Genesis 3:1-7, What Went Wrong?, Dr. John Carpenter

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Genesis 3:1-7 What Went Wrong?

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Genesis chapter 3 verses 1 to 7 hear the word of the Lord Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the
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Lord God had made He said to the woman did God actually say? You shall not eat of any tree in the garden and the woman said to the serpent
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We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden But God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden
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Neither should you touch it lest you die But the serpent said to the woman You will not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it
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Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil 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
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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
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Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths
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May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his Holy Word Well in the evening of September 11th 2001 after a routine
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Tuesday in Singapore where I was teaching it up at a night class at a Bible College there
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Exactly 12 hours ahead of this time zone. I came home to our apartment to a very unusual site
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Mary was glued to the TV and the TV was showing American news.
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I don't mean they were showing news of America They were just literally Rebroadcasting ABC News right from America what we're wrong.
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I wondered For that to happen She said a plane and crashed into the World Trade Center I just assumed by the way the small kind of private plane
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Cessna kind of thing accidentally had flown into it. What else could it be? Sometimes what we went wrong is much worse than we first assume
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But what went wrong in September 11th 2001 Someone's trying to find a rational explanation some way of fitting the attacks into their optimistic way of seeing the world in human nature
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Some asked why do they hate us as if something we have done could possibly justify flying
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Passenger aircraft into crowded skyscrapers when deep down you were optimistic about human nature.
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You can't understand What we're wrong when they do truly evil things
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What we're wrong when a beautiful intelligent good citizen is attacked and killed on the streets of Memphis during an early morning run or when a seemingly obedient child raised in church drifts away and grows up to be an atheist or when a couple that seemed to have started so close and loving breakup and divorce or when a formerly vibrant church declines or a pastor
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Falls into immorality or heresy What we're wrong The problem some say is society that we have good individuals
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Each of us are good by ourselves But we're corrupted by bad systems a famous theologian of the mid 20th century wrote a book whose title tells it all moral man and immoral society
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Of course, the problem with that is that it doesn't explain how good individuals come together To form a bad society
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How does that work? Many people blame economics people commit crimes and they're antisocial because of poverty if they only had more money and If wealth were more equitably distributed then people would be happier crime and terrorism would come to an end
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Ted Turner the broadcast mogul said that poverty is the root cause of terrorism if so, then
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How much more of Turner's billions would Osama bin Laden the multimillionaire have had to have before he became a good boy
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Sigmund Freud famously blamed most human problems on repressed desires Particularly sexual desires, but we saw in Genesis 2 that there were no repressed desires before the fall
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That God made us to have a fulfillment of desires Repression is not the cause of our problems, but the result of them
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There are many other attempts to explain why people do bad things usually always blaming their environment a bad upbringing some big bad other
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Person or organization maybe chemicals in the brain or whatever But the one thing those explanations have in common is that they are all hopelessly optimistic about human nature
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They believe that the problems are superficial Those explanations don't get at what really went wrong with us in Genesis 3
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We're looking at what went wrong and here we see the Original sin we see what really went wrong with us is far deeper than just environment
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Just upbringing just bad education Poverty or anything else external to the human heart what went wrong?
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was sin, but when we say that We still often underestimate the problem because we're often too superficial in our view of sin
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We often think of sins. It's just a list of things. We're not supposed to do. Don't cuss
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Don't you don't drink don't hang out with those who do as a person if we're successful in avoiding that things on that list
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Then we've avoided sin But here we see that sin is far more than just some external acts that we can not do with enough self -control now sure sins
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We might can most of the time Avoid but sin is now wrapped around our heart
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Infecting us and here we see what sin is sin is unbelief
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Sin is willfulness and sin is lack of love lovelessness
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Well first there's the serpent. Is he the cause of what went wrong? Well, he's more crafty more shrewd more cunning than any other animal
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He's craftier, of course because really he's more than just a beast that ancient serpent is identified as Satan in Revelation he asked a woman
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Which is crafty it's cunning to approach her Her name isn't given yet after all she wasn't directly told
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God's instruction She wasn't given the warning and the day that you read of it. You will surely die in Person Adam was she's heard
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Secondhand, so the serpent shrewdly approaches her that God actually say
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You shall not eat of the any tree in the garden No, that's not what God said
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He said that one specific tree not just any random tree or all trees
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Here Satan is amplifying God's prohibition in order to make God seem stingy
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It's not good that he is keeping something enjoyable and beneficial from people. He is snidely implying something slanderous about God So when we are tempted today, we are offered the suggestion that God is a killjoy
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He's taking away our pleasure. He's taking away the good life. We want that. He isn't good for us
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We are told that this this thing we want that we're tempted with whatever it is is better than obeying
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God The temptation says the sin is better for us Then submitting to God that sin will give us more pleasure more fulfillment more relief more of what we want than God's will
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When we indulge in pornography or slander someone or lose our temper are just selfish put ourselves first Then we are saying that those things have more
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Doing those things have more of what we want than does faithfulness to God's Word We are believing that the
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God is trying to keep something good from us He's trying to deprive us when we sin
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We say that God isn't good well, the woman responds to verses 2 & 3 first rightly that God lets them eat of the fruit of the any of the trees
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Except that one that's in the middle of the garden and she adds something then she adds something that God didn't say
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Neither should you touch it lest you die God never said that Did Adam add that kind of that hedge that buffer around God's law just to keep her away from it?
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Maybe the idea. Well, if she doesn't ever touch it, then she can't eat it You know like legalists add to God's commands to keep people from even coming close to law -breaking or did
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Eve make that up herself? We don't really know either way. We see that God's exact words have gotten obscured got confused
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They haven't paid close attention to what? Exactly God said and then
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Satan in verses 4 & 5 goes from just implying things about God being stingy To openly assaulting the character of God.
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He boldly claims that God's a liar He first says that God's third of death is a lie.
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You won't die Then he impugns God's motives God knows that when you eat your eyes will be opened
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And he offers an alternative promise in place of God's Word God says you will surely die
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Satan says you will be like God Like God you too will know good and evil.
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He appeals to that that yearning to transcend our limitations to be like God God has said that if they eat of the fruit they will die
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Satan says they won't That those are the two rival claims the two competing words
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Now what our first parents do next depends completely on who?
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they believe Now imagine after the service you go to some nice restaurant order a steak
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You're starving to that guy preach so long and steak looks good.
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It looks perfect But just before you take that first bite I come running up to you waving my arm say don't take that don't beat that it's been poisoned and Then the chef then comes out of the kitchen.
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He promises out the steak is fine. I can guarantee it Now what you do next will depend on who you believe
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Our first parents had a choice either believe God or Satan The chief temptation then is to listen to to obey to believe another word
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Contrary to what God has spoken. So unbelief in God's Word is the source of all sin
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God had given the command and The warning they send
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Because they believe something else Now we have a word That we are to believe
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First that word is the proclamation of the gospel. We either believe the gospel and say that God is true
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Or we disbelieve the gospel and say God is a liar and that word is a person
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The word who was in the beginning the word who was with God and through whom everything was made
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Jesus is the word if we are not trusting in him We're calling
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God a liar What we wrong Who we believe?
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God has spoken Should you believe it? He spoke to Adam and the woman about the tree.
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They decided to believe the serpent. He speak to us about Jesus Do you believe it?
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If so, it will show and how you live Temptation Temptation is
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Satan once again whispering has God really said you fill in the blank has
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God really said Sexual promiscuity is wrong as God really said that Jesus is the only way to salvation
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Either we're not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together or keep your word keep your commitments or as he said to churches
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Practice church discipline sing psalms don't have women Elders head pastors it got really say that It doesn't matter if those
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Whatever people think are piccadillos small things appear small in the eyes of the world or if some Christians claim they're open for debate
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It matters what God has said if God said something anything and you choose not to obey it
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Why is that? You might think you have good reasons. I think this is a small thing
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You might have a lot of support from other Christians you might feel it's okay but after all the excuses it comes down to there being a command of God, whatever it is and You are not believing it.
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The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter 14 verse 23. Whatever does not proceed from issue from faith is sin
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What went wrong? Unbelief did and so did second willfulness sin is willfulness
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What do you expect the first sin to be something really horrendous like murdering your brother?
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But it isn't It's just eating the wrong fruit Seems why?
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Well, God said don't eat but they ate and so sin, but why did they eat? because they wanted to sin is
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Whatever we want It's the assertion of our will of my will be done as if we were
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God That's why Satan is offering you can become like God your feelings your thoughts
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Your opinions can be asserted as if you were God you get to declare your truth
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What we're wrong was willfulness You notice what
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Satan offers them He tells them that they can become like God and no good from evil up to now
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They don't know it. The only way they can know evil is If they do evil They do evil when they choose to exert their will against God Rather than submit to God.
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It wasn't that the fruit just kind of magically gave them a lot of knowledge It was that when they chose to exert their will and eat the fruit that then
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They knew evil by doing it by becoming evildoers You can know cancer like a doctor knows cancer or like a cancer patient knows cancer
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They came to know sin like a sinner knows sin They have been warned if they made that choice that declaration of independence from God they would die and When they decided that their own independent exercise of free will was more valuable than submission to the command of God They chose to be cut off from God and that is death
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Every sin Was encapsulated in this this high -handed
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Sin of our first parents the Apostle John in first John chapter 2 verse 16 He lists three categories of sins says the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes
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And the pride of life and we see each of those three here clearly in verse 6
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I think John must have had this this scripture in mind when he wrote that the woman saw that the tree was good to eat
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In verse 6 like the lunch some of you are daydreaming about now, maybe the flesh
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Wanted it that fruit. It was pleasing to the eye. It looked good. It's attractive and Finally was desirable for gaining wisdom.
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It will make me wise Like God It appealed to the ego
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The Apostle John calls that final lust the pride of life It's that willfulness that says
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I will do whatever I feel like doing and no one not even God Can hold me back.
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I will determine what is right for me. I will be my own
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God This is where we get sin wrong if you think it's just breaking a list of of do's and Don'ts we don't see that we can choose to do the right things or choose not to do the wrong things and Yet still be sinful
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If we do it, whatever it is because I want to do it Because my will is to do this maybe my will is to is to be moral to keep the rules to be religious
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Still we've clung to sin Still done it my way even if my way
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Is rule keeping? It's traditional if at heart we're still saying
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My will be done We're still at sin Even if we're keeping the rules
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It's that willfulness that attitude that says I will do what I will do That is the longing behind sin.
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That is its power. That attitude is very respectable in our culture We look up to the self -made man.
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We like Frank Sinatra's. I did it my way If you can sing that with a smile You'll be respected.
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You won't be respected by God. It's the pride of life. It's willfulness while we're wrong third
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Lack of love Lovelessness which is selfishness.
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It's love of ourselves Overall now someone to say that we have to love ourselves to love others
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Maybe that's true. Maybe it's pop psych nonsense. I'm not sure if if maybe it's true if we understand for it to be love
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We have to love God first and others are ourselves you love Who you prefer or you consider
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What is good for them? That's to love to me love by definition is about others so self -love
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Is really not love at all. It's just considering myself But however, you want to see it sin is loving oneself yourself above your neighbor above God our
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Choices whether they be one of the listed sins or obedience Spring from who we love if we love
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God We choose obedience Because we want to please him. We love him if we love ourselves
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We'll choose our will our way Notice in verse 6 the woman saw that the fruit was good for food
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It would taste good It would be a treat It's a delight to the eyes
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It looked good was desirable to make one wise and at the power to give her something that she wanted
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The question is did she love God more? Than all these things this fruit could offer her her enjoyment of the fruit
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She loved God more than herself And when she ate she proclaimed
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Who she loved first Adam wasn't so much deceived by all this first Timothy 2 says he wasn't deceived but he ate too because he loved the
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Advantages of being with her which means loving the advantages for who for himself. So he loved himself more than God.
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I Notice at the end of verse 6 he was with her. So Adam has been around all this time.
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He's heard all this He's standing right there Satan the serpent is speaking to the woman but Adam is right at hand
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He was there when the snake slandered God and he didn't say a thing. He was there when the woman misrepresented
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Exaggerated what God said it he didn't correct her. He doesn't remind her of God's work
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She was deceived, but he wasn't he knew that the day when he ate of that fruit that he would die
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He would be separated from God that she would be separated from God and when the woman handed him the fruit
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He chose that separation from God He had a lack of love
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For God he looks at the two offers the woman snake the fruit and there's
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God on the other hand I'll go against God Adam showed his lack of love by a lack of hate true love hates
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It hates whatever hurts the one you love Anyone who hates is hating what hurts the thing they love if they're very selfish person
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They just hate everything that hurts them. If you love your mother you hate if someone would hurt your mother Here if he loved
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God He would have hated the slander told against God and so we would have spoken up Against it and to defend
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God if he really loved his wife He would hate that. She's being deceived that she's being led to her death instead.
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He enables her death by going along with what she wants if He loved her
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He would have given her the truth and the leadership that she needs Instead he only cared about what was easiest for him
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He appeared pleasant But he lacked love Imagine that maybe after the service again after your steak
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Sometimes you're driving home. You get a call on your cell phone from home Please stop by the store and buy some milk.
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We need milk and when you get home You have no milk Your spouse asked you what happened?
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Did you forget the milk? No, I remember that you asked for milk So what happened?
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Why didn't you buy milk? You shrug your shoulders Just didn't feel like it
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Then there would be argument probably loud complaints I asked you to do one stupid little thing maybe that simmers down to You didn't love me enough to buy the milk that I asked you to is this how much our relationship means to you
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It didn't matter what the request was. What mattered was that you had it in your power
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To do it to do for someone you say you love you're supposed to love what they needed but you didn't
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Because you didn't love enough We might think well that's easy enough to avoid just get the milk don't be stupid just buy the milk
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But what if you get the call? Okay Please get the milk and you think well,
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I don't feel like getting the milk. I'm gonna go home I'm gonna go to the store up to park and walk in all that hassle but if I don't
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There'll be an argument There might be tears. I'll get shouted at my evening will be ruined.
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I want to watch my show So I'll get the milk Have you avoided sin?
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No You might appear pleasant pure accommodating may it appear to have done what is right?
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You got the milk You've avoided doing the thing on the list that we say is a sin not getting the milk when asked
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But you didn't do it because You loved the one who called asking for milk.
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You did it only because You love yourself We can do what we're asked but still sin
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If we don't love Here our first parents sin Because they didn't love
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God They didn't love him enough to do what he asked. They showed how much their relationship with God meant to them.
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It meant less than a tasty fruit Loving ourselves supremely is at the heart of sin
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Having raised small children. It's quite obvious that there are certain things that you don't have to teach them Sharing being considerate being respectful.
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Those are things you have to teach sometimes over and over again But it's amazing how naturally children really all of us take to selfishness.
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You don't have to teach selfishness. Do you so self -assertiveness? How naturally we are?
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Retracted to that how naturally it comes to us that we can live as if the world revolves around us, you know preschool teachers
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Don't teach the kids. Hey yank that toy out of the other kids hands and say mine
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That's never a lesson that I've heard of in a lesson plan. We just do that kind of thing. Naturally this comes to us
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We love ourselves above all it's another way of saying We don't really love at all
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But our sentence is just about violating other people. We violate over the people because first we've tried to take the place of God To be
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God in the universe around us. We love ourselves First we are supposed to be loving
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God that way It's that pride of life that grasping for God's place in the center of the universe
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And while we are doing that trying to be the center of the universe where only God can really live
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While we're trying to be there trying to make ourselves into a God by doing what we will do
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Then we're competing with other people who are also trying to be in the center of the universe with other sinners
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Grasping to be at the center. Maybe they're shrewd Like the serpent so live decent moral lives
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That's their way of being the center of the universe by being moral by being religious because they figured out that's the way to do it
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That's to their advantage They may make great neighbors or even attend church, but if they live their lives willfully with themselves as their own
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God Obeying when it is to their advantage or quietly refusing to when they feel like it
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Then they are still sinners. The root of the problem. Is that our lack of love of God our treatment of others is just one fruit of That problem we choose unbelief and our will to be done because most of all
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We love ourselves which means We don't really love at all
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So this is the essence of sin Sin is a refusal to trust
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God to trust in his goodness sin is willfulness It's a rebellion against God's authority and an assertion that our will my will be done
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Sin is loving what advantages we think in our wrong unbelief that we can get for ourselves
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Not loving God supremely not caring about our relationship with God What went wrong
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Sin did so in verse 7 their eyes were opened
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They now saw their sin they had their experience with sin and immediately
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They began to lose the good things that God had given them. They were ashamed Originally, there was no part of them that had to be covered up or repressed
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But when they reach for their independence Their belief and what they wanted to believe their will to be done their supreme love of themselves
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They not only sinned but became sinners as sinners as creatures who put themselves in the center
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They had to cover up then they had to repress So we are today What we're wrong was not just something external something as easy as doing this or not doing that our very hearts went wrong and even if our if even our first parents with the best background
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The best economic status the best upbringing that you could possibly hope for even they could commit the original sin
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What hope is there for us? The heart of the problem Is the problem of the heart?
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people fly planes into skyscrapers set up Nazi death camps kill over a hundred thousand
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Chinese at the rape of Nanjing kill their unborn children or Worst of all nail the only sinless man to a cross
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Because of what went wrong in our heart what we're wrong
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We might think well terrorists do that criminals do that kind of thing Not me. I'm not so bad
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But we've chosen our own way And even if we choose to be moral or even religious we chose it because we willed it we asserted ourselves
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And at the heart of it is our sin our willful determination that we will do what we will do
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But there was one who had no sin Remember how he taught us to pray Your kingdom come
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Your will be done That's how the sinless one praise He prayed that in another garden
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Our first parents were in a garden on a perfect earth And yet they chose to assert their will to believe what they wanted was better than what
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God willed They chose to love themselves. The Lord Jesus was in another garden in Jerusalem he wanted the cup of suffering to pass
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He told the father that's what he wanted, but then he bowed and said not what
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I will But your will be done That's what the last
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Adam did in another garden There will no sin in that No one belief
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No willfulness No lack of love for God or his people and Because there was no sin in him
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He could pay the price for our sins He could make right