen that make it seem like you are not disobeying God at all.

In John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which details the Fall, he says that

Satan compliments Eve on her beauty and her godliness.

Satan tells her that she too can become like God, knowing everything.

So, that sounds like a deal that everyone wants, and Oh I won’t die?

That stands in direct contradiction to what God said so we start to justify it in our heads, maybe god is wrong.

This talking snake seems to say so?

Right.

My friend who is not god says something contrary to God so they must be more right than God

The question you might ask is why didn’t God do a better job of protecting Adam and Eve, and why even let Satan have access to the garden at all?

All good questions.

Application Point 1: The application point and the answer is that God allows the Temptation to happen.

This is not the same thing as God is causing it to happen.

“But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed."

()

tells us that the temptations we face are meant to produce fruit in us:

"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."

Here’s what we must remember when we are face with Temptation:

God is in control of it.

We must be like Job in our resistance to giving in to the temptation.

Our resistance can be made stronger by knowing unequivocally knowing what God’s word is.

God’s word is like a vaccination against the disease of sin.

Adam and Eve only had one rule.

Don’t eat the fruit from that tree.

All other things you can eat.

Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness and he tried the same tactics with Jesus.

He quoted half scripture or half-truths.

But Jesus gave the full response and context back to Satan.

In 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

4 But Jesus answered him, “It is written: Man must not live on bread alone.”

5 So he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

6 The devil said to him, “I will give you their splendor and all this authority, because it has been given over to me, and I can give it to anyone I want.

7 If you, then, will worship me, all will be yours.”

8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”

9 So he took him to Jerusalem, had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.

10 For it is written:

He will give his angels orders concerning you, to protect you, 11 and they will support you with their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said: Do not test the Lord your God.”

13 After the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time.

Satan knew he could not tempt Jesus because Jesus knew what was what.

We can do the same thing and if we don’t know the response,.

We rely on God to get us through.

We pray to God to see us through the test.

says 12 So, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall.13

No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity.

But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide a way out so that you may be able to bear it.

We have two rules.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind, strength and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.

So everything we do falls into one of those categories.

Another way to protect us from sin is to have someone with you.

If you read it the way it is written, Adam must have been standing next to Eve.

And he did nothing to help her.

He did not say stop while she talked to the serpent.

And he didn’t not eat it when she offered the fruit to him.

Adam is ultimately to blame because he knew better as Paul says in .

TS: But Adam and Eve eat he fruit and now as verse 7 says Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Sin has been introduced into the world for everyone.

The original sin as it were.

Now what?

II.