Genesis 2:15-17 15 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; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Is there anything confusing about these verses in Scripture? It all seems very clear to me. God created Adam and gave him a garden of paradise to live in. He was to work it, so yes, work was introduced early in the Creation story. He was to work and take care of everything in that garden. In verse 16 God was reiterating what he had told Adam earlier about having dominion over the earth.
And then God went on to tell Adam he was free to eat from any tree in the Garden of Eden except one. Can you imagine how many trees there were in the garden? It wasn’t just a random garden with a few trees to pick food from. It was an incredible place to live. The word, “Eden,” in Hebrew means “pleasure” or “delight.” Adam wasn’t struggling, friends. Picture the most beautiful vacation place you can, and it would pale in comparison to Eden. Scripture says that the trees were “pleasing to the eye.” There was beauty everywhere Adam looked. It was a fertile, fruitful place. The trees were “good for food.” There was no rotten fruit hanging off any tree in the Garden of Eden. No mold was growing in Eden. The climate was incredible in Eden. It was such a perfect climate, Adam and Eve didn’t even have to wear any clothes. True story! Adam and Eve were in their birthday suits, and they weren’t even cold. And they didn’t even need any sunscreen! It was Paradise!
While Adam was free to enjoy the garden, God did make one restriction. He did call one tree off limits. He told Adam there was a tree that he was not to eat from because it would bring death and destruction to his life. Why did God do that? Why even put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden? Why introduce something that was off limits? God wanted to give Adam and Eve a choice to obey or disobey Him. Friends, God wanted Adam and Eve, as free beings, to be able to exercise their will, to make decisions, and to be able to choose between good and evil. In order for Adam and Eve to truly be free, they had to have a choice. God had to set up some boundary so that they actually could make a choice about who they were going to serve.
I don’t believe Adam and Eve started to focus on the one tree that was off limits. I don’t think they woke up trying to figure out ways to sneak over to the one forbidden tree. They had so many delicious trees at their disposal. I don’t think they were thinking about what they were missing because they weren’t missing anything. Can I just stop and make this point? When you do life God’s way and enjoy the freedom He gives you, you won’t be missing anything!
I gave my life to Jesus when I was five years old, and I have never wished I hadn’t done so. I have never wished I could live for the pleasures of sin. Have I sinned? Yep. Has it been good for me? No. Do I wish I hadn’t? Yes. Has God forgiven me? Yes. But the point is, I have not missed out on anything that is good for me by following Jesus.
So, when did Adam and Eve start to have thoughts about sinning against God? It was when the devil got involved. The devil, disguised as a snake, slithered up to Eve and started talking to her. As he did, he twisted the Word of God. He said God said something that God did not say. Here’s what he said to Eve. “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Eve quickly corrected Satan. She told the devil he had false information. Eve was thinking straight about what God had said. She told the devil they were allowed to eat from the trees in the garden except for the one that God had said was off limits because it would cause spiritual death and eventually physical death. Just to make sure we all understand, a tree wasn’t going to cause spiritual and physical death, but it was the act of disobeying God that would create those consequences.
The devil told her she wasn’t thinking straight. That is how the devil works, friends. He gets in your head. He starts creating doubt or confusion. He jumbles your mind. He messes with your thoughts, and he starts to get your mind focused on the things God says are off limits. He wants you to feel restricted. He wants you to feel limited. Satan wants you to have FOMO. FOMO. Fear of missing out. He was like, “Eve, look what you are missing,” when in reality, Adam and Eve weren’t missing out on anything. They had everything they needed or could ever want but Satan wanted them to think they were missing out on something wonderful. There is nothing wonderful for us outside of the boundaries God has set. We don’t need to go on an exploration with sin to prove that, but we often do, don’t we? So much heartache could be spared if we would just take God at His Word and make the choice to obey Him instead of leaning on our own understanding.
The devil wasn’t done with Eve. 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:4-5
Oh, they were gonna know some stuff. They were gonna know what it felt like when you choose what is evil. Anything that goes against what God desires for us is evil, friends. They were gonna know what it felt like to miss out on what God had called good, and they weren’t going to just know it intellectually. They were going to know it experientially. They were going deal with guilt and shame and a breech in their relationship with God, and it wasn’t going to feel good. None of it. They were going to go from feeling good, from being in an environment to what God had called very good, to feeling gross. From good to gross. That is how we could describe chapters 1, 2 and 3 of Genesis. It didn’t take long for humanity to mess up, to mar everything God had created.
Adam and Eve could have decided for obedience to God, but instead, tempted by Satan, they chose to disobey God. They trusted in themselves. They followed their feelings. They sinned against God. And when they took the first bite, everything changed. Verse 7 of chapter three says their eyes were opened. Their spiritual eyes were opened. What that means is that they immediately knew something was wrong. Instantly, something had changed. Before God even confronted them, before they were even “caught” they started to feel the consequences of sin.
Have you ever been there? Have you ever done something you knew was wrong, but you did it because you thought it would be so much fun? As you contemplated doing whatever it was, it seemed desirable. It looked like a good time to you. Eve saw the fruit and thought it looked amazing, and she let a look lead her to a false fantasy about how eating the fruit would make her like God. From the look she made mental leaps about how wonderful her future would be if she chose to do what God had said was off limits. But after just one bite, no one had to tell Adam and Eve they were in trouble. No one had to go to them and say, “Do you know what you had done?” No one had to explain what was going to happen next. The shame of sin, the guilt of conviction, the weight of disobedience descended on their chests, climbed into the pit of their stomachs and took over their minds. Fear swallowed them up.
Verse seven says they realized they were naked. What that means is they had lost the carefree existence they had enjoyed before they had sinned. They tried to make themselves clothes out of fig leaves to cover the awful feelings sin produced. They were exposed, embarrassed, and afraid. They felt awful, and they tried to cover themselves to ease the fear and dread they were experiencing. They were afraid of God.
They heard God’s footsteps, verse 8, and when they did, they tried to hide. But God came to find them, and He asked them what they had done. They had never hidden from Him before. They had never been afraid of God. They had enjoyed being with God. They had enjoyed living in the Paradise He had created, but not anymore. Notice that sin distances us from God. It causes separation from God.
And they did what we often do. They tried to excuse their sin by pointing fingers at each other. Adam blamed Eve. He said she gave him some of the fruit, and he ate it. Eve said the snake had tricked her, and she ate it. Life as they had known it was over. Sin changed the way they viewed themselves, the way they viewed each other and also changed the way they viewed God.
And there was nothing they could do to fix it. They couldn’t just lay low and hope that God would never find out. They couldn’t just bide their time and hope things would blow over. They were already feeling awful. They were already in conflict with each other. They had enjoyed each other before they sinned against God. Sin introduced relational conflict and stress into the mis. They were already experiencing the effects of sin, that like a poison, was coursing through their souls. Fig leaves weren’t going to fix the shame they felt.
But God took action. He first dealt with Satan and pronounced a curse on him. He declared that He would deal with Satan in a future showdown where on the cross and through His resurrection from the dead, Jesus would seal Satan’s fate. Satan was the one who wanted to be like God. Satan was the one who wanted to be worshiped as God, and on the cross as Jesus would die for the sins of the world, He would prove His ultimate righteous status and through His resurrection from the dead, He would prove His ultimate authority. The cross and the empty tomb would point to the only One who is worthy of all honor and glory and praise and Satan would be crushed and doomed to Hell’s flames in eternity.
While Adam and Eve did have to still deal with the physical consequences of sin, God took away their shame and forgave them. We read about how God covered them. Those fig leaves were a human attempt to cover themselves. Human attempts to cover sin will never be enough. We can’t do enough good deeds to be accepted by God. The Bible says that our righteousness, our good deeds, are like filthy rags before a holy God, Isaiah 64:6. We can’t work hard enough to impress God. We don’t have what it takes to save ourselves from sin, but the good news is, the One who created us is the One who offers to cover our sin.
And we see in Genesis 3:21 that even though God dealt mercifully, compassionately, and graciously with Adam and Eve, it still required a sacrifice of blood. Covering them physically with clothes made of animal skin still required the shedding of blood. They didn’t wear live animals on their backs. How do you think God got the animal skins to make the clothes for Adam and Eve? Animals had to be slain for Adam and Eve to be covered. There had to be a shedding of blood. Atonement for sin required something precious. An “I’m sorry,” wasn’t enough to atone for sin.
God wanted Adam and Eve to understand how costly sin was. It was going to cost the lives of innocent animals. It was going to require blood as payment. He wants us to understand the same. That’s why Jesus died. But here is the wonderful news. Jesus went to the cross willingly so that we didn’t have to deal with the humiliation, the embarrassment, the fear, and the condemnation of sin. He took the place of every sinner when He offered His life’s blood to pay the debt that sin had created. Humanity created the problem through disobedience to God. He offered the solution by sending Jesus to give His life as a ransom for us. That is how much God loves everyone He has created.
We each must be rescued by God. We each must be covered by God in order to escape the spiritual consequences of sin. When Adam and Eve sinned, a sinful nature, the desire for the wrong things, a desire for a life apart from the authority of God, was passed on to everyone who was born. We are born with a problem, a spiritual defect. Look at Romans 5:12-“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.”
Romans 3:23 tells us that “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The question that God asked Adam and Eve after they sinned…the question He asked when they heard the sound of His footsteps…He is still asking today. “Where are you?” Where are you with God? Where are you with sin? Where are you with human attempts to cover yourself? Have you let God cover you through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross? Only God can cleanse a human heart. Only God can make a person new. The One who created us can recreate us when we receive forgiveness of sin through Jesus sacrifice on our behalf. Have you been covered? Are you ready to be covered?
Adam and Eve tried living on their own apart from God. They tried doing life on their terms. They tried being in charge. It didn’t work. It won’t work. Even though God covered them and forgave their sin, there were physical consequences that made their life difficult. Sin makes life difficult. It never makes it easier or better.
It’s true you have free reign to live the way you want to, but once you choose a life of sin, you lose that freedom because sin begins to reign in you. Sin begins to call the shots. Sin becomes the master of your life. You can’t stop when you want to. You can’t just do it once. You can’t just do it on the weekends. You can’t just walk away. No, sin sets up house in you. Sin begins to control you. The Bible says sin has dominion over you when you are on the throne of your life. Isn’t that sad? We were made to have dominion, but when we choose to disobey God, the life we choose begins to have dominion over us. Sin dominates us.
But it is not too late to be released from the bondage of sin. When you turn away from self and turn toward God and ask Him to cover your sin, He will. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
And in addition to being cleansed of sin, you can be given power to resist temptation, to trust God, and to do life His way. You can be set free from the penalty of sin, but you can also be free from the presence of sin through the power of God!
How? You come by way of the cross. What that means is that you recognize that your sin is an offense to God. Your sin cost Jesus His life. Your sin separates you from God. Your sin changes who God created you to become. Your sin puts you on the throne of your life, and you want God to be on the throne of your life instead. You want Him to rule you. You don’t want to rule yourself. You don’t want sin to rule you. And by the power of the cross, you want God to evict sin from your life and give you power to live holy as God is holy.
The cross was an instrument of death for Jesus, but it becomes the place of life for all who will trust Jesus for salvation and allow Him to lead their lives.
The truth about sin is that it is DISOBEDIENCE to God.
The truth about sin is that it DISTORTS who we were created to become.
The truth about sin is that it causes spiritual DEATH.
The truth about sin is that it makes our lives DIFFICULT.
The truth about sin is that you can’t manage it. It will DOMINATE you.
The truth about sin is that you can be DELIVERED from the power and presence of sin in your life.
I’m choosing the way of the cross. I’m choosing to let Christ lead my life. I’m choosing to be covered by the blood. I’m choosing obedience to God over sin. I’m choosing to be crucified with Christ and to allow Him to live His life through me.
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