01-19 The Impact of One Sin

Genesis 3:6-8

On July 25, 1911 Bobby Leach climbed into an 8 foot long steel drum at Navy Island. The drum was released at 2:55 p.m. and 18 minutes later it reached the brink of the Horseshoe Falls and plummeted over the falls where it stuck in the river at the base of the falls. The drum was recovered 22 minutes later and once it was on shore, Bobby was removed from the drum and rushed to the hospital suffering from 2 broken knee caps and a broken jaw. After 6 months of recovery he left the hospital and went on tour with his famous barrel.

15 years later, while on a publicity tour in New Zealand, Bobby Leach slipped on an orange peel while walking along the street and broke his leg. The leg quickly became infected and required amputation but within a few weeks Bobby would succumb to that injury and die at the age of 69.

Dr. Steward Anderson says temptation is just like that… “Some great temptations, which roar around us like Niagara, may leave us unharmed. But a little, insignificant incident may cause our downfall simply because we are not looking for it.”

That’s the nature of temptation… Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes how temptation works in his book Temptation:

“With irresistible power desire seizes mastery over the flesh.… 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.… 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.… Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God.… The lust thus aroused envelops 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?”… It is here that everything within me rises up against the Word of God.”

This is just what Eve experienced as she disregards the Word of God in her conversation with the serpent. She began by diminishing God’s word, minimizing the great privileges God mad for the man and woman (eat from any tree freely). Then she added to God’s Word by inferring a strictness that was not there. Finally, she softened God’s Word with regards to the certainty of death for eating the fruit.

Eve encountered what James describes as the progression of temptation which always begins in our own heart. (just a note: I realize that Adam & Eve were in a dispensation of innocence…perfectly created, within a perfect environment, and as described by the Westminster Confession of Faith:

The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition Chapter IV. Of Creation

endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own image,f having the law of God written in their hearts,g and power to fulfil it;h and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change.i Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;k which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures.

I realize this is not true of us…for in the original sin there has passed unto us both imputed guilt and the inherited corruption of Adam’s sin to all human persons apart from Jesus…so there is a difference b/t Adam & Eve being tempted as those who were the perfect expression of the holiness of God, and ourselves who aren’t—more to say about this later…) We temptation is met with indwelling sin in the heart of the believer it wreaks havoc. When sin is met with lust in our hearts temptation becomes powerfully persuasive. When temptation is met with indwelling sin it causes the saintliest of people to act like the devil incarnate (the list is full in Scripture and all too well known personally).

James 1:13-16 : The progression of temptation:

All temptation begins in our own heart—“not devil made me do it, not circumstances, not strength of the temptation, not wrong crowd, not parents or past” It is our own lust.

Ryle “It seems forgotten that every man carried within him a fountain of wickedness. We need no bad company to teach us, and no devil to tempt us, in order to run into sin. We have within us the beginning of every sin under heaven.”

Left unchecked, the lust within us will bring us to destruction—jobs, families, character, friends. We must be wise.

Galatians 6:1 NASB95

1 Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.

1 Corinthians 10:12 NASB95

12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.

1st step in temptation: bait is dropped. “carried away” (draw out, lure away). B/c of the lust in our hearts—the bait is attractive. Note: Satan does know how to present us with bait that will be most effective in drawing us out and tempting us to sin. He understands and knows how to manipulate our weaknesses and uses the bait of temptation against us.

It is at this point time to take heed of the words of LJC:

Matthew 5:29–30 NASB95

29 “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 “If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.

2nd Step of temptation: The bait is examined… “enticed” (to seize)—in fishing realm the juicy worm is dangled before the fish and his inner craving to appropriate it for himself prompts him to bite the bait.

3rd Step of temptation: the hook is set…lust, sin, death. Behind the bait of temptation is always a hook that will inevitably lead to death.

It did for Adam & Eve—the certainty of which God explained (and warned of) well before ch 3. In our vv Moses develops 3 concepts that help us understand the impact that one single sin can have as one disobeys God’s command.

I. The Destructive Consideration

Eve was tempted to follow her appetite.

A. Physical Appetite

It was good for food. This tree’s fruit was not all that different from the others. It would be the provision of a greater variety of food. She appealed to her senses and saw how that fruit could meet the demands of hunger—but it was not even a legitimate hunger b/c she had every other tree for food. The lust in her heart was provoked by discontent and doubting the provision of God.

B. Emotional Appetite

It was a delight to the eyes: This was an appeal to desire, emotions which have their root in the soul. She was excited by the fruit’s beauty and the passion that was ignited in her heart grew a covetous desire.

C. Intellectual Appetite

It was desirable to make one wise. This was an appeal to her intelligence. She desired the knowledge that Satan said God was keeping her from—knowing good and evil.

From here we read that the woman “took...ate...gave...”

This leads to:

II. The Immediate Consequence

Moses points out 2 immediate consequences from both Adam & Eve’s disobedience. And it was so catastrophic that the results of this disobedience would required the suffering, death and resurrection of the LJC to remove the curse.

A. Sight

“Their eyes were opened” This doesn’t mean they were blind but they had a new experience. For the first time they had experienced evil. They saw something they had never before seen.

Satan’s deception was partly true. They would come to know good and evil thru experience which was utterly unlike God who never knows evil from an experiential stand point. They didn’t have the divine vision that Satan promised.

B. Shame

“They knew they were naked...” Their nakedness and no shame was understood to be the sign of a healthy relationship b/t man and woman. But on the occasion of sin it became something unpleasant and filled with shame. We know from additional revelation that form this point the thought process of man, his desires, his emotion, even his will is rendered dead as wickedness comes upon them. And this is the condition that spreads to all their descendants.

It is a painful consequence of the knowledge gained by sin—guilt. The feelings of guilt are here, very real (and for us—very real) because they were guilty (and we are guilty). And they were guilty b/c they rebelled against the very real God. The parallel for us is very close and personally observed: we all stand guilty before the perfectly righteous and holy God—b/c we stand in rebellion against Him—our guilt is real and can only be removed by dealing with it according to God’s provision.

III. The Offended Conscience

What does the offended (guilty) conscience do? Here Adam & Eve discovered immediately that the results of sin (as God warned) would bring death (spiritual death, alienation from God) and they also discovered something horrible had happened to their own hearts:

Jeremiah 17:9 NASB95

9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

vs 8 “they heard...” this would have normally been the occasion of joyful fellowship and the man and woman would have run, with eagerness to the Creator. But their hearts now deceive them, b/c of their shame they believe they can hide themselves from the presence of God. It is a delusion that we’ve all faced to suppose we can hide ourselves from the omnipresent God:

Psalm 139:7–8 NASB95

7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

Adam & Eve heard and they hid. They heard the One they knew they were fully accountable to and with complete shame and guilt they hid from fear, likely remembering the threat of certain death for the act of transgression.

This is the way we generally deal with our own sin…or worse. We attempt to hide from the consequences, try to escape accountability to the One true God…and when that doesn’t work—we try to minimize the feelings of guilt and our hearts deceive us into thinking sin really isn’t sin so that we might find approval of acts of sin in ourselves and in others.

Well, let me give you 5 points of application this morning (I’ll be very quick!!!)

1. Be Alert

Be on the alert against temptation. We are prone to failure and its conceivable that any saint could commit ay sin under heaven against God:

1 Corinthians 10:12 NASB95

12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.

Proverbs 14:16 NASB95

16 A wise man is cautious and turns away from evil, But a fool is arrogant and careless.

2. Be Prayerful

B/c of our proneness to falling, you must have a constant attitude of dependency on God—and that thru prayer. Jesus said:

Matthew 26:41 NASB95

41 “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

John Owen once penned: “If we do not abide in prayer, we shall abide in cursed temptations. Let this, then, be another direction:-- Abide in prayer, and that expressly to this purpose, that we "enter not into temptation." Let this be one part of our daily contending with God, -- that he would preserve our souls, and keep our hearts and our ways, that we be not entangled; that his good and wise providence will order our ways and affairs, that no pressing temptation befall us; that he would give us diligence, carefulness, and watchfulness over our own ways. So shall we be delivered when others are held with the cords of their own folly.”

3. Be Accountable

this is divine accountability. The (3x) holy God sees everything b/c we constantly live int he presence of God.

Proverbs 15:3 NASB95

3 The eyes of the Lord are in every place, Watching the evil and the good.

Psalm 90:8 NASB95

8 You have placed our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your presence.

You cannot hide from God—He even knows your inner thoughts and motives and will judge them rightly.

4. Be Repentant

When you do fall into temptation (and we will for we are fallen creatures)…don’t follow the examples of Adam & Eve, Jonah, David and others who tried to conceal sin. Be quick to turn from sin repent. B/c we have this promise:

1 John 1:9 NASB95

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

5. Be Forgiven

Also in 1 John—a couple vv later,

1 John 2:1–2 NASB95

1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

On the occasion of the sacrifice of JC—His suffering and death, there is propitiation for you sin…that is the removal of God’s wrath b/c He is pleased to judge our sin that was placed on JC. When you sin, repent, turn from it and receive God’s forgiveness.

The word “to forgive” means to let go, send way, to cancel and it is what God does with the penalty of our sin b/c of the work of JC.

Jesus even taught us to pray:

Luke 11:4 NASB95

4 ‘And forgive us our sins, For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.’ ”

For the unbeliever: the call to salvation. For the believer:

The forgiveness and cleansing of God should be a rich comfort to all of us when we sin and we confess it to Him—and we know God is faithful!