THE GREATEST DANGER IN THE WORLD (GENESIS 3:1-24)
When I was in Chicago for continuing education, my cousin and his wife bought a box of chocolates for snacks. The chocolates were not popular buys like See’s Candies, Hawaiian Mauna Loa or Godiva. They were inexpensive, purchased from a nearby wholesale supermarket. The brand name was not catchy either.
Chocolates are bad for me. They make my throat dry and I literally get sick. Though I declared to my cousin my indifference to chocolates, I could not take my eyes off the box the next few days every time I passed it, especially as they lay neglected on the kitchen.
The more I laid my eyes on the chocolates, the more I was drawn to the smooth texture, exquisite packaging, and direct come-ons. What contested my resistance was the shiny clear plastic box, with almond shavings topping the chocolates, and the wickedly tempting label: “The Elegantly Sinful Sweet Chocolates.”
Finally I caved in! Worse, to my disappointment at my great sacrifice, I discovered they were just ordinary fare, the usual standard chocolates. They were not any tastier, newer, or fancier than others I had eaten.
Genesis 3 introduces the doctrine of original sin, the downfall of man, and God’s divine grace. Man was with God and had a comfortable home. Everything he did was prim and proper and praiseworthy. The bar was, however, raised when he wanted to be like God, not just to be with God. He was promised infinity and beyond, and he began to resent rules and regulations and regimen.
In this passage, we learn of Satan’s tricks, man’s troubles and God’s provision for sinful man. Temptation is not sin. God tempts no one (Jas 1:13), and man does have a way out of temptation (1 Cor 10:13). What strategy does the devil use? Why do our troubles grow when we submit to temptation? And how is God faithful to His children in their transgressions?
Satan Deceives Believers and Sows a Trail of Discontentment
3:1 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 surely 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. (Gen 3:1-7)
A salesman circled a building block for a long time before he ran out of patience and, in exasperation, parked his car illegally in a no-parking zone. Fearing he would get a ticket, he left this note just in case a policeman might come along: “I’ve circled this block twenty times. I have an appointment and I must keep it or I will lose my job. Forgive us of our trespasses!”
Upon returning, his worst fears were realized. He found this note on his car: “I’ve circled this block for twenty years. If I don’t give you a ticket, I’ll lose my job. Lead us not into temptation!”
Satan’s most dangerous tool is deception. The devil is a tempter (1 Thess 3:5), a liar (John 8:44) and an accuser (Rev 12:10). He is crafty (3:1) and he uses words, images and insinuations to entice God’s people. Someone said, “Sin as a caterpillar is dangerous, but sin as a butterfly is a thousand times worse” (Megiddo Message).
Do you know a question is a double-edged sword? A question has the potential to make a person think positively or negatively and make an individual improve or imagine things. The first question in the Bible was a seductive lie, not a quest for truth. It opened a can of worms for Eve.
The first lie of the ancient serpent, also known as the devil, or Satan (Rev 12:9), was in the form of a negative question. God’s original command to Adam was put in the positive form, then followed by a negative prohibition: “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” (Gen 2:16-17).
However, Eve foolishly added to God’s word: “You must not touch it, or you will die.” (3:2-3) The serpent began, in verse 2, by contradicting God’s word in the form of a question (“Did God really say, `You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”), but Eve changed God’s word by adding the word “touch,” and dropping the important word “surely” (“ you must not touch it, or you will die”), and so she played right into Satan’s hand and became an unwitting captive to Satan’s first outright lie: “You will not surely die” (3:4), teasing her: “No way! Absolutely not! Not possible! You will see far and wide, rule heaven and earth, and know truth from error!”
The devil appeals to our physical senses, inner pride and human judgment to snare us. He pounds on our ignorance, vanity and pride. Entertaining him makes us vulnerable, foolish and weak.
Man Disobeys God and Reaps a Whirlwind of Destruction
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?" 10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." 11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" 12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." 14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." 16 To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." 17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ’You must not eat of it,’ "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." (Gen 3:7-19)
Disobedience is like releasing the genie that has no intention to return to the bottle.
A man came to a rabbi and said, “Oh Rabbi, I have done wrong. I have slandered my friend. I have told lies about him. I have spread rumors. But now I am sorry for what I have done and what I have said. I’ve gone to my friend to tell him how sorry I am and ask his forgiveness. And out of the goodness of his heart, he has forgiven me. But now I have to seek forgiveness from God for breaking His commandments. So I’ve come to you, my teacher, to ask: How can I be forgiven by God for slandering and gossiping about my friend?”
The rabbi looked thoughtfully at the man, and then he asked, “Do you see that feather pillow over there on my bed? Take that pillow and go into the center of town, into the town square, and cut the pillow open and let all the feathers fly to the wind. That will be your punishment for what you have done, for all the ill words you have spoken.”
The man was quite puzzled by the rabbi’s instructions, but he did just as he was told. He took the feathers pillow to the center of town, cut it open, and watched the feathers fly away in the wind. Then he returned to the rabbi and said, “I’ve done just as you told me. I took the feather pillow to the center of town, cut it opened, and watched the feathers fly to the wind. Now I am forgiven for slandering and gossiping about my friend?”
The rabbi replied, “No, you are not forgiven yet. For you have only fulfilled half your task. First you let the feathers fly to the wind. Now go out and collect every feather that flew away.” (From “The Business Bible” by Rabbi Wayne Dosick, Bits and Pieces 7/12/96)
The greatest danger facing man today is not the threat of AIDS, a nuclear meltdown, a computer glitch, or weapons of mass destruction, but the deceitfulness of sin. The promise of more money, better sex, powerful drugs, or intoxicating power are all damaging lies -- white lies, true lies, and, as some people naively call it, beautiful lies. The fallout from believing Satan’s lies was irreversible and irreparable. The curse man suffered was irrevocable. Sadly, he became the world’s most dangerous animal.
Sin inflicted a four-fold damage upon humanity: separation from God, inner conflict, disconnect from one another, and threat to creation. Adam and Eve thought they would be like God, but they discovered they were so different that their first instinct in the presence of God was to run and hide and disappear from His presence (3:9).
The man and woman also experienced something inside them they had not felt before (3:10): fear, mortification and panic. Inevitably, grief, hatred and anger followed (10). They hid from God, fudged over God’s three questions, and blamed the devil, using the ancient but lame “The devil made me do it” excuse (v 13)
Later, they discovered they no longer liked each other (vv 12-13). Three words described their relationship with each another: shame, blame, and game. They felt ashamed in the other’s company (3:7), then started blaming each other (3:12-13) and finally played the first unfriendly battle of the sexes game – a contest they carried on for the rest of their lives (3:16). They began to see faults, weaknesses and imperfections in each other and were willing to expose them, excuse themselves, and exploit each other. Mark Twain once said, “Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.”
Finally, work once considered valuable, reasonable and purposeful was now unrewarding, unsatisfactory, and unfulfilling (3:17-19). They would have to toil for a living. Little, if any, time was left for reflection, recreation, or relationships. Dominion over anything from now on is a memory, a struggle and a joke. They will get no satisfaction till they return to dust!
God Delivers His Children and Imparts a Glimmer of Hope
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. 21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen 3:20-24)
Satan thought that man was finished, but God intervened and His mercy triumphed over judgment. Adam and Eve experienced grace and hope in the midst of punishment.
My favorite Walt Disney movie of all time is Pinocchio. Pinocchio was the puppet who was given the gift of life by the blue fairy. The bewildered little wooden boy spoke: “I can move, I can talk, I can walk.” Then he asked the fairy: “Am I a real boy?” The fairy said, “Yes, Pinocchio. I’ve given you life. Prove yourself brave, truthful and unselfish, and someday you will be a real boy. You must learn to choose between right and wrong.”
The curious, impulsive and roving wooden boy, however, made the worst friends, visited the wrong places and lied through his nose. In the end, after a series of bad choices and a lot of bad company, Pinocchio recalled his father’s words, relied on his conscience Jiminy Cricket, and recovered to do right. There is a lot to like in Pinocchio’s adventure!
In spite of man’s fallen condition, God gave some measure of self-respect back to man. Eve had a new name, the mother of all the living. They will not experience immediate death but will live to see their children (3:20). God Himself clothed Adam and Eve. An animal was sacrificed to provide the garments - a preview of God’s atonement for man’s sin.
The drama of world redemption was also set forth (vv 14-15). Satan would strike her (Eve) offspring’s heel, a strong reference to Satan’s opposition to the descendant of Eve that threatened his stronghold, but the woman’s seed will strike a fatal blow to the snakehead - a compelling reference to the death of Jesus Christ (3:14-15).
This promise of a coming Redeemer is the heart of the Bible from now on. William Scroggie calls this “the unfolding drama of redemption.” The early church fathers call Genesis 3:15 “the first preaching of the gospel.” It is the clearest promise of the coming of a Redeemer.
The last compassionate thing God did for man was to expel them from Eden. Charles Ryrie suggests, “Driving Adam and Eve from the garden was both a punishment and an act of mercy, lest they should eat of the tree of life and live forever in a state of death and alienation.”
Conclusion: The greatest danger in the world is sin, and our worst enemy is ourselves. God is good, kind, and merciful. He forgives, redeems and loves lost sinners. Sin and death entered the world through one man, yet death came to all men because all sinned (Rom 5:12-14), but God’s showed his righteousness to sinners through Jesus Christ: “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor 15:21-23). The first man Adam was a perishable, weak and physical being who returned to dust; but the last Adam, Jesus Christ, conquered death and rose from the grave, He has promised us an imperishable glorious spiritual body (1 Cor 15:44-46).
Have you sought, claimed and applied the righteousness of Christ? Do you count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:11)? Are you willing to seek God who is able to help you when you are tempted, when you stumble and when you have sinned?
Victor Yap
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