The Fall

The Fall

Reading: Genesis chapter 3 verses 1-24.

ill:

Naughty kids and smelly cheese story.

• We live in a world that has gone wrong:

• Some would say it stinks;

• I.e. More wars today than at any other time in history.

• Many people live in poverty & will die of hunger or illness before the end of the meeting.

• In our own country crime figures seem to be constantly rising;

• Are prisons are full to overflowing.

• Drunkenness, immorality and violence

• Will take place all over your city this evening!

• Watch the news or pick up a newspaper;

• And you will see that we live in a world gone wrong!

Question: The question people often ask is Why?

• Why did God allow evil to enter into his perfect world?

• Why did God allow it to spoil his beautiful creation?

Answer:

• That is found in Genesis chapter 3 is not WHY but HOW!

• We are not told why God allowed evil to enter the world,

• But we are told how,

• We are given the events, the circumstances of how evil entered the world.

Note:

• The way I am going to look at Genesis chapter 3;

• Is as a true historical story.

• Some people believe Geneses chapter 3 is merely a fable or myth or ledged,

• Others believe it is just an allegorical story.

• ill: Aesops fables.

• A story with a true or a wise message.

I believe Genesis chapter 3:

• Is a real story, a real event, a real incident,

• We are dealing with historical facts here and not fiction.

• I believe this narrative is true if for no other reason,

• Jesus Christ himself believed it and taught from it.

• On various occasions he used Adam & Eve in his sermons;

• To teach from people them, and he taught them as fact.

Ill:

• The Apostle Paul who wrote 13 of the 21 New Testament books called letters/epistles,

• Also believed in a literal interpretation of Genesis chapter 3.

Now at the same time as saying that this story is physically true:

• This chapter is also full of spiritual truths,

• And just to take it with strict literalness is to deny its fullest value.

Ill:

• The promise made in verse 15 about bruising the heel of man and the head of the snake;

• Is obviously symbolic and not literal.

Ill:

• The narrative is like two sides of a coin,

• Not heads & tails but physical and spiritual truths.

Quote G. Campbell Morgan:

“The fact is that this is the story of actual events in physical life, of a spiritual nature”.

(1). The tempter (verses 1-5):

(1). A Serpent (Verse 1):

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made".

Of all the creatures in the Garden of Eden:

• One is brought to our attention:

• A serpent or snake.

Ill:

• This serpent was a reptile with legs,

• It may have looked more like a lizard, than a snake.

• Science agrees with the Bible that snakes once had legs

• But it disagrees on how they lost them.

• Theory of evolution says it happened over millions of years.

• The Bible tells us in verse 14 that it was in an instant.

Now what made this reptile very unusual:

• Was not so much the fact it had legs,

• But that it had a voice it could talk.

There are probably three possibilities that explain this:

(a). A disguised devil:

• Some people have suggested that this serpent was not an ordinary snake,

• But the devil disguised as a snake.

• Throughout the Bible, the devil is pictured as a masquerader and a deceiver.

• And is called on Revelation chapter 20 verse 2 “ancient serpent”.

The Bible clearly teaches the existence of a spiritual being called the devil:

• Jesus encounted him in Matthew chapter 4 verses 1 to 11.

• And he warned his disciples about him on numerous occasions.

• So one explanation of this talking snake;

• Is that the devil came in the disguise of a serpent.

(b). An abnormal creature.

• Another explanation for this talking creature is that it was abnormal;

• Abnormal means; “Unusual, deviating from the norm”,

• Some have suggested that this snake was a ‘one off’ creature.

• Ill: Jonah and the large fish (“The Lord prepared a fish” – one off?)

This may have been a ‘one off’ creature:

• Speaking animals have been known;

• Today some animals can speak,

• ill: Parrots and Mina birds etc.

• Although their tongues were obviously not made for this they are able to talk.