A Message From The First Mother

A MESSAGE FROM THE FIRST MOTHER

Gen. 3:1-7 "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto 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 hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree [was] good for food, and that it [was] pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make [one] wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and

he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they [were] naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons."

Let us state from the very start that these words are true. It is not, as some socalled higher critics would have you believe, a creation myth or an allegorical story. This is an accurate historical account of man's very real first encounter and

experience with sin and it's consequences. If this is not the case, then we can completely disregard every other story and truth in the Old and New Testaments. It is significant that the writers of the gospels included Adam in the genealogy and lineage of Jesus Christ.

It is also clear that the Holy Spirit had Paul to rely on the

historical and theological accuracy of this account, when He inspired him to inform us of the long term consequences of our ancestors actions. "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men,

for that all have sinned: . . . But not as the offence, so also [is] the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, [which is] by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many." (Ro. 5:12

&15)

We could discuss the impact of this encounter and expound upon the great doctrines of original sin and abounding grace, but let us instead simply examine the incident from the view point of the first mother, Eve. Have you ever heard the expression, "If these walls had ears and could speak to us of the things that have

happened within them."?

Many have speculated on what Moses and Elijah might have said to our Saviour on the Mt. of Transfiguration. No one knows, but they were

surely important words of encouragement from that other world. We know what the rich man would have had Lazarus say to his brothers back on planet earth. He would have warned him of the consequences and wages of sin. Have you every considered what some of those who

have gone on before us would say to our generation of they could come back and talk with us today?

Have you heard the story of the elephant and the rooster in a zoo? They were confined in the same enclosure. Due to the vast disparity in their size the elephant suggested they each make a set of rules for peaceful co-existence. They separated and came back together at the appointed time; each with a list of suggested rules to agree upon. The elephant read a long list of rules, beginning with a prohibition upon pre-dawn crowing. When it came the rooster's turn he said, "I have only one rule." "What's that," the elephant said. "There will be no stepping on each other!!" The rooster said. Obviously, that would be a deadly disaster.

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dam and Eve just had one rule - but they broke it. Eve had just one command to keep, but she couldn't keep it and the result was a deadly disaster for her and all her descendants.

I believe it was Franklin who first said, "Experience is a dear

school, but fools will learn in no other." Someone else once said, "The only thing man learns from history is that he doesn't learn from history." Just a word to the wise should be sufficient, but often it is not. We certainly should profit by the mistakes of others. Let us speculate a moment, with this story as a basis, what the first woman, the mother of us all, would say if she could speak to us today. What would her message be?