Sunday AM—7/10/05
SERIES: Genesis—The First Soap Opera
MESSAGE 2: I’ve Fallen & I Can’t Get Up—Genesis 3
Felt Need Intro:
Have you ever seen the movie called, “Pleasantville”? It’s kind of a mixture between Back to the Future and The Truman Show and the Twilight Zone all at the same time.
• Explain movie.
• Set up movie clip.
• Show movie clip 27
David doesn’t fit in at his high school. Thought of as a "geek," he is obsessed with a 50s era television show called Pleasantville. After a surprise visit from a supernatural TV repairman, David and his popular sister, Jennifer, find themselves physically transported into the television town of Pleasantville, where their modern attitudes threaten the stability of this black and white sit-com world. Their interaction with the townspeople has some unexpected results.
Movie’s Sermon General’s Warning:
Pleasantville contains profanity, violence, and sexual situations.
Rating: PG-13 Genre: Fantasy
The Big Idea:
The Fall -- Hollywood style.
Scene Setup:
Margaret and David (known as Bud in Pleasantville) are by the lake up at Lover’s Lane. It is an idyllic setting -- like the Garden of Eden. Margaret is full of curiosity; she is seeking knowledge about the outside world.
Scene:
Margaret wants to know what the outside world is like, so she asks David. He tells her that it is "louder, and scarier, I guess. And it’s a lot more dangerous."
Instead of recoiling, Margaret says, "It sounds fantastic." Then she tells David about a group of kids who came up to the lake to go skinny-dipping. She offers David some berries, saying she picked them herself. She eats one first, then puts the rest in his hands. She tells him, "There’s lots of stuff." He asks, "Like what?" Margaret gets up and says, "Here, I’ll show you."
She runs across the grass to an apple tree in the garden. She reaches up and plucks a red apple and carries it to David. She kneels down, holds it out to him, and says, "Here, try it."
Application:
Later in the film, David participates in a mural painting in which the apple is depicted as having a snake coiled about it -- but even without the added imagery, there is no mistaking the Garden of Eden thrust to this scene. The exception is that there is no resulting shame from disobedience, no God walking in the garden, no judgment, and no exile. This is the Fall, Hollywood-style.
Margaret doesn’t understand the consequences of her desire to live a more dangerous life, because all she has ever known has been the pleasantness of Pleasantville. She would prefer to abandon the garden if it meant that she could live this unknown, loud, scary life with David. She wants knowledge, and she wants it by experience.
Sermon General’s Warning:
None for this scene.
Rating: PG-13 Genre: Fantasy
DVD Chapter: 0 Start Time: 1:11:22 End Time: 1;12;27
The point of this movie is to show you that it really isn’t all that bad to taste of the fruit. In this version, there is no punishment. Those that would stand up against later are just shown that they have the same desires in their heart and they should just go for it. Do you know what this clip is titled by the makers of the movie. It’s called, “From the tree of knowledge”. Not the knowledge of good and evil. Just knowledge. Because in Hollywood’s version of the fall, there is no evil and there is no consequences. Well, that’s not the Bible’s version.
Turn with me to Genesis 3.
Introduce series.
Genesis 3:1-24—“1 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’?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 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.’ "
4 "You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, 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. 7 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.
8 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. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
"Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring [a] and hers;
he will crush [b] your head,
and you will strike his heel."
16 To the woman he said,
"I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."
17 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.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 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."
20 Adam [c] named his wife Eve, [d] because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 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." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove them out, he placed on the east side [e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Now, we’re in this series on the Book of Genesis. And there’s just some things in Genesis that you have to cover. You have to cover the story of creation that we talked about last week. You have to cover Noah and the Ark right? You have to talk about Abraham. But, to be honest, most people would really rather not cover Genesis 3. And let me tell you why…if we talk about Genesis 3, we have to talk about the obvious implications of Genesis 3. If we are going to talk about how sin entered the world, then we have to deal with the sin in our own hearts. If we are going to talk about what we commonly call the “Fall of Man”, we’re going to have to face the times we fall just as bad.
Well, guess what? We’re going to talk about Genesis 3, about the fall of man, we’re going to talk about how sin entered the world. And we must deal with the consequences as well. So, I just want to speak quite simply here and just mention to you what I feel like we are supposed to learn from this story.
So, what are we supposed to learn from this story?
1. We are supposed to learn how sin entered the world.
That sounded pretty simple didn’t it? Big deal, let’s move on. Well, not exactly, because if this is an accurate portrayal of history, in other words, if this really happened (and we believe it did), then that tells us once again that we can trust God’s Word.
2. We are supposed to learn the way in which Satan tries to tempt us.
I believe we can clearly see a similar pattern here between what he did with Adam and Even and what he does with us today.
A. Doubt
The serpent came to Eve and planted the seed of doubt. "Did God really say…" And Eve bit the bate. She took it hook, line and sinker. And Eve herself began to question & doubt whether or not she actually heard the word of God correctly. The initiating stage of sin, is doubt. It’s a subtle thing that quietly works its way in unannounced. "Did God really say…" vs. 1. The serpent said with a tone of mockery. And Eve began entertain a notion of doubt. Did God really say don’t eat from the tree of knowledge? Did He? She began to talk herself out of hearing the voice of God. Eve fell prey to the oldest trick in the book didn’t she? She caved into doubt. Satan’s been successfully using that one from the beginning of time, hasn’t he? You know what I’m talking about, many of us are familiar with enemy tactics of doubt. Notice that doubt takes the form of a question…Did God really say? Doubtful thoughts almost always end with a question mark. Satan loves it when we question established facts. He loves to put a question mark where God puts a period.
Here’s some ways we doubt:
• We doubt whether some things really are sin or not.—Why is it that when we aren’t sure if something is wrong or not we tend to go ahead and do it rather than going ahead and staying away from it?
• We also doubt whether or not sin really is that big of a deal.—As long as no one finds out about it, then it can’t hurt me.
B. Deception
Where doubt leaves off, deception picks up. By now the serpent has really got her on the hook & He’s starting to reel her in. The questions of doubt have partially blinded Eve to the truth. She’s beginning to consider a false reality. Deception is taking place. The serpent takes the word of God, distorts it badly and uses it to deceive her. The serpent says, "Surely you will not die…"vs. 4. Which was patently false. God said, "Surely you will die…"vs. 3. The serpent played on the words a little bit and got Eve believing that she was invincible. The trickery of lies, the falsehood of deception ultimately leads us down a path of imminent destruction. And it just doesn’t stop with that one lie. The Serpent knows progress is being made, so he turns it up a notch and takes it a step further. In verse 5 where he says, "for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened. You’ll be like God knowing good and evil." This is the worst lie of all, because it’s based on a half truth. Yes, Eve would have the knowledge of evil when she only had the knowledge of good. To her it sounds like a real good deal. Eve says, "ooh this is a deal I can’t refuse, I simply can’t lose, I will have both!" Little did she know how terrible it would be. And How much pain it would cause. Yes, the serpent deceived her.
Do you know that what he used to deceive Eve, he still uses against us. This is the biggest deception that Satan could use and it is one that I believe we all struggle with. Satan tries to get us to believe that we can be like God.
The serpent tries to convince them that God doesn’t want them to eat from the tree because he doesn’t want them to be like him. God’s scared because he just wants to hog all this God stuff for himself. The problem isn’t that God doesn’t want them to become like them. The problem is they want to become like him. The devil convinced them they could become like God...he’s been trying to convince all of us the same thing ever since. You and I cannot and never will be like God.
Yet, don’t we do lots of things that only God should be doing?
Blaise Pascal said it this way: “God made man in His own image and man returned the compliment.”
C. Desire (use a red apple to demonstrate):
Eve was extremely vulnerable to the forbidden fruit. Because it looked soooo good. Notice what verse 6 says, "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom." Her desire was growing. She glanced over at the fruit & started saying to herself "hmmm that looks good." She thinks about what the serpent said. Looks at it again. The longer she looks at it, the greater her appetite and the more pleasing to her eye it becomes. It isn’t long and she’s just staring at it, she can’t take her eyes off of it. She now has a huge appetite, and can’t resist. What’s happening here? The serpent is very successfully playing on her desires. Not much has changed hon? We’re extremely vulnerable, as human beings, at the point of our desire. The enemy is an expert at playing on our desires isn’t he? That was true with Eve and its true with us. The more you focus on your sinful desires and zero in on them, the more likely you are to succumb to it. Eve was trapped at the point of her desire. The more she zeroed in on the forbidden fruit, the greater her appetite became. Her desire increased.
When you begin to doubt and you begin to be deceived into believing a lie, it’s certain that evil desires come about.
D. Decision
Finally, the moment of decision had arrived. (Pull the apple closer to your mouth) She allowed the desire to grow so strong, that she could no longer resist it. By now, Eve had reached the point of no return. She had allowed desire to increase greatly, to the point that she felt like she couldn’t say No. (Pull the apple closer, dramatically)
And She didn’t say NO! The verdict had been reached. SHE BIT IN !!!! (Bite into the apple). Mmmm, says Eve. "This is good." Often, sin seems good initially. She enjoyed it, there was no immediate remorse. Sin is good but for a season. And to Adam, she gave a tasty bite. And after their indulgence, they realized they were naked. The thought occurred to them, that they should get dressed. Eve looks over at Adam and says, "put some boxer shorts on boy!" Adam looks back and says, "Where’s your bathrobe honey?" Behold, the problem of sin was recognized. It entered the human race at the time of decision. And at that moment, the clothing industry was born.
We’d like to think that the story ends here. But, it doesn’t. In fact, we haven’t told the real part yet. You see, all that doubt and deceiving, and desire and decision doesn’t end there. No, the next thing we are supposed to learn is the cost of sin…
3. We are supposed to learn the cost of sin.
God comes along and finds them and says, “Adam, what is this you have done?” And Adam says, “God’s it’s that woman you gave me!” Isn’t it funny how we always try to blame others for our own demise. Just a moment before they could have stopped all of this.
Sin separates us from God.
Name for me the grossest thing you’ve ever seen. Think of the most disgusting, gross, ugly, despising thing ever…sin is worse.
4. We are supposed to learn to avoid sin.
I vividly remember watching a famous TV preacher say that when he gets to heaven he’s going to kick Adam in the shins because it’s all his fault. Guess what, you and I are no different than Adam and Eve. The point of this story is not to make Adam out as the bad guy. The point is for us to recognize our own desires for sin and for us avoid sin at all cost. The focus of the story should not be on Adam and Eve or on the serpent. Really, it should be on God because only He can take away that horrible sin.
There is a horrible, terrible, ugly price to pay for unforgiven sin. We must avoid sin at all cost.
5. I believe from this story we are supposed to hope that in the same way in which God is able to punish for sin, he is also able to forgive and restore us from sin.
Closing:
We live with much more knowledge now because we can see things Adam and Eve couldn’t. We can see the cross.
Here’s what I wanted you to get out of this message:
• There is a horrible price to pay for sin.—I want to put sin in the right perspective.
• There is sin in our lives we must deal with.
• God can help us with our sin.
Altar Call:
1. Salvation
2. There are specific sins I need forgiveness for and I need God’s help with.
• Close with Communion.
