SERMON BRIEF
Date Written: July 26, 2005
Date Preached: July 27, 2005
Church: OZHBC (PM) Wed Night
FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS
Title: Sin Changes things
Text: Gen 3:1-15
Introduction:
We have many names for it… we call it a mistake, a slip up, a feaux paux, missing the mark, rebellion…
We call it an “oops”, an error, a fault, a blunder, a wrong step, or a stumble…
But by whatever name we DO us… to God it is still SIN! And when it comes to sin one fierce and forceful fact remains concerning it… sin is a departure from God and His will and way.
And we need to understand that sin in the life of the believer builds up a wall between the Christian and the God he or she serves. The Bible tells us that there is no sin that will separate us from God, but living in a sinful lifestyle can and does reveal one of two things.
It reveals that the believe is so far off base in his or her walk with God that they cannot hear the voice of God and God’s plan and purpose cannot be seen or heard. They are out of contact… out of communication with God.
Or it reveals that the one who claims to be a Christian… never really had a vibrant and real relationship with God, but merely had an emotional experience… and they are NOT saved!
But getting back to the subject of sin there is one thing we can learn from this evil… and the story of Adam and Eve in the garden makes that one thing very clear.
No matter what the sin may be, sin changes things… sin destroys all things beautiful! And in the case of our passage tonight, it destroyed the peace and serenity and comfort of a well-ordered life!
When we compare the origin stories of OTHER cultures with our account of the Garden that we find in our passage tonight…there is a startling phenomenon that confronts us.
Only the Christian account of the garden presents the moral and ethical dilemma of sin entering into the human race and thereby poisoning the human race with depravity and sinfulness.
You may ask why it is like this, and my answer to you is that God inspired the Genesis account and it is His holiness that permeates its pages and it is God whose moral character drives each and every word that has been written.
The polytheism of other cultures do not have a moral absolute in their nature, but the ‘gods’ of their culture are self-centered and selfish and only looking to pleasure themselves.
They are not the loving creator that God is, and therefore they have no moral center or absolute standard by which truth and right can be measured.
Now in the account of the fall in the garden there are many aspects we can look at but tonight I want us to look at the following items that help us to understand with more clarity just how terrible sin is and how evil it is and just what it does to our relationship with God.
A sinister suggestion from Satan (the serpent)
Now whether or not we view the serpent as Satan, the adversary, the Devil, or the deceiver… the character of the serpent speaks loudly for all to hear!
The evil one knew exactly how to approach Eve and how to excite and entice her curiosity and self-desire. He leads Eve in 3 well known steps to the fatal choice. First, we find him twisting and distorting the truth of God.
It is true that God had forbidden them from this particular tree, but the reasoning behind that prohibition was NOT as Satan put it… it was NOT because God knew we would become gods, but it was because God understood and knew that as humans we could not handle it.
Then 2nd we find him attempting to weaken the restrictions that had been put into place by God himself, therefore casting a great deal of doubt into Eve’s mind and heart.
Finally, 3rd we find that Satan follows his distortions and the doubt they created with a flat out denial of what God was actually doing for Adam and Eve.
He led Eve away from her relationship with God by influencing her to believe that serving God was some sort of prison and she need to break out… He confused her and convinced her that obedience to God was a kill-joy and that if she would be step out on her own, all would be wonderful.
A weakened woman (Eve)
But you may wonder, why did Satan tempt Eve first… why not Adam? Was it because she was the weaker of the two? There have been many scholars to disagree on this point, but as one OT professor puts it, “…no, because she was the stronger of the two and Satan knew that if he could deceive and trick her, that Adam would fall easily…”
Now we do NOT know the heart of Satan as he entered into the garden on that fateful day, but regardless of the reasoning, we DO know that Satan chose Eve for his first target…and we know that his plan seemed to work perfectly.
Eve could have already shown signs of slipping when she overstated God’s command. Eve told Satan that she could not partake of the fruit because God had told them they would die if they even touched the tree…
The Bible does not share with us that God warned her not to “TOUCH” the tree… but she could have added it knowing that she was crumbling under the great stress of temptation that confronted her.
It was not the weakened woman, but it was a weak human nature that seeks to serve itself first that was the problem, not the fact that Eve was a woman.
We have the sinister suggestion given by Satan to Eve in the garden and we have the weakened vessel who had already begun to crumble when temptation reared its ugly head… but finally tonight I want us all to look at the gruesome guilt that manifested itself immediately after this had all taken place.
A gruesome guilt (Adam and Eve)
It was a dark day in the garden that day… the innocence of creation was wiped away in one fell swoop by the ugliness of sin and the selfishness of the human spirit.
But when we look at it we can see that something much more tragic took place. Adam and Eve once walked face to face with God and physically communed with Him in the garden each day… but after this incident, that relationship was severed and broken.
They used to walk unashamed into the presence of God with the childlike faith and reverence for Him… no shame and no fear entered their minds. But now they were filled with fear and shame and were banned from paradise because of their selfish nature.
And because of this action on their part an immense spiritual chasm rose up between God and his creation! But there was one redeeming fact that remained and that was that Adam and Eve were NOT beyond the reach of a Savior! They were not beyond the sound of a divine call!
When we hear God’s voice in our lives, we must learn to listen and heed His calling. Sin dampens our ability to hear and know what God desires. Sin takes the beauty of our relationship with God and it twists and perverts it into a ritualistic ceremony with NO meaning.
Turn your heart to God and do not turn your heart away from Him! Turn away from evil things and flee from what is immoral… cling to what is right and good and learn from God’s wisdom.
