Drastic Change! Series

Intro:

1. I confess I like to watch old shows like the Twighlight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, etc.

One episode was about a woman serving life in a prison. Through the years she had become friends with one of the prison guards. His job was to bury the prisoners that died.

He had a predictable proceedure. When someone died he would (1) ring a bell, which alerted all the prisoners that someone had died; (2) next he would fill out the death certificate; then (3) he would nail the casket shut; and (4) finally he would put the casket on a wagon and take it to the graveyard for burial.

This woman prisoner one day shared with him, her plan for escape - after hearing the bell she would pick the lock on her cell and sneak down to the dark room where the coffins were kept.

She would slip into the coffin, next to the dead body already in there. He would nail the coffin shut and take it our and bury it, she knew that there would be enough air to keep her alive until he came back and to dig up the coffin and letting her go free.

The prison guard did not like the idea, but because they were close friends he reluctantly agreed.

It took several months but the day came when she heard the bell ring. She picked the lock and headed for the room. She opened the lid of the coffin and quickly jumped in with the corpse. And waited.

Before long she could hear him nailing the coffin shut, and was headed out to the grave yard. Soon she could heard the dirt hitting the top of the casket. She was delighted - soon she would be set free!

She waited and waited but no one came. Then out of curiosity she lit a match to see who was buried next to her. To her horror, it was her friend, the prison guard! It ended with her hopelessly screaming...

2. Eve thought her plan was a good one! But it would not belong before she would discover her and Adam had become spiritual corpses, in a horrable and hopeless situation.

3. Knowing Good and Evil changed them Drastically.

Trans:We have seen it was due to clear Disobedience; it brought forth Death; caused Self, instead of God, to Determine what was good.

Gen. 3:7-

I. FIRST, IT CAUSED THEM TO BE SELF ABSORBED. 7

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. Genesis 3:7 (NKJV)

A. Their Seeing.

eyes wide open - Matthew Henry, "Now, when it was too late, they saw the folly of eating forbidden fruit. They saw the happiness they had fallen from, and the misery they had fallen into. They saw a loving God provoked...they saw dominion over the creatures gone. They saw their natures corrupted and depraved, and felt a disorder in their own spirits, of which, they had never before been conscious...They saw themselves disrobed of all their honor and were disgraced in the highest degree."

They saw their nakedness - they are now self-conscious; self-centered; self-aborbed.

Dudly, "When Adam and Eve chose independence from God, they instantly found themselves self-conscious. They looked and realized they were naked, for the first time they experienced shame. Since that time, natural beings have been living self-consciously - aware of being incomplete and flawed."

Not all knowledge is good!

"For in much [human] wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." Ecclesiastes 1:18 (AMP)

"9 So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, For my heart rejoiced in all my labor; And this was my reward from all my labor. 11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done And on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun." Ecclesiastes 2:9-11 (NKJV)

"Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind." Ecclesiastes 2:17 (NKJV)

"Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, And let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth; Walk in the ways of your heart, And in the sight of your eyes; But know that for all these God will bring you into judgment." Ecclesiastes 11:9 (NKJV)

Sauer, "Sin is mutiny against God. The human "I" now stepped into the place of the dethroned God and became king on the throne. According to God's plan man was to be like a point on the circumfrence, dependent upon God as he center.