Trouble in Paradise

One of the most common questions I am asked is, “What is wrong with people today?” or “What is wrong with our world today?”

The 3rd chapter of the book of Genesis gives to us the answer to ALL the world's problems today. In this chapter we see 3 plans put into place, I want to say that all three of these plans are still in place today, they are still in practice today. Two of these plans attempt to offer alternatives to God, either by denying Him or by avoiding Him, but only one of these plans leads to God. With the help of God, I want to bring you a message this morning I’ve entitled, Trouble in Paradise, let's look at this passage together...**READ**

Proposition: Because of our sinful nature we will be faced with the choice of following one of these 3 plans, my question to you is: Which one will you choose?

Let's look first at:

The Serpent's Plan v. 1-6

Let's get something straight

Here in Genesis 3 we are looking at a serpent, but in fact the serpent was a creature that had lent its body to Satan himself.

This world that we live in wants to deny the existence of Satan as much as it wants to deny the existence of God, the authority of the Bible, the world wants to make out my Savior to be nothing more than a good man and a good moral teacher and would dare to attempt to make Christians out to be the bad guys in society.

Am I surprised? Absolutely not, all is going according to the devil's plan, if he can get you to deny his existence then he'll have no problem getting you to deny any other part of God's Word as well.

I'm asked often why I take the Bible literally, and the answer I give is that it's the Word of God and if you can question it in one area then you can question it in any area. This is exactly what Satan wants you to do, this is exactly what that old serpent the devil did in the garden of Eden.

The Bible says, “the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.”

That word subtil means crafty, cunning, or prudent, you might even say wise.

How true this is today as we see certain tree vipers which climb trees to eat birds, birds which can fly, something which no snake can do. These vipers find an unsuspecting and by making eye contact and keeping the bird's attention they mesmerize the bird allowing the serpent an opportunity to enjoy a free meal simply because the bird let down his guard. This is exactly what happened in the garden when Satan, in the form of the serpent came into the garden and introduced his 3-fold plan to defeat God's purpose in mankind. His plan hasn't changed much in these 6,000 years as we'll see in these verses:

Satan's plan involved first:

Doubt. v. 1

In verse one he says to the woman “Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden?”

These infamous words “Yea hath God said” have been repeated throughout the history of the world as Satan, has sought to put doubt into the hearts men and women concerning the authority of the Word of God.

His first and oldest attack has been against the Bible!

Satan was aware of the authority of God's Word and that is why he sought to undermine it with doubt,

Guess what, that is his same plan and tactic today to cause people to doubt that the Bible

We see the results of this all around us today as people everywhere refuse to accept God's Word and, in its place, they put their own opinions of what is right and wrong replacing “Thus saith the LORD” with “Thus be my opinion”!

The seed of doubt that was sown 6,000 years ago in the garden of Eden has now blossomed into full blown apostasy

We can see in our:

Government, our schools, our universities as God is being kept away and the opinions of such men as Charles Darwin and Karl Marx are being accepted.

How far reaching this first attack on God's Word was and how successful Satan was in his first attack on mankind and the Bible., but he didn't stop there. Once he caused her to doubt his next tactic was to introduce:

Denial vv. 2-3

We see in verses 2 and 3 how that Eve was so caught off guard that she did something that is common among Christians today, she misquoted the Word of God.

Satan knew once this happened that he had her right where he wanted her, and by having her, he knew her husband was in his grasp,

and in him all the human race.

Next, he instilled denial in her by saying “Ye shall not surely die”.

How foolish a proposal!

God Himself had said not one chapter earlier that if you partake of this forbidden fruit “Thou shalt SURELY die!”

Satan does this today, giving people false hope, causing them not only to doubt God's Word, but to deny God's Word.

People are deceived today into thinking they are OK;

I spoke with a young man a while ago who asked me “why he should be concerned with what the Bible says because it’s just another book written by mere men.”

I wonder if maybe you are here today and you are on this same track,

are you doubting the Bible and on your way to denying the Word of God as well?

If so, then you are playing right into Satan's hand, and he has you deceived! IF he can cause you to doubt, he can cause you to deny, and if he can cause you to deny the Bible, he can finally cause you to be:

Deluded.

His final step is delusion.

IN this step he has succeeded in causing you to think you are truly OK.

He told Eve that by eating the fruit you would “be as gods”. He had caused such a delusion that he had her convinced that God didn't have their best intentions in mind.

In the garden of Eden there were countless trees, multiplied thousands of fruits they could have eaten

But here Satan made the one tree God had forbidden to them more appealing than any other tree.

His plan now completed we see the consummation of his plan as Eve succumbed to the devil's wiles, and gave it to her husband who, willingly partook of the fruit introducing sin, not only to themselves, but to the entire human race and each of their descendants as well.

Do you want to know what is wrong with our world today? Here it is, we are a sinful race, having inherited a sinful nature from the disobedience of our first parents!

We've seen the Serpent's plan, now let's look at:

Man's Plan v. 7-13

Satan had a 3-fold plan put in place, and in the wake of their sin Adam and Eve put in a 3-fold plan as well.

Works.

In verse 7, immediately after their fall, they realized their condition, they had sinned, and they now noticed they were naked.

They had lost their former position with God where they shared pure fellowship with Him, in their current state they knew something was different that something would have to change for them to be restored to that relationship with God.

The Bible says they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

This is the first record of man trying to earn favor with God.

I know lots of good people, people who think they're OK and that because they're good God will have no choice but to let them into Heaven...

They're wrong!

They say that God is love, and that a loving God wouldn't dare send anyone to Hell.

The Bible says that God is love, but God is first holy, and He will not overlook sin for an instant! Adam and Eve soon realized that their plans to earn God's favor were useless, so they moved on to phase 2

Hiding from God.

Look with me in verse 8. I saw a church sign once that read “You can't hide from God by skipping church!” How true.

You know, this is a common problem today, people not only try to work off their sin debt, but they often add to it by trying to hide their sin form God and from the world.

If you are here and you are trying to hide your sin from God, friend it is a useless effort.

In verse 9 God asked a rhetorical question of Adam, “Where art thou?”

Listen, God is omniscient, He knows everything!

He knew exactly where Adam was hiding, He was probably standing right in front of the tree they were crouched behind

All God wanted was for Adam to acknowledge his new condition, which of course leads us to the 3rd leg of man's plan, the most despicable of them and the most common one we see today:

The Blame Game.

When Adam stood before God in 11-13, he should have simply owned up to his sin,

But instead he said, “It wasn't my fault, it’s the woman, she gave me of the tree and a I did eat”

Eve follows suit, reminding God that she was tricked by the serpent (which she was).

I see in our society a generation of people who refuse to take responsibility for their actions.

People are willing to blame anyone and anything else to keep from having to own up to their actions.

Think about Adam and Eve in a perfect environment, no sin, no crime, nothing to be tempted by and only one commandment to obey and when they broke that commandment, they didn't even just say “Yes Lord, we broke your commandment”. Instead, they passed the blame.

What a mess we're in. Oh, if only they had listened to God. See their problem was that they were focusing on the symptoms of their problems instead of addressing the problem. A wise man once told me “Sin just makes you stupid.

What if we stopped right here? Wouldn’t that be awful? If that was the case then Satan would have won. I don’t want to stop! I want to go on! I want to talk about...

God's Plan vs. 14-21

Satan had introduced sin into God's perfect world.

Our first parents caused sin to enter our now fallen race.

Just as God had said, death would now reign upon the earth.

If Scripture had stopped being recorded at this point, then there would be absolutely no hope for mankind whatsoever but thank God for the 3rd plan in the Garden, God's plan!

God has a way of changing things for the good and I'm glad this morning that He came on the scene and set things straight! Time would fail me to go into every single detail of this portion, so I'm going to touch on two points:

The first promise of the Savior!

In verse 14 God curses the serpent, the literal animal, that evidently at one point moved upright across the earth, but now must slither.

In verse 15 He focuses His eyes on “that old serpent, the devil” and curses him as well!

Here God tells Satan of his coming doom.

Both appearances of Christ are pictured here.

First we see the Second coming when our Lord will return and put down the battle against Jerusalem when He sets up His Kingdom -”it (the seed of the woman – Jesus) will bruise thy head.

Then God tells of a time when Satan will “bruise his heel”,

this happened at Christ's first advent when Jesus, God the Son, became flesh and dwelt among us.

He lived a sinless life, He fulfilled all the law, and He who knew no sin BECAME sin for us!

He was buried in a borrowed tomb and in three days He arose victoriously over death, hell, and the grave! Now he is seated at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us! What a Savior!

The first picture of the cross.

God told Adam and Eve that if they disobeyed Him then they would die, aren't you glad this morning that God is a God of grace!

That He is a merciful God!

God spared the life of Adam and his wife and make no mistake they deserved death because of their sin, and hell as well.

Make no mistake this morning you and I deserve death and Hell because of our sin, but God in His grace offered up a sacrifice in our place.

Look with me in verse 21.

Here in the wake of their sin, Adam and Eve saw death for the first time on earth.

When death is what they deserved God offered up an innocent, sinless animal, I believe a lamb. When you and I deserved death and hell because of our sin, God Himself, offered up His only Begotten Son, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, as John the Baptist said. Aren't you glad this morning that God sent His Son to die in YOUR place, for YOUR sin?

Conclusion:

I realize that there may be someone here today that has never trusted Christ as their Savior.

Maybe you've never had the opportunity to hear the truth of the love of God before.

Maybe you'd never considered that there were 3 plans for your life,

one that is full of deceit and denial,

one that would have you constantly working to be “good” enough for God.

Out of all three plans only God's plan can save you.

I don't know your heart, but God does. I am simply the messenger, and the message is as simple as this, God loves you and Jesus Christ died for you, won't you trust Him today?

As we're here with our heads bowed, no one is looking around, it’s just us and God, I wonder if you could say to me that you know beyond doubt that if you died right now that the moment you took your last breath on earth that you'd be in heaven, would you slip up that hand...

Maybe you couldn't raise your hand when I asked that last question because you're not sure of the answer, maybe you know for a fact that you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, if that be the case, then I want to assure you that He is waiting and willing to save you right now if you'd just let Him. I won't embarrass you; I just want the opportunity to pray for you, will you lift your hand?