Genesis Session 8
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I’ll never forget one of the most important lessons I learned as a kid. It had to deal with owning my mistakes.
We were playing a game outside that entailed throwing a large plastic golf club head over the house. The kids on the other side had to see if they could catch it before it hit the ground.
Our house was unique as it had a vaulted ceiling in the living room. At the peak were two very large windows that faced the front of the house… where I was stationed to play.
I was successful at each throw. Until… I wasn’t. And I’ll never forget hurling the object, turning around with a smile on my face, only to hear the unmistakable sound of glass shattering. I nailed it. I annihilated it. I destroyed one of the largest windows on the house!
Immediately my first thought was… mom will not notice. I could say someone drove by and shot it with a BB gun. And as I was spinning the tale in my mind, the front door opened and there stood my mother. The gold head was on the porch surrounded by broken glass. She just happened to be in the living room and I was.... BUSTED.
I explained the situation to my mom and it went over better than I thought… but dad would be home soon and then I knew it was game over. I was finished. So… I hid. And my sister hid with me. She knew my fate was sealed.
But dad… he did something unexpected. Yes, I was in trouble but… he told me a story about how he once broke a window at his house when he was a kid.
The window got fixed… I learned my lesson… but in the moment… fear came over me.
If I had to give our study a title tonight I think I would simply call it… BUSTED.
We pick up where we left off in Genesis. Adam and Eve have now sinned. They know they have messed up BIG TIME. They are doing all they can to cover their mistakes… but ultimately, they would have to face God. There was no escaping their new reality.
I often refer to this passage as the most tragic verse in all of Scripture. It highlights the damaging effects of sin. It shows the destructive consequences of sin.
BEFORE they disobeyed God, all was… PERFECT. No sin, no blemish, no corruption, no heartache, just perfection. They had a beautiful and wonderful fellowship with God.
AFTER sin entered the picture… things began to change… RAPIDLY.
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?”
The separation is clear. Their shame caused them to run from God. Their fellowship had been broken. For me, there is nothing more sad than this verse. Sin had been fully realized.
Hiding from God would not change their reality… it would only expose it. They panicked. They knew the word God had given them… and now, they would face the consequences of their actions.
How many people are hiding today? How many feel the weight of their sin and shame? How many choose to go a different direction when they hear God call their name?
HIDING in sin only delays the INEVITABLE. All will have to FACE God.
We can either choose to come out of hiding and acknowledge our sin now… or acknowledge it when we stand before God. We will briefly talk about what that looks like in a moment.
There are two points that follow I want us to see in Genesis.
These points reveal the aftermath of sin - and there is a lot that happens here. It begins with a bit of dialogue between God, Adam, and Eve. Adam answers God’s question, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
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.”
Adam’s answer exposed their disobedience. It was clear they did what they were not supposed to do. Then… the blame game begins.
“It’s not my fault, the woman YOU PUT HERE WITH ME did it. It’s her fault.”
Eve echoes her husband’s response. She points fingers too. “It’s not my fault, the serpent deceived me.”
So God starts where the dialogue had finished. He looks to the serpent and the curse is spoken.
The Curse
The Curse
14 So 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.
15 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.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
Ouch. No doubt sin came with great consequence. God addresses the parties involved in the reverse order of the blame game.
To the serpent:
It will now crawl on the ground. it will eat dust.
It will not get along with the woman. Enmity defined is the state or feeling of being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.
But then… God drops a hint of what is to come. The serpent will strike the heel, but the offspring of woman will crush his head.
God just told the serpent what? HIS DAYS ARE NUMBERED!
To the woman:
Childbearing just became very painful and laboring. Did God cause her pain OR is God informing her of what is coming as a result of sin?
Sin brings destruction and death. Sickness and pain are symptoms of death.
Secondly, God drops something interesting, you will desire your husband and he will rule over you.
What was their relationship like prior to sin entering the picture?
The two, had become one. Now, the two who once reigned as one attempt to rule each other.
The relationship between husband and wife will now feel the weight of sin.
To the man:
Work will become hard and toilsome
Notice God said the work would be painful. It’s going to be hard to provide for his family.
Weeds will now attempt to spoil the harvest.
Food will come by hard work.
Death is looming over you. You will return to the ground you are working… the ground from where you came.
Sin… had hit them in EVERY aspect of life. The effects of SIN can be felt in every AREA of life.
It caused a separation between them and God.
It created issues within the relationship they shared with each other.
It created issues within them, personally
It distanced them… from what God had created for them.
22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
The Garden of Eden was now off limits to humankind. It was a place God had given them to tend and to take care of… but instead of being good stewards, they expressed entitled behavior. They took what wasn’t given to them… and crossed a line of no return.
It paints a grim picture for sure… but God would not leave them helpless. God would not abandon them.
They had knowingly stepped into the realm of sin, but God would help them in a way they could not help themselves.
The Covering
The Covering
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
God does something amazing for His fallen creation - He covers them.
Recall that Adam and eve tried to “cover” themselves. They still felt the shame of their situation and hid from the presence of God.
God’s covering… was much different. A life had to be given in order for their nakedness or “shame” to be covered.
What we see here is atonement. What is atonement? Atonement is the reconciliation of God and humankind through Jesus Christ.
Jesus… is not in the picture at Genesis 3… but the giving of a life for the sake of another is. Blood had to be spilt. What is seen here is a foreshadowing of things to come through Jesus.
God could have walked away and left them in a state of ruin and death… but instead, He covered them. He provided for them. They would now live in a world impacted by sin… but they would walk in this world while under the new covering of God.
Sin is something we cannot ESCAPE on our own. The PRICE is simply more than we can bear. But God PROVIDED a way when there seemed to be no way.
God’s covering for us does not come in the form of an animal skin… it comes in the form of the blood of the Lamb - Jesus.
His blood is enough to cover all sin. God didn’t have to give us His Son, but did so because of His love for us.
God never abandoned us - even though we abandoned Him.
Sin indeed brought death as God said it would. But God made a way for us to come alive through the death of His Son.
It is more than we deserved… and greater than we could ever imagine. Our righteousness has been restored through Jesus.
Adam and Eve were busted by God as He took His stroll through the Garden. But they were left with hope of redemption as God provided for them a new covering!
The curse of sin… has been BROKEN by the blood of the Lamb!
