Genesis 3:1-24 "Lessons From Adam"
Here are some serious mistakes Adam made in his relationship with God and Eve and how God dealt with him.
I. He was passive (vs 1-6)
Basically, he ignored her!
He ignored the fact that Satan was there.
He ignored the fact that Satan was talking to her
He ignored the fact that she was being told that it was O.K. to do something that God had specifically said "Don’t do."
You have to wonder here: did Adam even tell Eve what God said?
Did he communicate with the wife God gave him?
He allowed her to lie: (vs 3) God didn’t say they couldn’t touch the tree. He said they couldn’t eat from it.
He didn’t try to stop her from eating that forbidden fruit.
As a matter of fact, he ate some himself.
Relate: Men are still passive today.
Illustrate: Would you stand by and let your wife buy drugs from a drug dealer?
II. He hid from God (7-11)
Now Adam takes the lead.
After their eyes were opened and they knew they were naked, Adam says, "Oh, Oh, We’re naked.
Better get dressed."
He probably had Eve sew those fig leaves together.
Then, he hears the voice of God calling him in the garden and says, Eve, we are in serious trouble. Let’s hide."
Verse 8 says they hid from the Lord among the trees of the garden.
Adam knew that he was no longer worthy to stand in the presence of God.
God knew where they were-and he knew what they had done.
So God calls to Adam, "Adam, where are you?"
Adam comes clean-he confesses that he was afraid because he was naked.
Now, you have to understand that Adam was ashamed.
Not only because he was physically naked, but his eyes were opened to see his sin.
He knew what God had said, and he was afraid of what was coming from God.
Relate: How do we hide from God today? Drugs, alcohol, sex, denial of God’s existence, some get involved in church work.
Now God starts His interrogation: "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
His judgement and punishment were swift, but Adam is looking for a way out.
III. He refused to take responsibility (vs 12-13)
He says in verse 12, "The woman you put here with me-- she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
We look at this passage and immediately think he blamed Eve for all his trouble, but the fact is, he only blamed her a little bit.
He blamed God a lot.
In Chapter 2:21-24, God gives Adam a helper.
She comes on the scene and Adam thinks it is the greatest thing in the world.
But when we get here, his attitude changes.
All of a sudden she is "That woman you put here with me."
How many men do you know who have that attitude?
A man who has a distorted view of biblical submission of women has that view.
Let’s be realistic.
Adam wanted to eat that fruit just as much as Eve did.
He heard everything Satan was telling Eve.
It sounded just as appealing to him.
The problem is that he didn’t want to take responsibility for his own actions.
By the way, men, he was also held accountable for what Eve did.
Verse 17 says that because he listened to his wife and because he disobeyed he was in trouble.
Now, before you go off and say you don’t have to listen to your wives let’s clarify this.
The passage doesn’t say don’t listen to your wife.
It says that you need to develop a discerning spirit so that when your wife falls into temptation you can help her through it and keep yourself from sinning as well.
Well, we know what happed next.
Adam blames God and Eve, Eve blames the serpent, and the serpent...well, nobody to blame!
Relate: Men still refuse to take responsibility. If you blame others for your failures, do you credit others for your successes?
Illustrate: Checkbook illustration: If your wife pays the bills, do you blame her when you run out of money? If you pay the bills, who do you blame when there is no money?
IV. God dealt with the sin
The serpent got it first.
He became a belly-crawling reptile with a big mouth that eats dust.
Maybe you’ve heard that expression, "eat my dust."
Race car drivers use it a lot.
It’s an expression of total defeat.
Satan was defeated through Jesus Christ’s victory on the cross.
Then Eve got it. Pain during childbirth.
What began as a joyful blessing became a reminder of the rebellion that led to sin.
And, even though she would have tremendous pain during childbirth, her desire would still be for her husband.
He would rule over her.
Eve was created to be Adam’s helper.
She was created to be submissive to him.
What began as a pleasant duty became a punishment.
Relate: Do you know why battered women stay with abusive spouses?
Their desire is for their husband.
It’s hard for a battered woman to leave her husband, and when she does she almost always feels guilty.
Women have been trying to get out of this punishment for centuries.
I believe it started when being a wife became a duty to be performed rather than a lifestyle to be enjoyed.
Look at the great lengths women go to in order not to be submissive.
Women demand equality, but God never said they were inferior.
What he said was that the man and woman would become one flesh.
That is, they were designed to be unified in body and spirit.
Not much of that going on today, is there?
Finally, it’s Adam’s turn.
Because he was passive and didn’t intervene to protect his wife, because he didn’t assume the responsibility for their action, and because he disobeyed God, the ground gets cursed.
Now, that doesn’t sound like much of a punishment does it?
At least not compared to Eve’s.
It’s worse than we think.
God is saying that life will be tough.
No more easy life for Adam.
He would have to work extremely hard just to survive.
And, to make matters worse, he would have to contend with weeds and thorns and thistles.
The culmination of all his hard work would be death.
Verse 19 is the death sentence: "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."
God says, "Your body will die."
The tree of life that was designed to keep his body alive forever would no longer be available.
God says, " You’ll work hard just to get by, then you will die."
But it gets worse.
Verse 23, "So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken."
Here comes the spiritual death.
God removed him from His presence.
That’s what spiritual death is: separation from God.
Relate: Unconfessed sin causes spiritual death.
Not once in this passage do we see Adam confessing his sin.
All he does is blame Eve.
God will judge sin today just as he did with Adam and Eve.
Though your sin might not affect all mankind like Adam’s did, it will certainly affect those around you.
Conclusion:
Even though God pronounced judgement on Adam and Eve, he still took care of them.
In verse 21 we see that God made garments of skins for them to clothe them.
He covered their nakedness.
This was the original sacrifice.
God made that clear to Adam.
As Adam looked back at the Garden of Eden, he would not see all the beauty and splendor God had created.
He would not see the great life God had planned for him.
He would only see the remains of the bloody sacrifice God made for him.
That blood sacrifice became a yearly requirement for the Hebrew people until Jesus Christ came and shed his blood-once and for all-for all mankind.
Invitation:
Can we learn from Adam?
We sure can.
We can learn that we can’t sit passively by while sin knocks at our door.
We can learn that we can’t hide from God.
God knows our hearts, He knows our sin.
We can learn that we can’t shirk our responsibility to confront the sin in our lives.
We can learn that God will judge sin.
What can we do?
We can take a good, hard look at ourselves and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal those areas in our lives that need work.
We can be up front and honest with God.
We can stop thinking we are perfect.
When those areas of sin in our lives are revealed, we can stand guilty before God and say, "Yes, Lord, you are right.
I have some unconfessed sin in my life."
We can take the responsibility for that sin and refuse to blame God or anybody else.
There are two passages of Scripture that I consider my favorites.
One is Matthew 7:3-5, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ’Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."
The other is James 1:22, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."
I want you to do both of these things today.
