All right. The title of this
lesson is The Fall. The Fall. We have in this chapter a reason or the
reason for every heartache, every argument, every war, every problem known to the human
race. Right here it is in chapter three. We come to now to Adam's fall
and the whole human race falls in Adam. Now, I know that sounds
like foolishness to the worldly wise man. He would rather He
would rather that he came from a monkey than he came from Adam. And the reason being, to believe
this account of creation, to believe the account of the fall,
would make him responsible to his Creator. You know, to believe
in evolution, you know, I'm not responsible, I just act in glory. It doesn't make me responsible
to anybody, but when you believe this, you know you're now accountable
to the one who created you, God. Now it says the serpent was more
subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had
made. And here he starts talking to Eve. Notice the absence of
fear of an animal speaking to you. There's no fear. Because she had not known sin
yet, and we'll see this in just a little bit, after Adam had
sinned, when he heard the voice of God, what was it he became?
Afraid. Afraid. But until that time,
there was no such thing as fear or being afraid. And when this
serpent began to speak to her, there was no fear. She had nothing
to fear. Sin brings in fear, the wrong
kind of fear now, the wrong kind of fear and being afraid. And he began to speak to her,
and he says here, he says, And he said to the woman, yea,
hath God said? Let's talk about what God has
said. You shall not eat of every tree
of the garden. Did God say that? Of course he
said that. You shall not eat of every tree
of the garden except that one in the knowledge of good and
evil. Satan is crafty. He's deceitful. He knew Eve was the link to getting
to Adam. He knew that. He knew that for
him to get to Adam, he's going to go through Eve. When I was
growing up, and I think this is probably the experience of
most all of you, but when I was growing up, I would go to mom
Would you ask dad if I can do this, if I can go here, if I
did that? All of us kids, seven of us kids,
every one of us would go to mom. And we would get mom to go to
dad to see if we can get what we wanted. And most of the time,
99% of the time, she'd do it. She'd go ask or she'd go talk
to dad, you know. But that's just what we do. And
that's what Satan's doing here. He's gonna get at Adam through
Eve. And I believe what happened here, he caught Eve away from
Adam. She was close to this tree. I
believe she might've been standing aside, but she's very close to
this tree. And he takes advantage of that situation. And he began
to speak to her of what God said. What God said. Satan uses God's
word on Eve. It can't be all bad. It can't
be all bad if he's using God's Word. No, it can't. He can't
be bad. He's using God's Word. He's repeating
what God said. So what Satan's doing here, he's
challenging her knowledge. He's challenging her knowledge
of what God said. What God said. God said, he's
challenging her knowledge is what he's doing. Do you ever
hear people say this to you? I've had it said to me so many
times. Doesn't the Bible say, and then
I've heard them, I've had them say things to me and they're
like, where did you get that? And I've said, no, the Bible
doesn't say that. In fact, that's nowhere even in the scriptures,
not even close. But doesn't the Bible say, hasn't
God said, well, you can just hear, you can just hear Satan's
voice in that. And what Satan does here, he
misrepresents the Word of God. He takes it, he's gonna put a
twist on the Word of God. And I tell you, when you do that,
you don't have the Word of God no more. You don't have truth
no more. If you put just a speck of lie in truth, you don't have
truth no more. It's not the truth no more. No
matter how small that little twist is, that little lie is,
you don't have the truth no more. And the woman said to the serpent,
we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
has said you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it,
lest you die. Eve had no reason to expect such
evil. She had no reason to expect that. She had not known sin yet. She didn't know what that was.
However, when the word of God was brought in question, when
it was brought into question, that should have raised a red
flag. That should have raised a red flag. But Satan got her
attention, and then he got her interest, and then he got her
talking. And that's the way he does, he
gets your interest, he'll get your attention, he'll get your
interest, then he'll get you talking, he'll get you considering
it, thinking about it, next thing you know, You're in trouble. You're in trouble. Eve knew the
command of not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. And that should have been enough. No, God said not
to do it. God said, do not eat of this tree. No matter what
Satan says after that, that conversation should have stopped. No, this
is what God said, and this is it. Isn't that what the Lord
did in the wilderness of temptation? Did he not say, it is written,
this is what God said, and then he put a stop to it. The conversation
went no further. When Satan was tempting him to
disobey God, to bow down and worship Him, or to cast himself
down, he always said, it's written. This is what God said, and this
is the end of it. But with her, that conversation
kept going on. And that's when we get in trouble,
when we just keep letting it go on. And that's why, and this
is so, and I tell you this, this is why you don't argue with false
religion. Because you're the one who's
gonna end up being drawn in. You're the one who's gonna end
up in trouble. Because Satan is not gonna let
up. He's not gonna let up. I have learned, if I'm gonna
talk to somebody about the gospel, the first thing I want them to
do is shut up. The first thing I want them to
do is shut up and listen. Now, we're not gonna go back
and forth, we're not gonna, if that starts, I shut up. I'm telling
you, when that starts, I shut up. Because I know I'm not gonna
get anywhere because Satan's not gonna shut up. And you're
not gonna convince a man against his so-called will. God is the one who convinces
us. God is the one who reveals to us the gospel. He's the one
who gives us understanding. He's the one who shuts us up
and makes us listen. Until that happens, you're not
gonna get anywhere. But Eve had no reason to expect
such evil. Satan got her attention. Eve
knew the command. She quoted the Scriptures, and
that's where it should have ended. That's where it should have ended.
But Satan puts a big question mark, I put here, on the Word
of God, but he also puts a big question mark on the character
of God. That God's holding something back. There's just something
missing. Something's going on here, Eve.
Something's going on. He puts a big question mark on
the word of God. No, you shall not die. You're
not gonna die. If you eat it, and I don't, I have
no doubt. I have no doubt. He probably
took a bite of it right there, standing right there talking
to her, took a bite of it. See, I'm not, it didn't affect
me. But here's what Satan is suggesting.
God will not do that to you, you're His creation. You're not
gonna die, you're God's chief creation. You won't die. And Eve, not knowing sin, never
having known it, I'm thinking she could not, when I was looking
at this, she could not have really understood and known what death
meant. She'd never die. Nothing had
ever died. She had never seen anything die.
Everything she experienced was full of life. She didn't even know what that
really was. To die. This is where Satan takes advantage
of us. Our lack of experience. Go ahead. Try. Try it. You'll like it. Don't worry. You won't get in
trouble. He takes advantage of our lack
of experience and knowledge. And notice here what he says
in verse 5, and I know we're not gonna go through all this.
He said, here's what God knows. Eve, here's what God knows. And
brethren, anytime somebody puts a question mark on God, that
conversation should stop. Here's what God knows, that in
the day you eat thereof, Your eyes will be open to evil. There's
a lot of things you don't know that God's withholding from you.
There are things that God's withholding from you. Yes, there are evil. It's called evil. Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from what? Evil. Evil. But God does know that in the
day you eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and you shall
be as gods. You shall be as gods, knowing
good. They knew good. She knew good.
Adam knew good. He knew God. God is good. There's no good but God. They
knew good. What they didn't know was the
evil. The evil. They knew nothing about evil
and sin and wickedness in any way, shape, or form because God
did not give that to them. That did not come from God. Righteousness,
innocence, that's what God created. And one of the things that stood
out here to me is Satan's absolute, total lack of fear of God. There was zero fear of God Almighty. Satan knew God. Those demons said to Christ one
time, have you come to torment us before the time? Have you come to torment us?
They knew they were going to be tormented. But even in the
face of that knowledge, They still did not say, Lord, would
you be merciful to us? Lord, would you save us? Would
you have pity on us? Right in the face of God and
knowing he's gonna torment them, they still don't cry for mercy.
They still don't do that. You know why? Because true repentance
is a gift of God. And if God does not give and
grant true repentance, no man, no woman will repent and ask
for mercy no matter how bad things get. Right in the face of knowing
they're going to perish. I've watched, I've seen it, especially
one time comes to my mind, a person I watched die. And this person
right up to the point of when they died had no remorse of their
sins. None. No repentance. No repentance at all. Satan has no fear of God. He
lies on God, suggesting that God is not good for His Word.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good, and here comes
the trouble. He got her attention, got her
interest, and now she's looking and she's considering. Hmm. That is a good looking tree.
That's good looking fruit. She saw it was good for food,
as if, listen, as if she needed any more food. They had the whole
garden. My soul, I imagine every fruit,
every thing you could imagine. She had a buffet. She had a buffet of fruit. of everything they wanted to
eat, needed to eat, it was there. And it was perfect. There was no bugs on it or anything. It was perfect. And yet, this
one tree, this one tree, out of all those, it's hard telling
them thousands upon thousands upon thousands of trees, it was
a garden. It was a garden. And that one tree, she goes,
hmm. Well, that does look good for
food. But God said, don't eat it. Yeah,
but you know what? I can't see anything wrong with
eating that fruit, that food. But God said, don't eat it. There's no poison in that fruit
on that tree. There's no poison in it. There
was no sin. There's no sin in that fruit. Sin came from Adam. Sin comes
from the heart. And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes,
good to look at, and a tree to be desired to make
one wise, my soul, they were geniuses. Both of them, they
were geniuses. And so what she does, she just,
in her mind, in her thoughts, she's saying, you know, there's
nothing wrong with this. There's nothing wrong with this. And she reached up, took it,
and started eating it. And then she did eat and gave
also to her husband with her, and he did eat. Eve has taken the bait, just
like yesterday when I was out fishing with my grandson. And
we had used nothing but lures. And he reeled it in and wham,
took the bait. Took that lure and reeled him
in. And that's what he did here.
He reeled her right in. She took the bait. Tree was good. There's no poison in it. It's
pleasant to look at. And top it off, we all want to
be smarter and wiser, don't we? We all want that. But listen,
wisdom doesn't come that way. Wisdom doesn't come that way. But the fall doesn't happen.
It does not happen till Adam eats the fruit. That's when the
fall really happens. When Adam, when the head of the
human race, when the federal head, the representative of the
human race, when he eats, when he eats, that's when the fall happens.
Now, I wasn't there, so I don't know how all this played out,
but I believe that she took it, she ate of it, I believe he saw
that, and he realized what happened. He knew what happened. And he willingly disobeyed God
and took it with her. Went ahead and took it with her.
That's why I believe our Lord says, he that loves mother, father,
sister, brother more than me is not worthy of me. He that
loves the creature more than the creator is not worthy of
me. And that's what Adam did. Adam
loved the creature more than he loved God. Look over in 1 Timothy. I want
to read this to you. When I said the fall didn't happen
until Adam took of the fruit. It says in 1 Timothy 2, verse
13, For Adam was first formed, then
Eve. And Adam was not deceived. But the woman being deceived...
See, Eve was deceived. She had never experienced sin.
She didn't know what death was. And Satan's standing there quoting
the Word of God, and saying that God's holding back something
from you, and you'll be like God's. knowing good and evil. And Eve saw nothing wrong with
that. She just hadn't experienced anything
to even know what wrong was, to really understand it. But
here it says, Adam was not deceived. I tell you what, that says a
whole lot. There's a whole lot being said there. Adam was not
deceived. Adam knew exactly what he was
doing. When he took the fruit, see when
Eve took it, she was totally deceived, completely deceived. When Adam took it, he did it with his eyes wide
open. He knew what he was doing. He knew exactly what he was doing. And he did it anyway. He did
it anyway. If my wife, listen, if my wife
Goes off the deep end. If she, if she denies God, am
I going to? Is it alright for me to do that?
Because she didn't? Because the one I love? No. No. But that's what Adam did. That's
what he did. And when this happened, it says
the eyes of them both were opened. And they knew for the first time
that they were naked. They felt the guilt of that.
They felt the shame of that. Instead of becoming wise and
knowing good and evil and being like gods, they became devils. They became devils. That's what
happened. They knew they were naked. And
they sowed fig leaves. Listen, here are two geniuses. Here are two geniuses now. There's
so much for geniuses in this world that we call geniuses.
They're gonna sow fig leaves together. This is the most intelligent
man in the world, other than Jesus Christ, who is the wisdom
of God. But here's a man who was so intelligent
and named all the animals, and what do they do after they fall? They feel this guilt and this
shame because the law's written on the heart. That law that God
said, don't do that, don't eat of that tree, that's not written
on stone, that was written on the heart. And when they broke
that law, they knew they did wrong. Adam knew what he did,
and then he felt the shame and the guilt of it, and said, what
does this genius do? He picks up, they go get some
fig leaves, and they start sewing them together, try to hide their
shame. And that's exactly what false
religion does. That's exactly what false, false
religion is always sewing together fig leaves and trying to hide
guilt and shame. Their eyes were not open to wisdom,
but to evil. And here's the evil it was open
to. Now it's them. Now it's them. That's one of
the first things you realize when God begins a work of grace
in your heart. You realize, you realize the
evil is me. Sin is me. Sin's not everybody
else out here and I don't know what they're doing. They're just
a bunch of dummies. They're evil, they're sinful,
no. That's when you realize it's not them, it's me. It's me. Sin made them ignorant instead
of wise. And then they heard the voice
of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,
and Adam and his wife hid themselves. It just keeps going downhill,
doesn't it? It's just downhill. The first thing they do is try
to sow fig leaves and hide their nakedness. Now they hear the
voice of God. And then they try to hide. Instead
of running to their Creator, like a little child. You know
how a little child will run to his parents when they come to
pick him up, or that parent comes home and they just run to him?
Instead, they go try to find a tree. There's not a tree big
enough to hide us from God. God said, the night is light
before me. Can any, the scripture says,
can any hide himself from God? We cannot even hide a thought
from God. I can hide my thoughts from you.
You can hide yours from me. But we can't hide them from God. So they tried to hide among those
trees from the presence of the Lord God. That's what they tried
to do. when they should have been glad to have fellowship
with their Creator. This is so sad, but this is our
condition right here. When they should have been glad,
they were afraid, afraid of God. Afraid of Him. But the one, there's a good note
in this. It says that they went to hide
themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
When they heard God, they heard God walking in the garden in
the cool of the day. They did not hear thundering
and lightning like Israel did on Mount Sinai. They did not
hear thundering and lightning. I didn't hear that. They heard
a calm, a calm voice. Saying, Adam, Adam, where are
you? Where are you at, Adam? You're
not in the place that you always have been when I come to the
garden. You go over in the Song of Solomon
and it speaks of the Lord coming into his garden. I read this
to you not too long ago. He came into his garden. When
he came to the Garden of Eden, it's like Adam wasn't there to
grieve. Now, first of all, God is not
asking Adam where he is because he doesn't know where he is.
God is asking Adam, where are you? Because he's gonna reveal
to Adam where he really is. That's what's gonna happen. God
doesn't ask for information. He doesn't ask for information.
And when we pray, we don't pray to inform God as if he didn't
know. We pray to show our dependence
upon the Lord. Prayer, listen, prayer is for
our benefit. It's our benefit. God already
knows. He knows before we even ask,
before we even call upon Him, He knows. And the answer is already
ready. Adam, where are you? Adam, here's where you really
are. Same place every one of us, when God calls us in sin. Dead in trespasses and sins,
that's where we are. And Adam replies, I heard thy
voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and
I hid myself. This is the first time fear has
entered the heart of God's creation. I heard your voice
and I was afraid. I was afraid. The only reason, Adam, you have
a reason to be afraid is because of something that you are, you've
become, you've done. That's the only reason. And God
said, who told you? Adam, who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil? Have you eaten of that tree I
commanded you not to? What he's doing here, he's making
Adam confess his sin. You remember that woman with
the issue of blood, how she came behind the Lord and touched the
hem of His garment, and then she just tried to slip back out
of the crowd? And the Lord turned around and said, who touched
me? It's not as though He didn't know who touched Him. He knew
exactly who touched Him. But He was not gonna let her
slip away. He was gonna make her confess
why she touched Him and the results of it. And he turned around and that
woman, you know, she was shy and embarrassed. And she confessed
why she had touched him. And that's what God's going to
do. He's going to make Adam confess. And that's exactly what God's
going to do when he saves a sinner. That sinner is going to confess
why. Why? You need Christ. Why I need Christ. That's what he's going to do. Have you eaten that which I said
don't eat? Have you broken that commandment,
Adam? And Adam said, yes, I broke that
commandment. Yes, I shouldn't have done that.
Lord, forgive me. The woman This woman that was
created for Him, this woman that was so beautiful, this woman
that God brought from His side for Him to protect and to care
for, He said, the woman you gave Me. He turned on His own wife. And now, how fickle is human
love? It's so fickle. It's written in Isaiah. Would
a mother forget her sucking child? You know what the answer is?
It says, yes, she will. Yes, she will. They've been found
in trash cans. Yes, she will. But God said,
but I'll not forget you. My love's not fickle. My love
doesn't change. But Adam turned on his wife.
You see, that's what Satan said to God concerning Job. Skin for
skin. He said, let me touch you. Let
me touch you. He said, Joe will give you up
to save his life. Skin for skin. True repentance
happens. Now get this if you don't get
anything else. True repentance happens when we quit blaming
others and we just lay the blame on ourselves. We don't blame
this or that. It's me. Guilty. Guilty. And then the Lord God said to
the woman, what have you done? And then what'd she do? She blames
the serpent. She blames the serpent. And the Lord God said to the
serpent, because thou hast done this, I'm gonna close with this.
Because thou hast done this, you're cursed above all the cattle,
above every beast of the field, upon thy belly, thou shalt go
and thus shalt thou eat all the days of your life. I'm gonna
put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her
seed. It'll bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. Now
comes the remedy, but we'll deal with that next week. All right.