The Worst Day in History

Bad Days

If you were here last week, you may recall I was losing my voice. I almost couldn’t finish the second service. Monday was a bad day. I felt lousy.

Yes, I took a COVID test. It was negative. This is just a cold.

It makes sense, b/c just a few days earlier I was visiting my two favorite little petrie dishes that collect germs and share them.

Sara got there a week before me. They were sick. She got sick. I had hoped they were well past it by the time I got there. And, I got sick just as I got home.

I could have picked this up anywhere. It might have been an added bonus to the gas prices as I handled the nozzles.

Really, this wasn’t so bad. We both got COVID in Dec. ‘20. That was bad. Not bad enough to go the hospital, but we were pretty sick.

So many of you have experienced similar bad days.

Among the worst days, are when you hear the word ‘cancer’ from your doctor.

Sara got that call from her doctor 5 years ago that she had cancer in her thyroid. As bad as that day was, that made the day of her surgery a much better day when the doctor told us there was no cancer in her thyroid.

What happened between? Several very significant prayers and a miracle from God.

Denise Ingram has a similar story.

God demonstrated that He can make a day great after we’ve had a bad one.

I’m in the middle of something of something, too. 4 years ago I had a biopsy on my prostate. It was all negative. But, now, my PSA is up again. Doctor has ordered an MRI. We’ll see.

People have asked me if I’m worried. No. The only stressful thing to me is not knowing. I don’t want to hear my doc say ‘cancer’. But if he does, let’s go get it.

This is not unique to me, or us. We deal w/ these things. We are that age.

Our joints wear out. Our hair falls out. Our skin wrinkles. We have to face our mortality every morning when we get up and look in the mirror.

Some days are just bad.

A number of you have experienced divorce. There are a number of bad days that lead up to that. The days that follow are a mixed bag. Some problems are solved, some get worse.

My dad wasn’t faithful to my mom. I know what it’s like to grow up in single-mom household. She was secretary. We didn’t have much.

Many of us share these things in common.

Our country has had some bad days.

Dec. 7, 1941. A horrible day.

9/11. For political and religious reasons a group of men learned to fly passenger jets. Then chose to fly them into buildings killing thousands of innocent Americans.

2 18-year old young men.

One goes into a grocery story in Buffalo, NY and kills 10 ppl just b/c their skin color is darker than his.

Another goes into a 4th grade classroom in Uvalde, TX and kills 17 10-year olds and 2 teachers. I don’t think anybody knows exactly why, yet.

Gun violence is a problem in our country. Are guns the problem? Is limiting access to them the answer?

I don’t want to get too deep into this issue, but we have to do more to prevent guns from getting into the hands of ppl who will do bad things w/ them.

But if guns are the sole focus, we’ll never solve the problem. Here are just a few issues that need our focus, as well.

As a society, we glorify violence. We make it look good. It’s in our movies, music, and video games.

We don’t value human life. There are powerful ppl in this country arguing that it should be okay to take the life of a child up to the day it’s born.

What’s the difference between the day before it’s born and the day after? Or, when it’s 10-years old in and in a classroom? Or, adults in a grocery store?

As a society, the nuclear family is disintegrating. Almost every mass shooting in a school has been perpetrated by a boy or young man who does not have his father and mother living in the same house w/ him.

Moms and dads are not perfect ppl. We don’t discipline our children perfectly. We make plenty of mistakes.

But the good that comes when we raise our kids together, hold them accountable in mostly good ways, discipline them out of love before a cop or a judge disciplines them for other reasons, far outweighs the bad in these homes.

We are systematically and totally removing God from our culture. God is a polite God. If He’s asked to leave, He will.

He is powerful enough to force His way in. But, that is not the normal way he operates.

In the void He leaves, evil fills.

We should not be shocked at the horrific nature of the actions that fill the void of good.

These issues, mental illness, emotional illness, spiritual illness, mixed w/ guns, produce some very bad days. But as bad as these days were, one day in history was much worse.

Not necessarily in the actions and events of the day, but the consequences and ramifications for the rest of days, make it the worst.

If this worst day had never happened, none of these others would have happened.

There would be no common colds, COVIDS, or cancers.

There would be no affairs, adultery, or abuse.

There would be no mass killings on battle fields in Pearl Harbor, Normandy Beach, NYC, Washington D.C., Kyiv, grocery stores, or schools.

On the first worst day ever, God’s word was undermined and mis-quoted. God was dismissed from the conversation and others presented themselves as their own authority, doing what they wanted to do believing it would make them the boss and king of their own lives. They no longer wanted to submit themselves to God or anybody else, believing they were capable of managing their lives just fine, thank you very much.

They were wrong. And not only did it cost them more than they could imagine, it cost all of us, too.

Why do we have to suffer through so many bad days? Because of the worst day ever.

What hope do we have? The best days are yet to come.

The events of the worst day in history are described in Genesis 3.

Twist it a Bit

Genesis 3:1–7 NIV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 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.

Do you see what Satan did? He didn’t change it much. He just twisted it a little bit.

The instruction God gave Adam, who presumably passed it on to Eve, was they could eat from every tree in the garden except one.

So, Satan, mixing mostly truth w/ just a little lie charts the course of the conversation away from God.

From “can eat from every tree except one”, to “must not eat from any tree.”

And, He asked Eve the question. It’s not even in a statement. She could have corrected Him right away. And by asking the question, he gave her the authority of the answer.

Satan wanted Eve to doubt God’s word. B/C if doubt is cultivated it leads to disbelief.

Doubts are not a problem unless they are cultivated. We can find answers to our doubts. But left unchecked, they lead to not believing what we should know to be true.

Satan is still using this tactic today. Get us to doubt God’s word. Change it just a little to fit what we want, or feel like it should be.

That puts us the position of authority where God should be.

Whether the issue is evolution or adultery. If Satan can get us to doubt the authenticity of God’s word, then we are free to make ourselves the authority.

Then, when we feel strongly about something, or someone who may be married to someone else, or someone whose skin is darker than mine, we can justify our actions by saying why did God give me these feelings if He didn’t expect me to act on them? Right.

Maybe God expects you to humbly surrender what you feel so strongly about to do what He asks you to do.

That puts the authority in the right place.

Do you know what God has asked you to do and not to do?

Don’t let Satan twist it even a little bit.

Satan made it sound unfair what God allowed her to do.

That’s not fair! We can’t eat from any of the trees?

He strengthened the prohibition and weakened the penalty.

Strengthen the rule. That has never worked.

She played right into His hands.

She corrected Satan and misquoted God herself. We can’t even tough the fruit from that one tree.

Now that He has the dialogue going, He changes it up even more. Outright contradicting what God said.

You won’t die. It will make you more like God.

That made God sound insecure and jealous of the ppl. Like He can’t let them be like Him b/c they’d be better at it than Him.

This played into Eve’s pride. She was better than what she perceived to be the limitations God put on her. She could be her own god, her own authority. Doing what she wanted to do and no one could tell her not to.

Ironically, by obeying Satan, she became subject to Him. Reality is, we are all slaves. Choose your Master wisely.

Judges 21:25 NIV

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.

When there is no king, Satan is your king and everyone does their own thing. Chaos reigns.

The farther away from God we get, the more chaos we create.

It looked good to her. And, if it looked that good, how could it be bad? She wanted it.

That Hebrew word for desire is the same as coveting. Thou shall not...

Coveting something, desiring something you don’t have that you think will be good for you, but in reality will be bad for you, is a bad thing.

She couldn’t stand up to the temptation.

She was looking at the forbidden fruit instead of looking at God. Eyes on Christ will save us so much trouble.

Notice, Adam was with her watching and listening the whole time. God had given him the specific instruction and he never stepped in to correct any of it. Passivity is a problem.

Satan’s promises never come true. He promised the knowledge they rec’d would be a good thing.

“You’ll be happier and your life will be better in that affair.”

You desire better so you go and get it oblivious to how much worse your life has become until it’s too late.

Their eyes were opened. The knowledge they gained was only the part that tasted good when they ate it. Like cotton candy. Who doesn’t like cotton candy?

When you put it in your mouth it tastes sweet. But it dissolves into nothing and upsets your stomach.

The result corrupted their DNA. And that DNA gets passed on to every baby conceived for the rest of time.

1 sin led to the corruption of all ppl. And we are dealing with the consequences on horrible days today.

They tried to cover it up, hide it. But we can’t fix our own sin. Only God can. So, when God came to see them, He made them face the reality of their actions. It wasn’t pretty.

The Cover Up

Genesis 3:8–13 NIV

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. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

They hid. They tried to cover up. They knew what they had done was wrong. Maybe God won’t find out.

Right. He already knew when he called them out.

Rather than take responsibility, they both blamed others. Adam blamed God, “That woman you gave me.”

And He blamed Eve, “she gave it to me”

Eve blamed Satan, “He deceived me.”

But they both knew better.

Don’t blame God for the decisions you or other ppl make. That’s a freedom you value even if there are those who take advantage.

And, own you own mistakes. Don’t blame anybody else for the problems you bring yourself.

People ask the question, how long we they in the garden before they fell? We don’t know for sure. But, it wasn’t long.

2 clues. First, Eve wasn’t pregnant, yet. And w/ bodies that were not affected by sin conception would have happened quickly.

Second, when God gave the law to Moses, He made the 10th day of the first month the Day of Atonement. That is the day the animals were killed as a sacrifice for sin, that is, representing a covering up of the ppl who sin.

Maybe Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit on the 10th day, they were created on the 6th day. Or, maybe it was their 10th day in the Garden. Either way, it didn’t take long.

Later, God killed an animal to cover them up which points to the animals the priests will kill which point to the Lamb of God who will be killed to once and for all cover our sin.

The animal God used to make their first set of clothes was the first death on earth.

They will be kicked out of the Garden of Eden and prevented from returning to eat the fruit of the tree of life. They will not be allowed to live forever in the fallen condition of sin.

That’s one consequence. They were also all cursed. The curse had 3 parts. One for Satan, one for Eve, and one for Adam

Curse & Consequence

Genesis 3:14–19 NIV

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. 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.” 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.” 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. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 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.”

We don’t know for sure what kind of animal the Satan embodied. It sounds a lot like a snake. But there are lots of good snakes. They keep the rodent population down.

But the point of eating dust is a position of humility. He is powerful, but also humiliated.

All creation suffers b/c of his deception of Eve.

Romans 8:20–21 NIV

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

Satan the angels who followed him and became demons, are the only beings in creation who have no possibility for redemption. Their fate was sealed by the gravity of the rebellious action they took.

In the curse to Satan is the first gospel message. God promised a Savior and He will be among the offspring of Eve.

Satan will bruise his heel at the crux. But Jesus will crush Satan at his resurrection.

For all time we are in a battle for our children.

Satan and His demons are putting up a fierce fight for the spiritual lives of our kids.

It’s a battle of good vs. evil. Man’s word vs. God’s word. Authority in our hands based on how we feel vs. authority in God’s hands based on what is best for us.

Once Satan has lost you to God, He will fight w/ all His might to limit the number of ppl going to heaven. He wants it to be as few as possible.

The second part of the curse is for Eve and effects family relationships.

Pain in childbirth. What should be only glorious and all pleasure is now preceded by intense pain.

This has also led to conception difficulties, miscarriages, and still births.

Animals don’t have the pain in birth that humans do. They were not responsible for the curse, but suffer the effects of the fall in other ways.

And roles w/in a marriage.

God said, your desire will be for your husband. That is not a physical attraction, but a desire to control him.

Then, God said, He will rule over you. Part of the curse. This is not a blessing. Wives, if you wish you had this assignment, then I don’t think you understand it.

In Eph. 5 Paul laid out what how a godly husband is to treat his wife. Love her the way Jesus loved the church by giving everything up for her.

Here, b/c of the curse, husbands will rule naturally by being overbearing, controlling, or passively aggressive.

We’ve been set up for conflict. Conflict is a certainty in a marriage.

The only way to survive the conflict is by humbly making Jesus the Lord of your individual lives and making Him the center of your marriage.

The 3rd part of the curse was for Adam and it has to do w/ work and death.

He had been assigned to work the garden. The curse introduced thorns, thistles, mold, bugs, weeds.

Work now became a toil. By the sweat of his brow. The ground will not yield crops easily.

And, we will return to the ground. Death.

Cancer, COVID, accidents and bullets.

We’re all destined now for something to take us out of this life.

If I stopped here, how depressing. Did this catch God by surprise? Was He not prepared for this?

He knew what would happen and had a plan from the beginning to make things right.

As bad as the worst day was, it makes the best day even better.

The Best Day

Revelation 13:8 NIV

All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.

Satan will get His. God will get His.

From the creation of the world, God planed for the Lamb of God t/b slain to fix the problems caused by the fall.

If God knew it was going to happen, why didn’t he stop it?

He did, and does, in a way.

You want, you need ppl to choose you. You want ppl to choose to love you, be faithful to you, and treat you better than you deserve.

You do not want to have to hold a gun to someone’s head to make them act like they love you. You do not want to have to pay them, bribe them.

We are created in God’s image. We got this from God.

God does not force anyone to love Him, to believe in Him, to be faithful to Him. He could. He’s powerful enough and able.

But he wants ppl to choose Him. Choose to believe. Then, choose to live each day for Him.

But that freedom to choose can be taken advantage of. And ppl can choose to cause great harm and make horrible days for others on earth.

So, what God did, rather than prevent the horrible days from occuring, He made a way to recover from them.

He heals our hurts on earth. And reserves a place at his table in heaven.

Would you rather live on earth for 100 years, or live in heaven forever? Something is going to take you and everybody else from this life. Where will you go next? And how will you get there?

Revelation 22:1–2 NIV

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

This is the last chapter of the last book of the bible. We’ve been studying the first chapter.

In the end, we return to Eden and live there as God intended the first time. The tree of life will be available to us again.

And the only way to get there is thru blood of the Lamb who atones for our sin, takes our punishment, and covers our consequences.

Eden awaits for those who believe in the name of Lamb of God. That will be a glorious day.

In the meantime, we will have to endure a few bad days. But they can’t take the shine of the best day that’s coming.

Applications

The Word

Know the word. Keep working and studying so that the serpents in your life that Satan is using cannot trip you up.

2 Timothy 2:15 NIV

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

Know the Word. It takes a lifetime of study.

Own It

Own your mistakes. Don’t try to blame anybody else for the mistakes you make.

The only way to recover from them is by owning them, apologizing for them, and stop doing them.

There will be scars. But the wounds will heal.

Eden awaits

We were not in Eden the first time God put ppl there. This is definitely not Eden. The earth and all its inhabitants suffer from the Fall.

But, God will put ppl in Eden again at some point in the future. Make your reservation now if you haven’t already.

By faith, accept Jesus as your Savior. Accept His free gift of salvation. He will take you punishment for you.

Then, live each day for Him, making Him the Lord of your life.

In the meantime, we will catch colds. Some of us will get caught by COVID or cancer.

Some marriages will end. Some kids will rebel. Some of us will have to deal w/ adultery, affairs and abuse.

Some of us will be touched by accidental deaths and intentional killings.

These bad days pale in comparison to the worst day ever. But the best days are ahead of us.

Why do we have to suffer through so many bad days? Because of the worst day ever.

What hope do we have? The best days are yet to come.