In The Beginning - The Fall Series

2024.02.04.Sermon notes. IN THE BEGINNING - THE FALL

William Akehurst, HSWC

BIG IDEA: GOD created the Heavens and the Earth, and a Garden, a true Paradise, for it was GOOD. HE made man in HIS image, and gave man free choice. GOD gave rules, and man disobeyed, sinned. From Paradise to thorns, Sin destroys what GOD has created for good.

Scriptures: Genesis 2:4-25, Genesis 3:1-24, 1 John 2:16, James 1:12-15, 1 Timothy 4:1-2, Revelation 22:1-5, Revelation 22:13-14, 1 Corinthians 15:45-49, Romans 8:2, Colossians 3:4, Proverbs 4:20-22, Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, Romans 6:23

Romans 6:23 (NKJV) For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Genesis 2:4-25 (NLT) The Man and Woman in Eden

4 When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5 neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. For the LORD God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil. 6 Instead, springs came up from the ground and watered all the land. 7 Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.

8 Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. 9 The LORD God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground—trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches.

11-14 (The 4 branches: Pishon, Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates).

MAN PLACED TO TEND THE GARDEN

15 The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.

GOD’S ONE RULE – ONE LAW

16 But the LORD God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—

17 except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

ADAM’S DOMINION OF THE ANIMALS

ADAM NAMES ALL THE ANIMALS

18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” 19 So the LORD God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one. 20 He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds of the sky, and all the wild animals. But still there was no helper just right for him.

A HELPER FOR MAN

21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the LORD God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.

23 “At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone,

and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’”

THE PRINCIPLE OF MARRIAGE

24 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

INDICATION OF SINLESSNESS

25 Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.

TEMPTATION AND DECEITFULNESS

Genesis 3:1-24 The Temptation and Fall of Man

GENESIS 3:1-6

1 The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”

TACTIC OF SATAN – TESTING AND TEMPTING…CHALLENGES GOD’S AUTHORITY (WORD), IN YOUR LIFE AND TO BRING DOUBT TO YOUR THINKING AND ACTIONS.

PUSHING YOU INTO THE WRONG DIRECTION OR TO QUESTION GOD.

SIN—JUST AS A CHILD TESTS, PUSHES BACK A PARENT’S AUTHORITY.

WOMAN’S MISINTERPRETATION OF GOD’S WORD

2 “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. 3 “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”

DECEPTION OF TRUTH LEADS TO TEMPTATION

4 “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. 5 “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”