Upload
rick-peterson
View
356
Download
0
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
God, Our Savior, Genesis 3 Adapted from a K. Edward Skidmore sermon http://www.sermoncentral.com/print_friendly.asp?ContributorID=&SermonID=104872
Citation preview
God, Our SaviorGenesis 3
Adapted from a K. Edward Skidmore sermon
http://www.sermoncentral.com/print_friendly.asp?ContributorID=&SermonID=104872
Last week we started our study of the 3:16s of the Bible’s in 2 Timothy 3:16. The ground work has been laid on the fact that; Every scripture is inspired by
God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the person
dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work. 2
Timothy 3:16,17 NET
This being the truth, we now journey back to the very beginning.
Genesis 3:16 NIV To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give
birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over
you.”
I’m sure we all are very aware of why God said these words to Eve. Have you
ever worried you’ll never live up to God’s expectations? We search The Bible to learn what pleases & displeases God.
God’s people, the Israelites, were given just 10 Commandments to direct how
they were to live. The Old Testament is full of stories about just how hard it was
for them to stay on the “straight & narrow.”
Let’s look at God’s expectations of the first humans. Genesis 2:15 NIV Three
DO’S; 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; ONE
DON’T; 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.”
Do you think you could keep the one & only DON’T? How was it they were unable to obey that rule? I think it’s
obvious! They had no idea, no knowledge of good and evil! It’s hard for
me to imagine two functioning adult people working & caring for the greatest
garden ever. Wise Adam had already named all the creatures on earth. And
still they have no clue what right & wrong is.
Can you imagine The Creator God specifically telling you not to do
something & not understanding it’s wrong, evil, to do what you’ve been told
not to do? Adam and Eve were living the kind of life people can only dream about, enjoying
perfect weather, perfect health, the perfect marriage, and everything that
money could buy without even needing a bank account.
I think that’s the kind of dream that makes a show like “Deal or No Deal” so popular. Surely you’ve seen it, there are
26 suitcases up on stage and the Contestant must choose the ONE they think is worth a million dollars. Then there’s all kinds of suspense as they pick from the suitcases one by one to
eliminate them, hoping for the best. Well, Adam and Eve had the “Deal or No Deal”
set up, with a twist.
Picture yourself playing the Garden of Eden Game Show. In The Garden of
Eden Game, ALL the suitcases except one are winners. Not only that, but the Game Show Host calls you aside and gives you inside information. He tells
you, “You can pick ANY of these suitcases and you’ll win it all, but don’t pick number 26 over there. That one will wipe out your winnings and you’ll be out
of the game forever.”
What a set up! Only one wrong suitcase and the Host TELLS you which one it is.
You can’t lose! Right? Well, that’s the way it seemed when God told Adam and Eve: “You can eat from
ANY tree in the Garden, except this one.”
Then, a new Player entered the scene.
Genesis 3:1 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’?” 2
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,
The Entrance of Satan
3 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.’ ” 4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For
God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like
God, knowing good and evil.”
In Genesis 3 we find out the Creator of this beautiful world has an enemy. He is called “the serpent,” and the entrance of
this mysterious creature will change everything.
The great deceiver clothed himself as a serpent, one of God’s good creatures.
He insinuated a falsehood and portrayed rebellion as clever, but essentially
innocent, self-interest.
Therefore “the devil, or Satan,” is later referred to as “that ancient serpent”
(Rev 12:9; 20:2). (NIV Study Bible)The only reason I can come up with as to why God allowed him into the garden in
the first place is because God, at His core, wants mankind to have freewill. He wants humans to make a decision, make
up their own mind, to be near Him, communicate with Him, love Him &
submit willfully to his guidance.
Genesis 3:1 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’?”
We don’t read about Adam and Eve talking to any other animals. Do you
wonder if all the other animals were able to talk as well since there’s no indication
Eve was scared when the serpent talked?
Commentators have various ideas about why this talking serpent didn’t frighten Eve. One idea is Adam & Eve frequently talked with Spirits & Angels that took the
form or inhabited animals. Case & point is Balaam’s donkey. Also
with Abraham, Lot & others angels took the form of another animal, humans.
A visitor to India stayed with a friend at his home. The friend made a point of asking the visitor to wake him if he
needed to visit the outhouse in the night. Well, the host slept so soundly, and the visitor had his own flashlight so he went outside on his own in the night to tend
to things.
The next time he came to visit there, the friend explained to him that he wanted to help him in the night because they had a
cobra living in the wall of their compound that roamed at night, and the
friend wanted to protect him from his serpent night watchman. The visitor was
sure glad he hadn’t encountered this cobra in the former visit.
Genesis 3 gives the first introduction to an Evil Being that we call Satan.
A Barna survey reported on April 10, 2009; Four out of ten Christians (40%) strongly agreed that Satan “is not a living being but is a symbol of evil.”
http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/12-faithspirituality/260-most-american-christians-do-
not-believe-that-satan-or-the-holy-spirit-exis
That is NOT the way the Bible presents Satan. Scripture describes a literal being
who is intelligent, clever, crafty and shrewd. He is able to communicate and to influence us, and his desire is for our
destruction.
Certainly, the serpent of Genesis 3 represented Satan’s interests. He provided the occasion for the first couple to hear an alternate voice
besides the voice of God.
His purpose was to inject doubt into the situation. We only notice two statements
he made to Eve. The first Satan took God's positive command (You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you
must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) and
rephrased it in a negative way: "God won't let you eat of every tree." (Guzik)
The second flatly contradicted God’s words. “You will not surely die,” His
purpose was to drive a wedge between the Creator and His Creation. His
methodology is always predictable. He always tells Lies. In fact, Jesus called Satan “the father of lies.” John 8:44
Satan’s lies are usually cleverly disguised. In this case, he mixed partial
truth with his lies.
Now, for all the bad things we could say about Satan, all he actually did was
introduce a TEMPTATION. He did not hold the proverbial gun to their heads. Eve could have ignored him. She could have run from him. She and Adam could
have “told God on him” later that evening. But instead Eve hung on his every word, the way someone might
listen to a “hot stock tip.”
Genesis 3:6 NIV 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. 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.
The Entrance of Sin
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.”
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.”
14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all
the 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 greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain 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 from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of 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.”
Going back to the “Game Show” illustration. If there’s only ONE wrong choice and the Host tells you which
suitcase not to choose, there is only one reason you would lose, that reason is if
you don’t trust the Host.
And that’s the tragedy of Adam and Eve’s sin. There was nothing special
about the fruit they ate. It wasn’t poisonous, it didn’t hold some magical power. But the act of eating it showed that way down in their deepest hearts,
they did not trust their Creator. How that must have broken God’s heart!
We could say a lot about sin, what causes sin, why people are drawn to sin, how people rationalize their sin. But the bottom line is: Sin means we don’t trust our Creator. Sin proves that we DOUBT
God and that we are willing to act on the doubt. In its essence, sin is always
REBELLION. And rebellion results in inevitable consequences. The first
consequences hit right at the heart and soul of Adam and Eve.
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. It
only took one taste of Rebellion for Adam and Even to go from naked and NOT ashamed to naked and ashamed. Nothing changed about the shape of
their bodies. The only change came in the shape of their minds.
Their darkened minds twisted what was Perfect into something Perverted. The
result was a feeling they had never experienced before: the feeling of
SHAME.
Sin brought on another emotion that is familiar to all of us, but was unknown to Adam and Eve until that moment. God asked Adam why he was hiding among
the trees, and He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” Genesis 3:10 NIV
Sin is the author of Shame and Fear. When we sin, the first thing we fear is
“getting caught.” We can even become paranoid, constantly “looking over our shoulder” to see if we’ve been found
out. It’s that kind of fear that usually gets Criminals caught. They draw attention to
themselves by driving away like a maniac or some other guilty behavior.
In the case of Adam and Eve, their fear and shame led them to hide from God. For the first time, they wanted to avoid fellowship with God. Their relationship
with the Creator was broken, just as their relationship with each other was
broken. The same thing happens to all of us when we sin. We find ourselves
wanting to avoid God. And we build up barriers between ourselves and the
people closest to us.
The minute they sinned, Adam and Eve experienced inward death, the death of
innocence and the death of relationships. But other consequences of Sin would follow. The whole world
would now suffer corruption and death. People sometimes ask, “If there really is a God, why is there so much suffering
and pain in the world? Why do we have war sickness and death?” The answer is
found here in Genesis.
Now that Sin had entered the world, God explained there would be PAIN in
childbirth and in our work. You have to wonder what it would have been like if Eve had not sinned before she had her firstborn. Maybe she would have come
up to Adam one day and said, “Well, honey, today I bent down to pick up
something, and, well, here is our new son. I didn’t even know he was coming.”
Genesis 3 may not be anyone’s favorite part of the Bible. It seems like a real
downer. But even in this tragic passage, we find a thread of hope. With God, even
the Curse holds hidden Blessing. As unwelcome as it is, we understand that pain actually protects us. A person who
cannot feel pain will probably not survive long. It turns out that pain is actually a blessing that allows us to
survive in this fallen world.
Even the ultimate consequence of sin, DEATH itself holds an element of
blessing. Without death we could never escape the confines of this tainted
world. God has another place in mind for us, a place where we can live forever.
The place He is preparing for us has no pain, no corruption, and no death.
At the end of Genesis 3, God, the great Creator and Provider of Genesis 1 and 2
would take on a new role. Because of our sin, God reached down in Mercy and
became our Savior.
The Entrance of the Savior
In verse 15 God said to Satan: 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.” From the very beginning, God knew that one day he would put on flesh
and come to the earth as the seed of woman to save the people He created
from the penalty of sin.
Genesis 3:20 NIV Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. God did one
more thing for Adam and Eve before he sent them out of the Garden. 21 The
LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
This action may seem incidental until you stop to realize that the only way to
provide animal skin, was for an animal to die. This is the first time physical death
is recorded. Adam and Eve must have known that
animal died because of their sin.
This was the beginning of the sacrificial system that would eventually become
part of the Jewish law. It was a picture of God’s plan to save us from our sins. In
the same way that God provided the animal skins, He would one day provide his beloved Son as the sacrificial Lamb that takes away the sins of the world.
That is the amazing offer of Salvation that God offers you and me. Do you
realize God will still clothe us with the sacrificial Lamb? Galatians 3:27 NET For all of you who were baptized into Christ
have clothed yourselves with Christ.
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.This is interesting to me. They were free
to eat from the tree of life. It was not forbidden! They could eat, and live
forever! Evidently they had not ate from it yet or they had to continually eat from
it to live forever.
Q. Why did God prevent Adam and Eve from eating from the tree of life
anymore?A: There are three aspects to this.
Discipline: This would show to Adam and Eve, and to us, the seriousness of disobeying God. Judicial punishment:
God promised them that the day they ate the forbidden fruit they would die.
They died spiritually that day, and access to the tree of life was taken away
from them so that they would die physically.
Mercy and blessing: If they could still eat of the tree of life, they would carry
around the guilt and curse of their sin forever. So be allowed to die, and start
everything off, culminating in Christ coming and bringing salvation for all
was a mercy. (Bible Query)
We still have the opportunity to eat & live forever.
John 6:53 NET Jesus said to them, "I tell you the solemn truth, unless you eat the
flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54
The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise
him up on the last day.
55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood resides in
me, and I in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the
Father, so the one who consumes me will live because of me. 58 This is the
bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread your ancestors ate, but then later died. The one who eats
this bread will live forever."
Yes, there is still an opportunity to eat from the Tree of Life. We get a glimpse
of it in Heaven.Revelation 22:1 NET Then the angel
showed me the river of the water of life — water as clear as crystal — pouring out from the throne of God and of the
Lamb, 2 flowing down the middle of the city's main street.
On each side of the river is the tree of life producing twelve kinds of fruit,
yielding its fruit every month of the year. Its leaves are for the healing of the
nations.Revelation 22:14 NET Blessed are those who wash their robes so they can have access to the tree of life and can enter
into the city by the gates.
In the first 3 chapters of the Bible, we find a brief account of Creation and The
Fall that is so simple a child can understand it. But it’s so profound that
we could spend a lifetime studying it. We would never run out of things to learn
about our God, our Creator, our Provider and our Savior.
2 Timothy 3:16 NET Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching,
for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the
person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work.
Having established this, it is because of what we’ve read in Genesis 3 we can
understand why the Scriptures, God’s Word, is necessary.
Humans now, knowing good and evil, need God’s plan of redemption to bring us back to him through the sacrificial
Lamb, God The Son, Jesus. John 14:6 NET Jesus replied, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through me.
It’s very possible that some of us here today are actually trying to hide from God. Maybe there is a “hidden” sin in your life that makes you want to avoid
fellowship with God. Well, you may be able to hide your sins from the people around you, but, take it from Adam and Eve, you can’t hide from
God.
God is calling your name like he did to Adam in the Garden. God has already provided a covering for your sin. Will
you answer His call today?