READ: Gen. 1:31, 2:8-17.
Humanism asserts that man began in the primeval slime, and has evolved in all senses to the complex being he is today.
He started out as merely unorganised gasses that, through millions of mutations, finally developed into the intricate physical body that he is today.
He began with no intelligence, evolved through limited intelligence down through the millenia, until our own generation has witnessed the explosion of knowledge that is the hope of the future.
He began with superstitions, which in time became quaint religious beliefs, but he is continuing to evolve spiritually into a higher understanding - coming to recognise his own divinity.
He started out in a barbaric “survival of the fittest” mode, but progressively he has become more civilised to the point today where we are on the verge of universal peace. Man will be his own salvation.
That is HUMANISM. The NEW AGE gospel. Man’s evolution will continue to the full perfecting of the species, until man has become his own SAVIOUR!
CHRISTIANITY proclaims that in reality the exact opposite is true. God created man in a very high and glorious state, and declared, “This is very good”. Man was creation as God’s perfection in a perfect world. But man fell. Sin has plunged him into a state of depravity. And there has been a downward spiral ever since! At times that downward spiral - that regression - has become so alarming that God has had to step in. In Noah’s day, He judged the world by a great flood. In Abraham’s day, He wiped out the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. But the downward course always continues. And the ONLY hope for man is that the Creator might step in with some salvation - because, of himself, man has no ability to stop the spiral downwards - let alone to get back to Eden’s perfection.
WE BELIEVE IN THE FALL OF MAN! The Bible clearly declares it.
Now this is absolutely foundational to Christianity. If man is not really fallen, then God’s plan for man’s salvation, as revealed in the Bible, is utterly pointless! Jesus’ death is completely meaningless, and a pathetic waste. IF man is not really fallen.
Friend, you can never understand the Christian message until you recognize that the human race is helplessly lost in and bound by sin.
WE BELIEVE IN THE FALL OF MAN.
This morning I want to address three Biblical truths about this fall into the bondage of sin:
1. SIN’S ENTRY (way back in the Garden of Eden).
2. SIN’S TRANSMISSION (down through the generations).
3. SIN’S EFFECT (in the creation, and most particularly, on man).
Firstly:
1. SIN’S ENTRY.
Imagine with me those first days of life on earth, when Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden. We don’t know how long they were there before their temptation and fall - it could have been days/weeks/months/years. We don’t know. But it was perfect.
God created Adam and Eve:
- In unhindered communion with Himself.
- With dominion over all that He had made.
- In a state of innocence. Man was positively righteous and had the power to continue that way: with no sinful thoughts. Pure and holy - reflecting God’s own perfect holiness.
- With a free will. They are perfect, but they are willful participants in that perfection. And in order to be that, God allowed the possibility for them to go another way. He created them with the power of uncontrolled choice. God made man responsible.
This is a period of probation, that God established. We don’t know how long it would have lasted, but man is under probation - her are the terms of the probation. [Gen. 2:16-17.]
Now, you might think that it was inevitable that man should fall. Some people think that tree was like a “WET PAINT” sign. (You know what I mean?) But we are thinking like that in an already fallen state.
Adam was created with NO BIAS TOWARD SIN. In fact he was positively righteous.
And, secondly, God wasn’t “cornering” Adam in that the only free choice he could make was disobedience - He gave Adam many positive, righteous choices. “Here are all these trees. Beautiful trees. Beautiful fruit. Eat of them all - but leave that ONE tree alone.”
[SIDELINE: You know, God is not a PROHIBITIVE God who doesn’t want us to enjoy anything. That is a very unjust view of God. God still provides, as He did for Adam and Eve, hundreds of positive choices for us to make - hundreds of GOOD trees. Family, friends, children, good food, laughter, sunsets, His presence, His joy, His life, etc., etc. Good trees! Trees that don’t lead to our ruin!]
So, Adam and Eve are God’s perfection in a perfect world, in a period of probation. They have no bias toward sin - in fact they are positively righteous. They have been given plenty of options for positive choices. Only one tree is off limits - and that’s fine with them. SO WHAT HAPPENED?
[READ: Genesis 3:1-8.]
Into this perfect paradise there came an outside influence. We read last week of how Lucifer, a most holy angel, had fallen in pride and arrogance, and led a rebellion against God. God immediately expelled him from His presence. NOW he shows up in the Garden, tempting Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
And when they are tempted, Adam and Eve fall. And immediately there is a loss of INNOCENCE. They realise that they are naked, and so they hide themselves. When God comes looking for them, He finds them in a fallen, sinful condition. God says, “WHAT HAPPENED?” And then the blame-shifting begins! Adam says, “It was that WOMAN that YOU gave me”. Eve says, “It was the SNAKE”.
Right there you have the three excuses man always gives for his sin:
1. Society’s to blame (“that woman”). I could be a saint if it wasn’t for other people.
2. God’s to blame (“the woman YOU gave me).
3. The Devil made me do it (“the serpent deceived me”).
Does God accept the blame-shifting? No. He holds them all accountable - Adam, Eve, and the serpent. They were all acting of their own free choice. Adam and Eve ALWAYS had the God-given power to make another choice. A good choice.
GOD IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF EVIL. He did not create sin, nor cause man to fall. Man CHOSE rebellion.
And that is the account of SIN’S ENTRY into our world. The immediate consequences were that Adam and Eve were barred from the Garden of Eden; barred from the tree of life, and subject to death. As God had warned (Gen. 2:17), “In the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, [literally] dying you shall die”.
That process was now underway in Adam and Eve.
All right, secondly, we need to look at:
2. SIN’S TRANSMISSION.
You see, Adam and Eve died because of their sin. But was that the end of the sin problem? NO. Their children were born under the same judgment - born in sin. It had been transmitted to the next generation. In fact, it has been transmitted down through every generation since. RALPH VENNING called sin, “the plague of plagues”.
We know that Adam’s sin nature was inherited by his children because his son Cain, in a rage of jealousy, killed his brother Abel (Genesis 4). Then you turn over to Genesis 5, and you read the haunting refrain verse after verse . . . [READ Gen. 5:5, 8, 11, 14, 17 . . . “and he died, and he died, and he died . . .”] Man is fallen. Sin and death reign, and it is testified to by every generation.]
Finally the wickedness on earth became so great that God dealt with it in judgement. He sent the great flood (Gen. 6-8). Could the waters of that great cataclysmic judgement destroy sin? NO. Because the human race continue through eight people - Noah’s family. As soon as they stepped from the Ark, sin was seen again immediately. It had survived the flood!
Paul, in ROMANS 5:12-14, wrote that death reigned from the time of Adam, right through the flood, to the time of MOSES UNABATED. With Moses came the LAW. But mankind has proven UNABLE to keep God’s law - and mankind continues to die - proving that sin is still transmitted in each new generation. We are BORN IN SIN.
Now, the question is, “How does this transmission take place?” How is sin passed on?
Is it a genetic thing? Is sin somehow passed on through chromosomes - D.N.A.? Is that it? Maybe in time our geneticists will find the “sin” chromosome in our make-up, they can remove it and we’ll be fine again! Is that it?
NO. Sin is NOT in our D.N.A. molecules, it’s not in our bloodstream. It’s not transmitted physically like that at all. WE ARE SINNERS BY GOD’S DECLARATION.
Sin has been “imputed” to us - that means “set to our account”. Adam was the appointed head of the human race. When HE fell, humanity fell. God declared, “It is a sinful race”. You can think of humanity as “THE TRIBE OF ADAM” - every man, woman, boy and girl. When our “chief” fell, God declared that the tribe was fallen. Sin was imputed to us all.
ROMANS 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. ALL have sinned. When I held my son Ben on the first day of his life, when he was just moments old, he had not yet had opportunity to do anything - but God’s declaration of that brand new baby is “ALL HAVE SINNED”. “When has he sinned, Lord?” HE SINNED IN ADAM. The race is fallen.
So, you live your good life. You do your works of charity. You keep the law. And God’s verdict is unchanged - YOU HAVE SINNED. ALL HAVE SINNED.
You see, we are not sinners because we have committed acts of sin (although every one of us have), but we commit acts of sin because we are sinners. It is our nature. We were conceived and born to a fallen humanity.
[ILLUSTRATION: The famous evangelist BILLY SUNDAY was preparing for a crusade in a large city, and he wrote a letter to the Mayor asking for the names of individuals who had a spiritual problem and needed help and prayer. That mayor in reply sent Billy Sunday a copy to the city directory.]
That mayor had it right! “ALL have sinned”. We all have a spiritual disease, and we need help.
Thirdly and finally:
3. SIN’S EFFECT.
What has sin done? What is sin doing and causing?
A.) TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF MAN.
In addition to the loss of innocence, man has become positively depraved in his nature. JEREMIAH 17:9 says: “The heart (of man) is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”
We talk about man’s TOTAL DEPRAVITY. what does that mean? It doesn’t mean that a man is as bad as he can possibly be (we are not all Adolf Hitler). It means that there is no part of man’s nature and personality that has not been corrupted by sin. The infection is TOTAL - body, soul and spirit.
Let me read to you about man’s LOSTNESS - the extent of our depravity in sin - as it’s summarized by R.C. Sproul (“Extent of Depravity”) ...
“How far did Adam fall?” The liberal says that Adam fell upward, so that Adam’s lot was better after the fall than before the fall because something was added to the personality of Adam of which he had been deprived previously. Consequently, Adam was a fuller and more complete person after the fall than he was before the fall. There are those who say that when Adam fell, he fell over the cliff, but that when he was going over the cliff he grabbed something on the top of the cliff and held on. He fell downward, but he held on before he slipped over the brink, and if he exerts enough will and enough strength he can pull himself back up over the brink and stand on solid ground again. Those who have that concept are trying to lift themselves by their own bootstraps and work their way into heaven.
"Then, there is the teaching that says that when Adam fell, he slipped over the brink, but he landed on a ledge part way down and that the ledge is the church and the church will lift him up and put him on solid ground again. But the Word of God says that when Adam fell, he fell all the way. He became depraved, totally depraved, unable to do anything to please God. He is under sin, dead, under judgment, under Satan’s control; he is lost.
"Beloved of God, in the Person of Jesus Christ as He is revealed through the Word, we have an answer to man’s depravity. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who delivers from the state of sin, who removes condemnation, who gives us life for death, who brings us into His own family as the sons of God. I direct you to Him, the Saviour for depraved men."
The great problem, of course, is that man doesn’t see himself this way. We’ve convinced ourself - and we’ve allowed Satan to stroke us into a false sense of security - believing that deep down we really are good people.
We’re too much like W.S. GILBERT who said: “You have no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself - and how little I deserve it!”
Man has become totally depraved by the fall.
B.) MAN IS UNDER A CURSE.
Genesis 3:13-19 [READ.] But NOTE the promise.
C.) MAN IS SEPARATED FROM GOD.
Genesis 3:24. God drove them from the Garden.
Isaiah 53:6 - “All we like sheep have gone astray.”
When a lead sheep head’s off, they all follow along. WE’VE ALL FOLLOWED ADAM in willful rebellion.
D.) MAN IS DESTINED FOR JUDGMENT.
ULTIMATELY: “The wages of sin is DEATH.” Eternal death. “DEATH” means separation. Hell is not an “END”, but the final separation from God forever.
“The wages of sin is death.”
These are the EFFECTS OF SIN.
CONCLUSION:
We believe in the fall of man. It is so clearly evident in the world today that man IS fallen. Things are not getting BETTER as the humanists are trying to say. Things are getting worse. Darker.
Left to ourselves WE ARE ALL DAMNED.
You know what our main problem is?! We’re all in the business of COMPARING OURSELVES to other people. “I’m not as bad as him. I haven’t done what she’s done.”
[ILLUSTRATION: That’s like the preacher who had a small white Highland Terrier which he kept spotlessly clean by frequent washing, brushing and powdering. And he was so proud of that little dog and its CLEANNESS. It wasn’t dirty like other mangy dogs! BUT THEN, one night a winter storm dropped a fresh blanket of snow on the countryside, and the next morning everything was pure white. As he looked out his window he saw a drab-looking “off-coloured” dog running about. He wondered whose dog it was - and then he realised IT WAS HIS. It was as clean as always, but against TRUE WHITE it looked dirty.
In the same way, our corrupt nature is clearly revealed when our lives are measured by the absolute standard of GOD’S HOLINESS. We may make a favourable impression when compared with other people; but our true colours are seen when we come face to face with God’s purity and holiness.
NEXT WEEK: The solution - “We believe God became man.”
