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.
But instead of this, he had now set his own Ego in the center of his life, around which everything else, must rotate. Thus man is now wholly captive to his own Ego. He expects is happiness to come from ego. He justifies his ego; lauds his ego; and all his thoughts circle around himself.
And because the ego and the world cannot fill in man the empty place where God rightly belongs, there sets in, this raging hunger of the human soul, which torments itself - the hunger for self-assertion; for possessions; for pleasure. This boundless insatiable hunger is a standing proof, that at some time, God has satisfied the human heart, that the human heart was intended for God and God alone."
I watched a movie once, where several men were left drifting aimlessly on the ocean, in a small lifeboat, after a terrible shipwreck.
The sun was hot and their rations were low - soon they ran out of fresh water. One night while the others were sleeping, one man, drank from the ocean.
Ocean water contains 7 times more salt than the human body can safely ingest. He soon died.
The saddest part is that the more salt water a person drinks, the thirstier they become.
Preoccupation with self is like that - it is to drift aimlessly, with an unquenchable thirst, dying and ending in eternal death.
They now had the knowledge of evil!
B. Their Sewing.
Philips, "Then "they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons." What a wrong decision. Those fig leaves represent man's earliest attempt to cover up his sin, to provide himself with a covering to cloak his guilt and shame. They represent every effort made by man to do something to make himself fit for the presence of God. Fig leaves would never do. They might be good enough between themselves, but they would never do to hide from the piercing eyes of God. All such human efforts wither in the presence of God."
This is the first act of religion - man trying to cover up his sin by doing something. By seeking to cover up his sins by the works of his own hands. Man has not changed since that day!
Note: "It is not that good works are without value from a human point of view. It is just that they are no good from God's point of view, and that is because they cannot deal with the basic sin problem.
Good works are a bit like Monopoly© money. It is good for the game of Monopoly©, but it is no good in the real world.
Suppose that after playing the game of Monopoly, you take that Monopoly© money and you go down to the First National Bank to open an account. The teller asks you, "How much would you like to deposit?"
"$472,000!" Then you pull out the Monopoly© money and count it out to the Teller!
Monopoly© money serves well in the game of Monopoly©, but it has no value in the real world. In the same way, good works have some value in our relationship with one another, but are unacceptable before God."
Boice Expositional Commentary - An Expositional Commentary – Genesis, Volume 1: Creation and Fall (Genesis 1-11).
II. FURTHEMORE, IT CAUSED THEM TO AVOID GOD. 8
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Genesis 3:8 (NKJV) - as we looked at in a previous sermon, they were immediately spiritually dead. They were now separated from God
Hughes, "In an instant the original couple passed from life to death, from sinlessness to sin, from harmony to alienation, from trust to distrust, from ease to dis-ease. It did not take a day. It happened in a millisecond!"
They sought to Hide from God - but man cannot successfully hide from God!
"If I have covered my transgressions as Adam, By hiding my iniquity in my bosom," Job 31:33 (NKJV)
"21 "For His eyes are on the ways of man, And He sees all his steps. 22 There is no darkness nor shadow of death Where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves." Job 34:21-22 (NKJV)
"The eyes of the LORD are in every place, Keeping watch on the evil and the good." Proverbs 15:3 (NKJV)
"And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." Hebrews 4:13 (NKJV)
The city of Chicago has more than 2,250 video surveillance cameras operated by Police specialists.
Mayor Richard Daley, "Cameras are the equivalent of hundreds of sets of eyes, they're the next best thing to having police officers stationed at every potential trouble spot."
In 2007, the city started buying new advanced smart surveillance cameras. The smart cameras would be able to detect a car circling a high-rise three times or someone leaving a backpack in a park. Anomalies that normally would go unnoticed would suddenly alert authorities to take a closer look.
God has 24/7 surveillance over not only what we do, but what we are thinking.
III. NEXT, IT CAUSED THEM TO BE AFRAID OF GOD. 9-10
9 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?" 10 So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." Genesis 3:9-10 (NKJV) - for the first time they are afraid of God.
1. They are Searched!
Spurgeon, "Do not think, sinner, that God is stony-hearted. You have the heart of stone, God has not. Do not think that He is slow to move - you are slow to move, He is not; the hardness is in yourself...
Adam ought to have sought out his Maker. He should have gone through the garden crying for his God. But instead Adam flies from God. The sinner comes not to God; God comes to the sinner.
It is not "My God where are You?" but the first cry is the voice of grace, "Adam, where are you!" Despite all the doctrines which proud free-will has manufactured there has never been found from Adam's day until now a single instance in which the sinner first sought his God. God must first seek him."
Lu.19:10/Jn.1:13; 6:44/Rom. 3:10-11...
As of July 1, 2003 a new lifesaving technology became available to millions of Americans. Personal locator beacons similar to beacons used by mariners and aviators, allow lost hikers, campers, and others to be tracked in an emergency when they carry the devices.
When activated in an emergency, each beacon emits a signal that can be tracked by a worldwide satellite search and rescue system. Around the world, emergency locator beacons have led rescuers to more than 15,000 people since 1982. Now anyone can obtain a beacon at outdoor sports and electronic retail outlets.
The new beacons have advanced features including global positioning system technology, which makes it easy for satellites to pick up distress signals and relay accurate location to rescuers.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher says, "Personal Locator Beacons save lives. Their availability presents a significant public safety benefit for the millions of people in the United States who explore the nation's wilderness every year."
God is like that beacon, he searches out the lost that they might be saved!
2. They are Scared.
The word means "to tremble" and is always sinful man's response to God's Holiness. Sinful man should be afraid of a holy God!
Sadly we are living in day when American's fear terrorists but have lost their fear of God!
I have always been fasinated by the Civil War, I was watching a documentary about it just the other day.
On July 21, 1861, Union Troops marched toward the Confederate Army camping at Bull Run, 30 miles southwest of Washington. The Union soldiers were overconfident and acted like they were headed toward a sporting event.
Amazingly Congressmen, ladies, and all sorts of spectators trailed along with lunch baskets to observe the fun! But the courage of the Confederates (who stood their ground like a stone wall—giving their leader, Thomas J. Jackson, his nickname) and the arrival of Confederate reinforcements threw the Union forces into a panic—even though the Union had superior forces!
One observer wrote, "We called to them, tried to tell them there was no danger, called them to stop, implored them to stand. We called them cowards, denounced them in the most offensive terms... but all in vain; a cruel, crazy, mad, hopeless panic possessed them."
Sometimes fear is called for! To bring a picknect basket to a battlefield is beyond crazy! At least Adam and Eve still retained enough sense to be afraid of God!
"Put them in fear, O LORD, That the nations may know themselves to be but men." Selah Psalm 9:20 (NKJV)
"Let all the earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him." Psalm 33:8 (NKJV)
"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Matthew 10:28 (NKJV)
"saying with a loud voice, "Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water." Revelation 14:7 (NKJV)
IV. FOURTHLY, CAUSED THEM TO AFFIX THE BLAME ON OTHERS. 11-13
Passing the Buck
Almost everyone is aware of the statement attributed to President Harry Truman that "The Buck Stops Here," but does it? There are people who will not accept responsibility for their actions.
Included in this group are criminals and so-cio-paths. The war trials at Nuremberg brought out this idea. The Nazi war criminals claimed they were just following orders. "We really did not want to exterminate the Jews. Hitler made us do it."
The criminal says, "I am a product of society. They are to blame, not me." The wife and child abuser says, "I was raised by abusive parents, so do not blame me; blame them." The denial of guilt does not remove or negate the responsibility of it.
In our society today no one wants to accept responsibility for anything. Everything is rel-a-tive, so do what you want to. It is O.K., its not really your fault.
It's nothing new, it all started a long time ago. The blame game goes back to the Fall. But notice God held them all responsible for their actions. He will hold us responsible for ours. The soul that sinneth shall die.
V. FINALLY, IT CAUSE MANY NEGATIVE ALTERATIONS.
A. Prostration to the animal. 14-15 [come back to verse 15 later]
B. Pain to the woman. 16
C. Limited Production for the man. 17-19
Augustine, "Who can describe, who can conceive the number and severity of the punishments which afflict the human race - pains are not only the accompaniment of the wickedness of godless men, but are a part of the human condition and the common misery.
What numberless casualties threaten our bodies from without - extremes of heat and cold; storms; floods; lightning, thunder, hail, earthquakes, etc.
Casualites from countless poisons in fruits, water, air, or animals.
What man can go out of his house without being exposed on all hands to unforseen accidents? Returning home sound in limb, he slips on his own doorstep, breaks his leg, and never recovers.
What can be safer than a man sitting in his chair? Yet Eli the priest fell from his and broke his neck!"
Life would now be filled with Wars; Woes; and Wearisome work...
Con:
1. When we take our plans over God's things always Drastically change for the worse. We enter the Twighlight Zone!
2. Another story, this time a true one. A man went to an Arizona junk pile and without permission ignoring the signs that prohibited the removal of stuff from the junk yard, quickly loaded his truck with scrap metal, to take to Mexico, where he lived to sell to the scrap metal recycler.
Part of what he took was an antique dental X-ray machine, which from it dropped little steel balls onto the bed of his truck. After cashing in on his scrap metal there were still these metal balls rolling in the grooves of his truck.
It did not take long before the children in his neighborhood found the shiny treasures. The kids loved to play marbles and the steel balls were a coveted addition to their collection of marbles.
Before long people in the village began to experience red rashes; fatigue; loss of hair; vomiting; and before long several people died.
Those pretty little balls were giving out radiation poisoning!
Eve soon learned that pretty little fruit, which God had commanded them to leave alone, had produced sin poisoning and life would never again be the same!
Johnny Palmer Jr.
StrugglingThruScriptures.ning.com
