“of the first kind”

Scripture: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-24

1     The Choice

It would be easier if God just removed the possibility of our “sinning”.  That however would be impossible to do if we were to remain “human”.  The same is true as we read about man’s first encounter with temptation in the garden.  If he just had not allowed the one forbidden tree to be there – the tree of the Knowledge of good and evil.

He is gone, but his works survive.  His manuscript Temptation is one of the best I've ever read on the subject. Bonhoeffer's vivid description of our tendency to turn off the warnings when sin's allurements wink at us needs to be declared to every generation:

   In our members there is a slumbering inclination towards desire which is both sudden and fierce.  With irresistible power desire seizes mastery over the flesh.  All at once a secret, smoldering fire is kindled.  The flesh burns and is in flames. It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire, or ambition, or vanity, or desire for revenge, or love of fame and power, or greed for money, or, finally, that strange desire for the beauty of the world, of nature.  Joy in God is... extinguished in us and we seek all our joy in the creature.

   At this moment God is quite unreal to us, he loses all reality, and only desire for the creature is real; the only reality is the devil. Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God. And now his falsehood is added to this proof of strength.  The lust thus aroused envelopes the mind and will of man in deepest darkness.  The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us.  The questions present themselves:  "Is what the flesh desires really sin in this case?"  "Is it really not permitted to me, yes -- expected of me, now, here, in my particular situation, to appease desire?"  The tempter puts me in a privileged position as he tried to put the hungry Son of God in a privileged position.  I boast of my privilege against God.

   It is here that everything within me rises up against the Word of God.

2:8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. [9] And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground--trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

a)     Two Trees

There were two trees in the garden that bore special recognition.  The tree of life and the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The tree of life was not off limits and Adam and Eve most likely partook of it on a regular basis.

The tree of life was symbolic of total unlimited access to God.  Without restriction

b)     A Trust-Based Relationship.

Adam and Eve were entrusted with the care of the garden. 

c)      A Test.

The serpent tempted by innuendo, painting God in a different light by what he did not say as much as by the things he said.  He called God’s motives into question and the reliability of what he said relative to the forbidden fruit.

Illustration – “Into the log it is written . . .”

It was true that God did not originally intend for man, while in fellowship with Him to have knowledge of good and evil.  The active, intimate relationship with Him was enough to guide and direct them.

The knowledge of good and evil is a strange thing when it come to determining the difference between right and wrong.  There are many times when our hearts tell us that something is right or wrong and our heads tell us differently.  We bend over backwards and tie ourselves in ethical and theological knots to deny what our hearts tells us, the heart being symbolic of our relationship with God.  I would admit that I find even in the course of preaching a pressure to be “politically correct” – what is that?  I’m short not vertically challenged.

Once upon a time, in a far away country, there lived a little girl called Red Riding Hood.  One day her mother asked her to take a basket of fruit to her grandmother, who had been ill and lived alone in a cottage in the forest.

It happened that a wolf was lurking in the bushes and overheard the conversation.  He decided to take a short-cut to the grandmother's house and get the goodies for himself.  The wolf killed the grandmother, then dressed in her nightgown and jumped into bed to await the little girl.

When she arrived, he made several nasty suggestions and then tried to grab her.  But by this time, the child was very frightened and ran screaming from the cottage.

A woodcutter, working nearby, heard her cries and rushed to the rescue.  He killed the wolf with his ax, thereby saving Red Riding Hood's life.  All the townspeople hurried to the scene and proclaimed the woodcutter a hero.

But at the inquest, several facts emerged:

 * The wolf had never been advised of his rights.

 * The woodcutter had made no warning swings before striking the fatal blow.

 * The Civil Liberties Union stressed the point that, although the act of eating Grandma may have been in bad taste, the wolf was only "doing his thing" and thus didn't deserve the death penalty.

 * The SDS contended that the killing of the grandmother should be considered self-defense since she was over 30 and, therefore, couldn't be taken seriously because the wolf was trying to make love, not war.

On the basis of these considerations, it was decided there was no valid basis for charges against the wolf.  Moreover, the woodcutter was indicted for unaggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Several nights later, the woodcutter's cottage was burned to the ground.

   One year from the date of "The Incident at Grandma's," her cottage was made a shrine for the wolf who had bled and died there.  All the village officials spoke at the dedication, but it was Red Riding Hood who gave the most touching tribute.

She said that, while she had been selfishly grateful for the woodcutter's intervention, she realized in retrospect that he had over-reacted.  As she knelt and placed a wreath in honor of the brave wolf, there wasn't a dry eye in the whole forest.

(Perhaps the temptation to be good as opposed to dependent on Him.  The first thing that we want to do as “good” people is to establish our goodness and so determine that our place with him.)  Did they gain the knowledge of the difference between good and evil?  Did they suddenly become accountable with their knowledge?  We protect our children even from punishment for certain actions when we know that they do not realize that they are doing something wrong.  Once they realize however they become accountable.  The knowledge of evil would just as quickly lead a man away from God and perhaps even more so.  Evil has it’s allure as it appeals to our baser instincts.  Then we ultimately become “inventors” of evil.

RO 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. [29] They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, [30] slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; [31] they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. [32] Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

It is the knowledge of God that men forsook or traded in the garden.  It is the knowledge of God that keeps men from sinning.  They knew God face to face, heart to heart on a daily basis it would seem – but it was not enough.  In your own struggle to overcome, it is not your efforts to beat a particular sin that will bring spiritual victory but your wholehearted, passionate pursuit of God and a relationship with Him that will bring you victory.  This is perhaps the essence of the message this morning.  Realize what it is that you are trading when you come face to face with temptation.

James 4:4  You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5  Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? {Or that God jealously longs for the spirit that he made to live in us; or that the Spirit he caused to live in us longs jealously} 6  But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." {Prov. 3:34}  7  Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  8  Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  9  Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.  10  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Ever since the Garden, we have been indiscriminate suckers for the enticement of omnipotence.  We are cerebral voyeurs, unable to accept the idea that some knowledge may lie outside our legitimate purview. At its worst, this insatiable curiosity shows itself in our morbid love for trivialities--we are information junkies who cannot discern relevance from immediacy.  But even in more respectable garb, we feed our prurient interests with a "godly" quest for apologetics.  We have swallowed the lie that certainty requires exhaustive knowledge.  We want to be able to "prove God" so that everyone can really know and quit worrying--especially us.  God demands active faith; we seek irrefutable certainty. 

James Sennett in The Wittenburg Door (Aug/Sept. 1986).  Christianity Today, Vol. 31, no. 7.

The choice to take what we want over God’s will for our lives is always a trade.  We give something or pay some price for what we experience.  Many times, perhaps most times the price is high and we doubt the worth of what we have purchased in terms of what we have lost.

Whenever I feel particularly vulnerable to sexual temptation, I find it helpful to review what effects my action could have:

Grieving the Lord who redeemed me.

Dragging his sacred name into the mud.

One day having to look Jesus, the Righteous Judge, in the face and give an account of my actions.

Following in the footsteps of these people whose immorality forfeited their ministries and caused me to shudder: (list names).

Inflicting untold hurt on Nanci, my best friend and loyal wife.

Losing Nanci's respect and trust.

Hurting my beloved daughters, Karina and Angie.

Destroying my example and credibility with my children, and nullifying both present and future efforts to teach them to obey God ("Why listen to a man who betrayed Mom and us?")

If my blindness should continue or my wife be unable to forgive, perhaps losing my wife and children forever.

Causing shame to my family ("Why isn't Daddy a pastor anymore?")

Losing self-respect.

Creating a form of guilt awfully hard to shake. Even though God would forgive me, would I forgive myself?

Forming memories and flashbacks that could plague future intimacy with my wife.

Wasting years of ministry training and experience for a long time, maybe permanently.

Forfeiting the effect of years of witnessing to my father and reinforcing his distrust for ministers that has only begun to soften by my example but that would harden, perhaps permanently, because of my immorality.

Undermining the faithful example and hard work of other Christians in our community.

Bringing great pleasure to Satan, the enemy of God and all that is good.

Heaping judgment and endless difficulty on the person with whom I committed adultery.

Possibly bearing the physical consequences of such diseases as gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, herpes and AIDS; perhaps infecting Nanci or, in the case of AIDS, even causing her death.

Possibly causing pregnancy, with the personal and financial implications, including a life long reminder of my sin.

Bringing shame and hurt to these fellow pastors and elders: (list names).

Causing shame and hurt to these friends, especially those I have led to Christ and discipled: (list names).

Invoking shame and life-long embarrassment upon myself.

-- Randy Alcorn

It is the knowledge of God that keeps us from sin.

Recap-

The act of giving in to temptation is never a free ride.  You don’t just give in to something that you want.  You make a trade every time that you choose to satisfy your self.  Sin is a transaction and you never come out on top.  What you lose will always become more evident with the passing of time and regret will increase.

Rather than focusing on the temptations that have a hold over us, we need to focus on our relationship with God and draw close to him.  It is our relationship with him that brings life and it is this relationship that we trade when we sin.  We either draw close to God or we shun Him and gradually we are distanced from Him.

A great way to resist temptation is to gain a clear picture of what we are losing before we step ahead.

Look at what happened.

7.  Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 

They immediately felt shame at their nakedness and they covered themselves.  They hid from each other in other words.  There was an “estrangement” that took place between them when their relationship with God was fractured.  The ability to be totally open – “uncovered” – if you will and oblivious to it was lost.

Human shame is a feeling of distress at our deficiencies, deformities, or absurdities--real or imagined--and especially at the uncovering of these things. It is also a feeling of distress at the uncovering of our mere privacies.

As generations of Bible readers have recognized, Genesis 3 suggests the confluence of these sources of distress with a few words of great sorrow and mystery: after they had sinned, Adam and Eve "knew that they were naked." For the first time in their lives they could not stand scrutiny. It wasn't merely that they flinched when their partner's gaze dipped southward; it was also that they had trouble looking into each other's eyes.

Melvin D. Hugen and Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., Books & Culture, Vol. 2, no. 2.

Our relationship with God affects the way that we treat other people.  A man who is at peace with God will be at peace with others as well.  A man who is comfortable with God given direction and purpose in his own life will be settled in this life as well.  Otherwise he will be driven by ambition, constantly striving and reaching for something to satisfy, but it is not to be found in any external acquisition in this life.  You’ll never buy anything, achieve anything that will remove the insatiable urge for something more or something greater.

I am not suggesting that we should not be goal-oriented – we could be more that way in our individual lives and we could be more that way in our churches.  For instance – if you look back over the year past you wish that you had done certain things and you wish that you hadn’t done other things.  The things that you failed to accomplish last year, you will fail to accomplish this year unless you make a conscious effort, goals and plans to experience something different.

Want to pray more – it would be a good idea if you want to be victorious in your Christian experience – not to make God happier with you but to take full advantage of the resources that are yours as a child of God to help you to shine for God.  One young man, a part of our congregation realized his own weakness and decided to do something about it. (Darren S. – ill.) 

So I’m not saying that we should be without ambition.  Our ambition should be to build God’s kingdom.  I believe that for all the restless driven souls – even those who may be here this AM who are unable to give less than 150% of themselves in what they do – that one of the most significant steps that you could take is to begin to spend yourselves for the kingdom.  Give you job 100% and let your work be your witness – but – give the kingdom the part of your energies that currently are obsessive in your work.  I believe that you’ll begin to find balance and fulfillment in your life because of this.  I think that what people who feel overworked need is not necessarily less work but more balance.  You may be too busy at work but imbalanced anyway in the other areas of your life.

At any rate – the state of your soul is expressed in everyday living.  If your relationship with God is vibrant then it will have it’s impact positively.

8.  Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. [9] But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" 10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

Their relationship with God was altered.  God had not changed but they had betrayed the trust and they avoided him.  A sure sign of sin in people’s lives is that they run away from people who know them well and they run away from God.

11.   And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" 12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"  The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." 

This is a familiar picture of sin as well. 

Blame never affirms, it assaults.

Blame never restores, it wounds.

Blame never solves, it complicates.

Blame never unites, it separates.

Blame never smiles, it frowns.

Blame never forgives, it rejects.

Blame never forgets, it remembers.

Blame never builds, it destroys.

Let's admit it -- not until we stop blaming will we start enjoying health and happiness again! Could that be?

It is characteristic of our age that people want to have God but do not want to have the Devil.  People are inventing gods for themselves, with what I have elsewhere called their do-it-yourself God Kits.  But they are gods who do not demand much of them, and they certainly are not gods who punish, although they are allowed to reward.  On the contrary, their gods absolve them from conflict and doubt, massage them, pat them on the head. ... But above all they are gods who will not trouble them with the fact of evil.  The problems of evil, suffering, and death are not confronted, but evaded and dismissed.

Henry Fairlie.  Leadership, Vol. 12, no. 3.

We search for anyone else that we can blame for the state that we are in.  Our parents, the faults of the church or a particular system and we fail to take responsibility ourselves.  God can never forgive us until we accept responsibility squarely.

2     The Caution

2:15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. [16] And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; [17] but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

a)     Not restriction but protection. The serpent understood fully why God did not want them to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  He made it sound like God was withholding something good from them in this restriction.  Rather than keeping something from them, he was keeping them from something that would separate man from God.

When the instructed Christian sees his surroundings, he finds himself to be like a defenseless dove flying to her nest while against her tens of thousands of arrows are leveled. The Christian life is like that dove's anxious flight, as it threads its way between the death-bearing shafts of the enemy and by constant miracle escapes unhurt. The enlightened Christian sees himself to be like a traveler, standing on the narrow summit of a lofty ridge. On the right hand and on the left are gulfs unfathomable, yawning for his destruction. If it were not that by divine grace his feet are like hinds' feet, so that he is able to stand up on his high places, he would long before this have fallen to his eternal destruction.

   -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Quotable Spurgeon, (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, Inc, 1990)

 As children we exist in a similar state with God as Adam and Eve were prior to their sin.  There is a wonderful innocence there prior to the knowledge of good and evil.  It’s a playful, joyful state where we see the world in wonder.  Where we believe that everyone can be trusted and there is no danger.  We generally are fearless as children so much so that we are protected by the restrictions of our parents.  We understand that it is wrong to play in the street because Mom and Dad say that it is so.  We have no fear of the street and it is the restriction alone that keeps us in the safety of our own yard.  Then one day we see, our eyes are opened and we understand that there is death in the street and we begin to fear it.  From the day that we begin to fear the street we want more than ever to stray from the yard.  So what God meant to protect us – not to restrict us – becomes something that we strain against.  We become preoccupied with the street and the rules and we forget about Mom and Dad or God.  We become too smart for our own good.

The same thing that attracts us to the street or to the hot stove or to the medicine cabinets, later attracts us to other destructive things.  We become educated and convinced when it comes to the stove, the street and the medicine cabinet but we still need God’s help to make it safely through life.

The media proclaims loud and long that you will be missing something if you stay away from the self-indulgent vices and philosophies of modern day living.  God says, “Let me protect you from the stove, the street and the medicine cabinet.  You’ll miss something all right enough – something that you’ll be glad that you missed.”

b)     When we choose our own way over God we step outside the realm of his protection.  I believe that God has guarded and protected my life in the choices that I have made that have not been wise but I am not sure that God will spare us the consequences of our sinful choices.  When we choose to live by our own knowledge of good and evil then he allows consequence to become our teacher.  It is one of the most difficult things in this world to stand back and let this instructor take over.  At the same time consequence drives his lessons home hard and they are long remembered.

3     The Consequence

a)     Death.  Death came because they lost access to what they knew without restriction prior to their offense. Having knowledge of good and evil was what restricted them from access to life.  This was “the death” which God spoke of.  “You will surely die”  It was not a part of the curse placed on them for their disobedience merely a consequence of separation from God.  Every child born into this world since that day has been born without access to life.  The consequence of the few who often ruin it for all.  Why could that be or why would that be?

b)     A curse.  For Adam and Eve, the beautiful garden that they kept gave way to harsh reality, a world that fought cultivation and required tremendous investment of human energy to tame.  A world that reminds every one of us occasionally that we cannot tame the elements.

The Condition

a)     We all stand in need of redemption from evil and from good.  It is easy to look at the shameful things that we do and to understand our depravity and in turn, our need.  We also need to be redeemed from the knowledge of good.  Salvation is so difficult for “good” people to embrace.  The self-sufficient person cannot understand that it is a relationship with God’s goodness and sufficiency that allows us to face eternity with confidence.

b)     The path to victory over temptation comes from a pursuit of God.  As our experience of Him deepens, His life within us will starve the need to play with less satisfactory things.  A person cannot know God intimately and remain enslaved to other things. Victory comes to us as we gain an accurate picture of our loss prior to our sin.

c)      God can help any man who will own his own sinful state and confess his need of God.  Blaming others ties the hands of God in my own life.

It - - - - -

They laugh and smile and talk and embrace  and I do too.

But sometimes my smile covers a tear.

And no one knows.

Right now my tear is from an it.

I'm sorry, so very sorry I did it.

I feel like a broken record and the skip

is the it that never completely goes away.

What would they think if they knew my it?

Would the laughs vanish?  The smiles disappear?

Would the talk be hurled at me?  The embrace taken back?

Do they have an it?

What do they do with it?

Why do we act for each other when there is no play?

There is only life.

And that life includes a lot of it.

The point is not to celebrate it

but only to admit to it.

I am told Jesus knows everything

which means he knows about it.

And yet he whispers

in words too good to be true

I died for you -- don't worry about it.

   -- Chip Heim