The Slippery Slope Of Sin Series

The Slippery Slope of Sin

Genesis 3:6-7

Rev. Brian Bill

February 18-19, 2023

One of my favorite shows is America’s Funniest Home Videos. I can’t stop laughing at the videos which show people slipping and sliding on ice. I know first-hand that falling isn’t funny because it led to my shoulder surgery, but I sometimes laugh so hard at these videos, I end up crying.

It’s very unsettling to lose your footing, isn’t? Just ask the players who played in the slippery Super Bowl this past Sunday. We’ve been learning there is nothing funny about how Eve started sliding into sin when the serpent unleashed his temptation tactics on her. Today’s message is closely connected to last weekend’s when we learned to be forewarned of Satan’s strategy is to be forearmed. If you missed the sermon, head over to our YouTube channel, our mobile app, or to edgewoodbaptist.net.

Here’s what we learned about the schemes of Satan from Genesis 3:1-5.

1. Disguise.

2. Doubt.

3. Demean.

4. Distort.

5. Denial.

6. Desire.

In one sense, the serpent’s insidious and sinister work was finished because Eve was left to her physical appetites, enflamed emotions, and fleshly ambitions. Let’s stand and read Genesis 3:6-7: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.”

Since we used six words to capture the essence of temptation last weekend, we’ll use six words that begin with the letter “D” to describe the slippery slide into sin. This passage shows us how humanity went from “very good” to “very broken” in a matter of seconds. Here’s our main idea: To avoid sliding into sin, make sure you are tethered to God’s truth.

1. Delicious. The initial slippery step Eve took is found in the first phrase of verse 6: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food…” The word “saw” means, “to gaze, to behold, to perceive.” As she gazed at the forbidden fruit, she saw it was “good for food,” which meant she found it “pleasant and appealing.” She somehow decided the fruit from this tree was more delicious than anything else around her.

Most temptation begins when we see something shiny, sensual, or spectacular. That’s why those $7 million alcohol ads during the Super Bowl only showed people having fun and smiling and not the effects of alcoholism and addiction.

Once she fixated, Eve’s focus on the forbidden became all consuming. This is what happened with Samson in Judges 16:1: “Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went into her.” We also see this in Joshua 7:21 when Achan tried to explain his slippery slide into sin: “When I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them.”

To avoid sliding into sin, make sure you are tethered to God’s truth.

2. Delightful. After seeing how delicious the tree would be, Eve was mesmerized by how much delight it would bring her: “and that it was a delight to the eyes…” This word has the idea of “greed and craving.” I agree with what Nate Pickowicz tweeted: “‘Follow your heart’ has ended more marriages, mutilated more bodies, destroyed more souls, and ended more lives than the devil could have ever imagined. It is Hell’s most effective slogan yet.”

Our eyes are the window through which our wants turn into cravings. I think of Psalm 101:3, which calls us to be careful about what we allow our eyes to see: “I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.” Job 31:1 reveals the connection between lust and what we allow our eyes to look at: “I made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?”

To avoid sliding into sin, make sure you are tethered to God’s truth.

3. Desirable. After focusing on how delicious and delightful the fruit would be to eat, Eve desired it more than anything: “and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise…” The word for “desire” is translated as “covet” and has the idea of “craving intensely and passionately.” Notice Eve is desiring “wisdom,” which refers to “acting with insight and having the ability to understand.”

Instead of accepting God’s definition of “good,” as declared seven times in chapter 1, Eve decided to follow her own definition of good. In Genesis 2:9, God had “given every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food,” but she redefined God’s parameters according to what she declared to be delicious, delightful, and desirable. I don’t even need to illustrate this from our culture, do I? This is the epitome of what is happening today.