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.
Eve’s descent into depravity is an illustration of James 1:14-15: “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” This is the Bible’s description of sin’s slippery slope. Proverbs 27:20 says, “Never satisfied are the eyes of man.” Sin is never satisfied and always demands more and more.
The downward spiral into sin accelerated when Eve allowed herself to start slipping when she found the fruit to be…
• Physically appetizing – “good for food.” This temptation looks like it will meet a legitimate physical need, whether that be food, sex, or comfort.
• Emotionally attractive – “delight to the eyes.” This enticement comes to us as delightful, not disgusting. Remember, Satan doesn’t tempt us with something ugly and atrocious; he always uses something attractive like having the newest, greatest, biggest, and prettiest.
• Spiritually appealing – “make one wise.” This appeals to the need for self-fulfillment and ambition.
Eve fell before she even ate the fruit. Likewise, our acts of disobedience against God begin in the mind and in the heart. Write this down: When you start fondling forbidden fruit, you’re already sliding down the slippery slope of sin. Don’t spend time thinking about how nice it would be, how good it would feel, or how much you deserve it.
These first three sin slippages correlate with 1 John 2:16: “For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life – is not from the Father but is from the world.”
1 John 2:16 Genesis 3:6
Lust of flesh Good for food
Lust of eyes Delight to eyes
Pride of life Desire to make one wise
We also see these three tempt points when Satan unleashed his temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4:1-11. Brothers and sisters, we must do battle against the tempter’s tactics as he continues to make things attractive, appealing, and enticing.
To avoid sliding into sin, make sure you are tethered to God’s truth.
4. Disobedience. Once Eve perceived this snack of sin to be delicious, delightful, and desirable, she plunged head-first into disobedience: “She took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” The Hebrew for “took” indicates this was a decisive act by Eve because the word refers to “capturing, seizing, grasping.” This was no accidental incident. She didn’t just touch it; she deliberately took, and she intentionally ate. Notice how ordinary this sin is. All she did was take a bite. The first sin was not murder, immorality, or stealing.
BTW, contrary to popular understanding, there’s no biblical evidence the fruit was an apple. Are you aware Michelangelo used forbidden figs when painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Perhaps the idea came from Latin because the word for “apple” and “evil” is the same. The Hebrew is not all that helpful because the word peri simply means produce. I do find it fascinating that the term “Adam’s apple” originated from a folk tale to explain the bulge in a person’s larynx as caused by the apple sticking in Adam’s throat. Helping this legend along is that the protrusion is more pronounced in men than in women. Aren’t you glad you came to church today? You’re welcome.
After Eve ate and didn’t immediately die, she gave the fruit to Adam. Becoming more of a hindrance, than a helper, Eve had joined Team Serpent by doing his dirty work for him. Have you noticed how most people don’t like to be alone in their sin, so they encourage others to sin with them? Sexual sin is like that. We see this in 1 Peter 4:3-5: “For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” Here’s a principle: We never fall alone; others are always hurt by our unholiness. Our disobedience damages others.
Notice that Adam “was with her.” The word “with” means, “to have companionship together.” When we go back to the opening verses of Genesis 3, the uses of the pronoun “you” are plural, meaning Adam was with Eve during the entire time of temptation.
It’s easy to think this is all Eve’s fault, but God holds Adam responsible. Here are some reasons why…
• Adam was told to “work and keep” the garden in Genesis 2:15. He was to guard the garden and keep out anything that would harm the harmony.
• Adam was given the prohibition “to not eat” from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2:16-17. It was his responsibility to make sure Eve did not eat.
• Adam was given dominion over the animals and would have named the serpent. He should have demonstrated his authority and responsibility to guard the garden by grabbing a shovel and slicing the serpent’s head off.
• According to 1 Timothy 2:15, Eve was deceived but Adam deliberately disobeyed God: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”
• As the leader, God clearly holds Adam responsible for their sin and it’s because of Adam’s disobedience that the whole world has been plunged into darkness, despair, and depravity. We see this in Romans 5:19: “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners.” When Eve sinned, Eve sinned. But when Adam sinned, all sinned.
Allow me to address men for a bit. I’m afraid there’s a little bit of Adam in all of us and a lot of Adam in many of us. Adam was available, but he was absent. He was present, but passive. He saw the serpent but said nothing. He noticed Eve was on a slippery slope, but he did nothing to bring her back. Guys, as we’ve been learning, we can’t just go with the flow. When you don’t lovingly lead your family, your wife and children will pay the price.
It’s time for us to wake up, stand up, man up, grow up, love up, and rise up. As part of our EVERYONE vision for 2023, we’re committed to grow our EdgeMen ministry. To help equip men to become loving leaders, I want to invite EVERY man to an equipping breakfast on Saturday, March 11 and to our first men’s retreat on April 28-29.
My pastor friend Ben Lovelady has some great insight when he points out that God’s original design was inverted from:
God > Man > Woman > Animal
to
Animal > Woman > Man > God
The rapidity of the fall of Adam and Eve into sin is staggering – the woman saw, she took, she ate, she gave…and he ate. Satan could tempt Eve, but she didn’t have to take it. Satan couldn’t cram the fruit down her throat. Eve couldn’t say the devil made her do it, but she certainly followed the serpent, Adam followed Eve, and no one followed God. And every human continues to pay the price for their folly.
While you might not expect to hear this in church, the Bible calls sin enjoyable or pleasurable. In fact, that’s why we sin, isn’t it? Sin feels good, right, and fun. However, the satisfaction of sinning turns to dissatisfaction and shame very quickly. Hebrews 11:25 refers to it as the “fleeting pleasures of sin.”
To avoid sliding into sin, make sure you are tethered to God’s truth.
5. Disgrace. Adam and Eve quickly discovered forbidden fruit was not as tasty as they thought it would be as they experienced major spiritual indigestion. Have you noticed how temptations which seem so good, often lose their appeal once you give in to them? After they disobeyed, they became immediately disgraced in verse 7: “Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked.” This refers to their conscience. Sin never makes good on its promises. We see two consequences.
• Opened eyes. This is a fulfillment of Satan’s promise found in Genesis 3:5: “When you eat of it your eyes will be opened.” Thinking they would find enlightenment; they are now exposed to the reality of their evil rebellion and sinful depravity through the horror of their unholiness. Their eyes are opened to the reality of what they did, and they feel exposed, guilty, and alienated from the Almighty. According to Job 14:3, having your eyes opened refers to being brought into “judgment.”
• Exposed nakedness. Somehow, they “knew that they were naked.” In Genesis 2:25, they were “naked and not ashamed” and now they are fully exposed before each other and before God. While this is the same word used in chapter two, the spelling is slightly different to show something fundamentally has changed. To be “naked” was often used to refer to a state of scarcity and vulnerability. Ezekiel 16:39 describes what is done to enemies to bring shame and reproach on them: “They shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful jewels and leave you naked and bare.”
The knowledge of good and evil did not make them like God, it made them feel guilty. They knew more, but that additional knowledge was evil. Nancy Guthrie captures it well: “They did attain the knowledge of good and evil, but their new knowledge was from the standpoint of becoming evil and remembering how good they once were. They traded the freedom of enjoying what is good for slavery to what is evil.”
Their nakedness, once a symbol of freedom and mutual enjoyment, suddenly became a symbol of shame. We could say it like this: Every temptation is a lie wrapped in a promise of freedom that leads only to bondage. Satan gives people what they want so they will eventually get what he wants them to have – guilt, shame, and separation from God. Adam and Eve’s sin sent shockwaves through the universe, causing collateral damage in all creation and in every culture.
To avoid sliding into sin, make sure you are tethered to God’s truth.
6. Disguise. No longer feeling safe about being seen, they sewed fig leaves together in a vain attempt to cover themselves. Because of the shame of their sin, they immediately tried to cover up. We see this in the last part of verse 7: “And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” A fig leaf was one of the largest leaves available to them. Recently, I saw a meme which depicted these fig leaves as poison ivy.
While I enjoyed some of the Super Bowl commercials, one made me cringe because it mocked God and made fun of Adam and Eve’s sin. The setting of the commercial is the Garden of Eden right after Eve ate the fruit. Adam looks horrified by what she did and then realizes he’s naked. But then, the story goes off the rails when a talking squirrel shows up and offers Eve “Avocados from Mexico” to solve their sin problem. This commercial minimized the consequences of original sin by suggesting that immorality and avocados are the way to salvation. Towards the end a man appears holding a sign which reads, “The end is not near!”
Their fig leaves concealed, but they did not really cover. In fact, the standard way we try to get rid of shame is concealment, but our attempts don’t work any better than theirs did. Because the relationship between Adam and Eve was fractured, they attempted to hide and cover their nakedness from each other. It’s important to note they didn’t confess their sin; they simply tried to cover it up. Proverbs 28:13 says: “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” Write this down: sinners can never adequately cover up their own sin on their own.
Ray Pritchard has some great insight:
“…the fig leaves were never going to be a long-term solution. They were only a temporary solution at best. There are so many problems with fig leaves. They fall apart easily, they itch, it’s hard to find the right size, and every day or two you’ve got to get a new outfit…man’s puny attempt to cover his sin is always doomed to failure…”
Speaking of Pastor Ray, he preached a message in 1993 that is the best treatment of “original sin” I have ever heard. Sections of this sermon formed the basis of his book, Anchor for the Soul, which now has over one million copies in print! Since this is such a critical doctrine, and it comes right from Genesis 3, I want to take a few minutes and share some highlights from that sermon called, “Paradise Lost.”
Ray’s main text was Romans 5:12: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” BTW, Ray will be doing an online Q&A on Tuesday, February 28, at 7 PM on Facebook, the Keep Believing YouTube Channel, and on keepbelieving.com.
Something has gone wrong with the human race. No one can successfully deny that fact. We are not all that we could be. And no matter how much we boast of our technological achievements, the sorry story of man’s inhumanity to man always grabs the front page. Something evil lurks inside the heart of every person. No one is immune, no one is exempt, and no one is truly innocent.
Call it what you will—a twist, a taint, a bent to do wrong. Somehow, somewhere, somebody injected poison into the human bloodstream. That’s why, even when we know the right thing to do, we go ahead and choose to do wrong. Deliberately. Repeatedly. Defiantly.
What is it that makes us repeatedly do that which can only hurt us? It is the doctrine of original sin. We know what is right and yet we deliberately choose to do what is wrong.
“How did sin first enter this earth?” Paul offers a simple one-word answer: Adam: “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man.” Placed in paradise, with everything good and only one tree forbidden, the Serpent tricked Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. She gave some to Adam and he ate too. It was through that deliberate choice that “sin entered the world.”
If you had been there that day, all you would have seen was a man taking fruit from his wife and eating it. No lightning, no thunder, no bells, no scary music in the background. Yet from that one act of disobedience, awful results flowed out across history.
Theologians have a word for this event. They call it “The Fall.” It means that when Adam ate the fruit he fell from a state of innocence into a state of guilt. He fell from grace to judgment. He fell from life to death. He fell from heaven to hell.
It is impossible to understand the world as it is today apart from the reality of Adam’s deliberate sin. Our world makes no sense otherwise. Why do you sin? Why do you repeatedly choose to do wrong?
There is an answer that lies on the surface, so simple that you may miss it. You sin because you have a sin nature. That is, you were born with an inner bent toward sin. Paul says it like this: “Because all sinned.” That’s in the past tense: “All sinned.” Not “All sin” (though that is true) or “All are sinners” (equally true). The tense is crucial for understanding Paul’s point.
This verse is pushing you and me back to the Garden of Eden, back to that fateful moment when Adam ate the forbidden fruit. In some mysterious way, you were there, and I was there. In some strange way, when Adam sinned, you sinned with him and so did I.
This is the doctrine of original sin in its plainest form. It means that when Adam sinned, you sinned. When Adam disobeyed, you disobeyed. When Adam fell, you fell. When he died, you died. To say it another way, although you and I were not historically there in the Garden, because we are descendants of Adam, we suffer the consequences of what he did.
Theologians call Adam the “Federal Head” of the human race. When Adam was created, he stood as the divinely appointed representative for the whole human race. What happened to him happened to all of us because in God’s eyes he was appointed to act in the place of everyone who would later come after him.
Let me say it another way. Adam was the driver of the bus of humanity. When he drove the bus over the cliff, we went down with him. He was at the controls when the airplane crashed. It doesn’t matter that we were back in the coach section watching a movie. When he crashed, we all went up in flames.
That leaves us with only one question: What is the remedy for my sin? The answer is simple. You need the gift of God. Look at Romans 5:15: “But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.”
This gift “came by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ.” How do you get that gift? If it’s a gift, it must be free. If it’s not free, then it’s not really a gift. Since it’s a gift, you can only do one of two things with it. You can accept it or reject it. That’s all. You don’t have any other options.
The whole message comes down to one simple question: Have you ever accepted God’s free gift of salvation that comes through the one man, Jesus Christ? Have you ever reached out the empty hands of faith and said, “Yes, Lord Jesus, I open my heart to you and ask you to forgive me of all my sins.” Have you ever done that?
If you go to Hell, don’t blame Adam. It’s not his fault. If you end up in Hell, blame yourself. It will be your fault for not accepting God’s free gift. He gave it so you would accept it. That means your destiny is now in your own hands. What will you do with the gift of God?
Friends, the only way our sin and shame will be truly covered is if God covers it.
Are you ready to stop concealing your sin and start confessing it? God set his plan of redemption in motion right after Adam and Eve sinned, whereby a second and final Adam would be sent to redeem the fallen race.
Lock into these words from 1 Corinthians 15:22: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” The only way out is by eating the fruit of another tree – the Cross of Christ. Guthrie adds, “By eating of the fruit of this tree, all those who have descended from Adam and Eve can reclaim the life they lost and restore the relationship of glad dependence and obedience they left behind.”
Invitation
We’ve been praying Psalm 85:6 for the last several months: “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” Let’s include the very next verse: “Show us your steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation.”
Dr. Dennis Kinlaw, former President of Asbury University, notably said of the famed 1970 spiritual revival: “Give me one divine moment when God acts, and I say that moment is far superior to all the human efforts of man through the centuries.”
Jonathan Edwards defined revival as “the acceleration and intensification of the normal work of the Holy Spirit.” Missionary Norman Grubb adds: “Revival is when the roof comes off and the walls go down.” In other words, the roof comes off our lives leading to a sweet awareness of God and His holiness while the walls come down suddenly with our brothers and sisters.
We want to allow some space and time for you to respond right now.
• You can come up front for salvation or surrender. There will be people available to pray with you or you can just pray by yourself.
• You can stay where you are and pray.
• Feel free to pray with someone seated next to you if you’re both comfortable doing so.
• You can stay seated or stand.
• You can linger as long as you’d like.
