I've Fallen And I Can't Get Up Series

Sunday AM—7/10/05

SERIES: Genesis—The First Soap Opera

MESSAGE 2: I’ve Fallen & I Can’t Get Up—Genesis 3

Felt Need Intro:

Have you ever seen the movie called, “Pleasantville”? It’s kind of a mixture between Back to the Future and The Truman Show and the Twilight Zone all at the same time.

• Explain movie.

• Set up movie clip.

• Show movie clip 27

David doesn’t fit in at his high school. Thought of as a "geek," he is obsessed with a 50s era television show called Pleasantville. After a surprise visit from a supernatural TV repairman, David and his popular sister, Jennifer, find themselves physically transported into the television town of Pleasantville, where their modern attitudes threaten the stability of this black and white sit-com world. Their interaction with the townspeople has some unexpected results.

Movie’s Sermon General’s Warning:

Pleasantville contains profanity, violence, and sexual situations.

Rating: PG-13 Genre: Fantasy

The Big Idea:

The Fall -- Hollywood style.

Scene Setup:

Margaret and David (known as Bud in Pleasantville) are by the lake up at Lover’s Lane. It is an idyllic setting -- like the Garden of Eden. Margaret is full of curiosity; she is seeking knowledge about the outside world.

Scene:

Margaret wants to know what the outside world is like, so she asks David. He tells her that it is "louder, and scarier, I guess. And it’s a lot more dangerous."

Instead of recoiling, Margaret says, "It sounds fantastic." Then she tells David about a group of kids who came up to the lake to go skinny-dipping. She offers David some berries, saying she picked them herself. She eats one first, then puts the rest in his hands. She tells him, "There’s lots of stuff." He asks, "Like what?" Margaret gets up and says, "Here, I’ll show you."

She runs across the grass to an apple tree in the garden. She reaches up and plucks a red apple and carries it to David. She kneels down, holds it out to him, and says, "Here, try it."

Application:

Later in the film, David participates in a mural painting in which the apple is depicted as having a snake coiled about it -- but even without the added imagery, there is no mistaking the Garden of Eden thrust to this scene. The exception is that there is no resulting shame from disobedience, no God walking in the garden, no judgment, and no exile. This is the Fall, Hollywood-style.

Margaret doesn’t understand the consequences of her desire to live a more dangerous life, because all she has ever known has been the pleasantness of Pleasantville. She would prefer to abandon the garden if it meant that she could live this unknown, loud, scary life with David. She wants knowledge, and she wants it by experience.

Sermon General’s Warning:

None for this scene.

Rating: PG-13 Genre: Fantasy

DVD Chapter: 0 Start Time: 1:11:22 End Time: 1;12;27

The point of this movie is to show you that it really isn’t all that bad to taste of the fruit. In this version, there is no punishment. Those that would stand up against later are just shown that they have the same desires in their heart and they should just go for it. Do you know what this clip is titled by the makers of the movie. It’s called, “From the tree of knowledge”. Not the knowledge of good and evil. Just knowledge. Because in Hollywood’s version of the fall, there is no evil and there is no consequences. Well, that’s not the Bible’s version.

Turn with me to Genesis 3.

Introduce series.

Genesis 3:1-24—“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’?"

2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 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 certainly 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."

6 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.

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?"