Admit Your Sin Problem
Genesis
3-4
December 9, 2007
A lot of problems here - v. 1 - Satan deals first with
the woman - weaker of the two? -
Eve desired to be independent and had withdrawn
herself out of Adam's sight - sets up a beginning of
the fall before the fall - would it have been any different
if Adam was there?
"Yea, hath God said....??
Did God really say such a
thing as that?
Note the slightly superior condescension
to Eve's "naive" acceptance of God's command - a
technique followed by Satan and his human emissaries
with great success ever since. Sin always begins by
questioning the Word of God or His goodness or both.
This is the age-old lie of Satan, the one with which he
deceived himself.
Satan suggests a distrust of the Divine goodness and
a disbelief in God's truthfulness.
He also intensifies
the prohibition. Romans 7:7-8
He attempts to change a Living, Personal God into
a merely general God by using Elohim, not
Jehovah,
thus obscuring the covenant relationship and (recommend book
representing man as a subject and not a son. The Names of God
by
Nathan Stone - Moody Bible Institute)
Eve was placed at the furthest distance from the
Supreme Being and then assailed.
vs. 2-3 - the woman was wrong to have a conference
with
the serpent in matters of so great an
importance,
in so familiar a manner.
Compare ch. 2:16-17 with v. 3. It is dangerous to
alter God's Word whether by addition or deletion -
Deut. 4:2 Rev.
22:18-19 ****
Eve puts in a little addition to God's Word - "neither
shall
ye touch it" - is this a misunderstanding
or
a rising feeling of dissatisfaction of the
prohibition
and an indication that her love
and
confidence towards God was beginning
to
waver? Is there doubt & hesitancy in her
language?
v. 4 - "ye shall not surely die" - assailing the Divine
veracity. Not content with altering God's Word,
Satan blatantly denies
it, calling God a liar!
Satan is setting himself up as his own god - he is deciding
for himself the standards of truth and righteousness.
Christ presents Satan as the liar that he is - John 8:44
Two passages - "resist the devil and he will flee from you"
and "Save yourselves from this untoward generation".
v. 5 - "your eyes shall be opened" - denoting an impartation
of
power to perceive objects otherwise indiscernible -
physically,
mentally, spiritually.
"and ye shall be as gods" - a
promise of divinity.
No descendant of Adam has ever lived to an age of
conscious awareness of right and wrong without actually
choosing wrong.
Doubt and pride - the characteristics of practically every
type of temptation today - "earthly, sensual,
devilish" -
James 3:15
v. 6 - the attractiveness of sin for the time being, disguising
its
true character - the harbinger of death.
"she took of the fruit thereof, and did
eat. And gave also
to her husband" - Eve was to have been an help meet, not
Adam's destroyer.
Thus Satan undermined Adam and Eve's confidence in God,
he wanted to remove the fear of punishment from their path,
and fire their souls with lust and ambition while all the time
appearing to be seeking man's good.
Eve questioned God's Word, doubted, then modified and
finally rejected God's Word favoring the temptation to
body,
soul and spirit which was presented to her.
Eve and Adam bit, they were disobedient in their
unbelief, the were selfish to make self the center of
all things and they showed their love of the world
in their attempt to gratify their senses.
vs. 7-8 - reality - cover up - they hid - it is the
instinct
of sinful man to flee from God.
It is noteworthy that people are clothed in heaven -
Rev. 19:14 and Christ is presented as "clothed with
a garment down to the foot" - Rev. 1:13
vs. 9-13 - God's questions
Adam blames his wife, Eve blames the serpent,
and ever since, sinners have been blaming everyone
and everything but themselves.
Adam showed no grief for his act but rather a
desire to cover his sin - "I did eat but it was
not
my fault" - sound familiar? Nothing can justify sin.
vs. 14-15 - Judgment on the perpetrator - perpetual
degradation
- on its belly - judgment without
mercy
- hostility between the two - the promise
that
the Seed of the woman will destroy the serpent
and the works of the
devil.
The promised Seed would one day be born of a human
woman, but Satan was left in the dark as to which
woman
and at what time!
v. 16 - to the woman - childbirth - deferential submission
We believe in equality and that the woman "as being heirs
together with man, to the grace of life" - I Peter
3:7 - as
"the weaker vessel" - and caution
all about the modern anti-Biblical
extremes, demanding absolute equality, in all legal,
political,
cultural and personal relationships - citing I Cor. 11:10 - the
example of the fall of angels as an example.
It is interesting that in all that women have gone through in
history, that the joy of motherhood has for most
normal women
been their greatest
happiness! Abortion on demand has
in the
end some very bitter consequences as time and judgment will
tell -
vs. 17-19 - to the man - hard work - in the sweat of thy
face
you shall eat the herb of the field, not
the fruit
of
of
it you came" - man's mortality is certain - the
consequence
of his transgression was the forfeiture
of
immunity from death - "in the day
you eat
thereof
you shall surely die" - "be
sure you sin
will
find you out" - Numbers 32:23
Learn the folly of attempting to hide or flee from God - we
need to run to Him, not from Him! It is the shortest path
to mercy and forgiveness.
v. 21 - The providence of God - the providing a sinner with such
a covering as God requires must ever be the work of God!
v. 22
"Excerpted text
Copyright AGES Library, LLC. All
rights reserved.
Materials are reproduced by
permission."
vs. 23-24 - the idea of force and displeasure - only when
perfected
and purified could fallen humanity return
to
dwell
within its abode.
Hope - the Divine presence was still with him - Paradise
was
still reserved for him - there was prospect of
readmission
to the tree of life and when purified by
life's
discipline he would no longer be excluded.
Rev. 2
Taken from The Genesis Record by Henry Morris