In The Beginning! Series

Spiritual Warfare - 3

In the Beginning

October 17, 2021

For the past 2 messages we’ve been looking at spiritual warfare. We looked at the fact that we’re in a war, that satan is out to destroy us, if we allow him. Then we looked at the start of it all, the fall of satan, some of the reasons and now we’re at a point where we need to look back, way back to see what the first interaction was like . . . as satan slithered about as a serpent.

We’re going to look at Genesis 3 and a few other passages which go along with this passage. As I’ve been studying about this topic, I really believe the passage from Genesis 3 is one of the key chapters in the Bible. We’re talking about the Fall of humanity into sin.

If we don’t understand this passage, then we won’t grasp why there’s evil and suffering.

If we don’t understand the importance of this chapter, then we will not understand or be able to grasp the work of Christ, nor will we understand the cross of Christ. This is one of the key chapters in the Bible. This is where everything goes wrong and the rest of the Bible is about making everything right.

On the surface, it may seem so simple, but I think there’s a lot below the surface that we either don’t get or have never thought of.

To fully understand what happened, we need to look even further back than Genesis 3. We need to jump to Genesis 2! In verses 8-9, we read - - -

8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He put the man whom He had formed.

9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. - Genesis 2:8-9

Adam’s in the garden, and the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were both in the garden. Now jump to verses 16-17 --

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,

17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” - Genesis 2:16-17

It’s pretty clear, eat from any tree in the garden, but don’t eat from this one tree.

Now, before we get too far into this . . . understand that many believe the 2 trees, while real, also represent something more. One tree represents life, the other represents death.

This scene in the garden makes it clear that there will be acts which bring death and an act that brings life. And when we think about it, these 2 themes run through the rest of the Bible.

After the Fall, God placed a guard at the Tree of Life to protect them from eating it. That tree is never mentioned again until the very last chapter of the Bible. In Revelation 22:14, the people now have access to it - - -

14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the TREE OF LIFE and that they may enter the city by the gates.

Sin is gone! And access to the tree of life is available for those who are in Christ. What an amazing hope we have in Christ. After the fall, we read in Genesis 3:24 - 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Now there’s no going back to the garden. The garden is guarded until the end times. And I believe one of our greatest desires we have is to return to the garden. I don’t believe we can articulate that, but I believe humanity was created in the garden and for the garden. Our longing is to return to our roots. We were created for the garden, but now that we aren’t there, we long for it, but can’t return until we enter eternal life with God.

So, one of our struggles occurs because we don’t know what to do about getting into the garden. We try all kinds of things to get back, and that’s where satan comes in. He knows that’s our longing. And he helps us find other things to fill that void. satan tempts us with all types of different means to turn to him and be led further away from God into pretend gardens.