Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Two weeks ago: Made in the Image of God

Last Week: Created for Fellowship

This week : Fallen and In Need of a Savior

The Command of God

You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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.

God’s command to the Adam is one of liberation not limitation.

God gave him all the fruit within the Garden.

God only commanded that one tree be abstained from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

God’s desire was to protect his creation from the fruit of that tree.

Pray

1.

I am a person who has believed the lies of Satan.

The Serpent’s Questioning of God’s Command:

“Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

The Serpent calls into question the actual command of God.

The Woman’s Response to Satan:

We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 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 while getting the command of God mostly correct adds to the command with “neither shall you touch it.”

The crafty serpent is succeeding in drawing confusion.

The Serpent’s Response to Eve:

You will not surely die.

5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Satan flat out denies God’s warning of death if Eve or Adam eats of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Satan accuses God of wanting to hold Eve back from being like God.

Satan is claims that Eve needs to have her eyes opened and then she will be like God.

The problem here is that God’s intention and desire for Humanity was to only know good and never to experience Evil.

While Satan has used the serpent to attack God’s beautiful and good creation, there is still no sin in God’s perfectly created first humans Adam and Eve.

God has given them free reign and the world and they only know the goodness of God and his perfect creation.

Yet, the serpent’s venomous words call’s into question God’s intention of withholding the fruit from that tree from them.

The Fall to Temptation:

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.

The woman hungered for the flesh of the fruit.

The woman lusted after the beauty of the fruit.

The woman coveted the wisdom of the fruit.

In this act, she disobeyed the LORD God.

She had listened to the serpent’s twisting words and ignored her Creator.

In the course of her actions, she allowed the temptation to overcome her and it lead to her taking the fruit from the tree and eating it.

I can only imagine once she bit into the flesh of the fruit that immediately she felt shame.

Regardless, she immediately turned to her husband and gave him some of the fruit.

Adam has failed his wife as the leader of the relationship.

He has sat idly by without interjecting himself into the conversation with the serpent.

Adam is passively allowing Eve to be deceived and as a result Adam also eats from the fruit once Eve has had her bite of death.

2. I am a person suffering from a broken relationship with God.

The Results of Disobedience:

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?” 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.”

Upon eating the flesh of the forbidden fruit, the perfectly created man and woman felt shame for the first time as they tasted evil for the first time.

Trying to cover themselves from their own shame, they sewed fig leaves to cover themselves.

Yet, their shame and guilt was still present.

How do we know, because they hid from the presence of the Lord God.

Both the man and woman who had walked with God and experienced perfect fellowship with their creator is now ashamed to spend time with him.

Their fellowship with God has been cut off.

Yet, the Lord does not immediately go to them he calls out to Adam, “Where are you?”

Adam’s response is one just about all of us have had at some point in life.

Maybe, it was when you broke a plate, or maybe when you had your first wreck, or when you were caught in a lie, or you hit your sibling.

When you heard your parents voice, you might have went and hid yourself away because of being afraid of what was going to happen as a result of your actions.

God never desired for Adam and Eve to experience this kind of shame.

Yet, because of their disobedience God is having this conversation with Adam and Eve.

Unfortunately, we see another characteristic in Adam and Eve that we all to often practice ourselves, the blame game.

Adam accuse both Eve and God for his disobedience.

Listen to Adam’s response to God asking if he ate from the tree.

“The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”

He blames in one sentence both God for creating Eve and Eve who gave him the fruit.

I wish God had just asked him a follow up question like, “did she force it down your throat?

Did she tie you up and make you eat it?

Or even, did you try and stop her from eating it?”

However, we don’t have that in the text, instead, what we have is that God then asks the question to the woman, “What have you done?”

I can recall hearing that from my parents as a child.

It still sends chills down my spine.

It was the second worst words I could hear.

The only thing worse was I’m disappointed in you.

Both of those things just tears me apart on the inside.

It was worse than any licks or grounding.

Here God is saying to Eve, “What have you done?”

I can hear the disappointment in his voice.

Yet, she too is great at the blame game.

She blames the serpent.

The fall into sin is complete, no longer a creation which is perfect God’s punishment is going to be given out.

3. I am a person who is destined to die but freed in Christ.

The Punishment for Rebellion:

“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.”

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.”