SCRIPTURE: GENESIS 3
MEMORY VERSES:
“Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.” (Genesis 3:14)
“I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband. and he will rule over you.” (Genesis 2:16)
“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19)
THE FALL OF MAN (vs. 1-24)
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.;”
“You will not surely die.” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked;; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked/ Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” The man said, “The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
To the woman h e said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”:
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
THOUGHTS: (From Life Application Study Bible)
Temptation is Satan’s invitation to give in to his kind of life and give up on God’s kind of life. Satan tempted Eve and succeeded in getting her to sin. He also tempted Jesus but Jesus overcame temptation through God’s Word.
Satan, disguised as a shrewd serpent, tempted Eve by getting her to doubt God’s goodness. He implied that God was strict, stingy and selfish for not wanting Eve to share his knowledge of good and evil. Satan made Eve forget all that Gods had given her and instead, focus on the one thing she could not have. We also fall into trouble when we dwell on the few things we don’t have rather than on the countless things God has given us. When you feel sorry for not having what you want, consider what you have and thank God.
Satan used a sincere motive to tempt Eve: “You will become just like God.” He misled Eve by telling her that she could become more like God by defying God’s authority, by taking God’s place and deciding for herself what was best for her life. In effect, he told her to become her own god.
To become like God is different from trying to become God. Rather, it is to reflect His characteristics and to recognize his authority over your life. If we are trying to become God, it leads to self-exaltation and rebellion against God. We are leaving God out of our plans and placing ourselves above Him. That is what Satan wants us to do.
3 things that tempted Eve to sin:
- Good for food – physical carvings
- Pleasing to the eyes – materialism and consumerism
- Desirable for gaining wisdom – Pride
Actions of Eve that caused her to fall into sin. (1)-She looked, (2)-She took, (3)-She ate and (4)-She gave. Temptation often begins by simply seeing something you want. Paul’s advice for us is to run away from those things that produce evil thoughts.
After sinning, Adam and Eve felt guilty and embarrassed over their nakedness. Their guilty feelings made them try to hide from God. They tried to cover themselves with fig leaves. Sometimes, we also try to hide our sins thinking that God does not know what we are doing. Don’t try to hide. Instead honestly confess your sins and seek His forgiveness.
When God asked Adam about his sin, Adam blamed Eve. Then Eve blamed the serpent. It is easy for us to excuse our sins by blaming someone or circumstances. But God knows the truth and he holds each of us responsible for what we do. Admit your wrong attitudes and actions and apologize to God. Don’t try to get away with sin by blaming someone else.
As God is holy, he could not allow sin to go unchecked. He had to punish it. As the consequence of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, all mankind had inherited their sinful nature.
The phrase “You will strike his heel” refers to Satan’s repeated attempts to defeat Christ during his life on earth. “He will crush your head” foreshadows Satan’s defeat when Christ rose from the dead. A strike on the heel is not deadly, but a crushing blow to the head is. Already God was revealing his plan to defeat Satan and offer salvation to the world through his Son, Jesus Christ.
After disobeying God, Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden. Their sins had separated them from fellowship with God. If we want to build a relationship with God, we must drop our excuses and self-defense. We must stop trying to hide from God. And we must follow God’s way.