Oops, Now What?

Oops, Now What?
January 1, 2011 4:30 AM -0600
Manuscript
Outline
Notes
Bibliography
Temptation is a part of life, and we all fail from time to time. The consequences of sin are very real, but that doesn't mean that God's done with us. Discover the lengths to which God will go to overcome your faults.

Thesis: Mankind has been compromised by sin, but God is willing to go to extreme lengths to fix the problem.

Objective: Call people to recognize that temptation and sin are universal constants among humans and realize that God would help us overcome them.

  1. We are susceptible to temptation (1-7).
    1. It starts with a question (1; More often than not, temptation is not a big, bad thing at the beginning. Rather, it starts as a simple question designed to make us question God's character and/or will.).
    2. It grows with distortion (“and you must not touch it” (2-3); The temptation introduced by the serpent's question is compounded when we allow ourselves to add to or subtract from God's word. Such twisting lends credence to the question which the serpent introduced.).
    3. It compounds with a lie (“You will not surely die” (4-5); Ultimately, temptation will involve a lie of some sort. EXAMPLES: God is less than completely truthful. God is not able to....).
    4. It culminates with disobedience (“she took some and ate it... and he ate it” (6); If allowed to progress, temptation will inevitably result in disobedience. We'll have rationales and excuses, of course, but it is still disobedience.).
    5. It results in guilt (“they realized they were naked” (7); Once we disobey, all that we really receive is guilt. We know we've done something wrong, and so we try to cover it up. But our guilty attempts to cover our guilt ultimately do nothing to address the problem.).
  2. Our sin has real consequences (8-19).
    1. It alienates us from God (“they hid from the Lord God” (8); God designed man for fellowship with Him, as demonstrated by the fact that Adam and Eve were familiar with the sound of Him walking through the garden. Now that sin had entered the picture, though, that fellowship was shattered, as demonstrated by the fact that they now hid from Him.).
    2. It compromises our integrity (12-13; When confronted about their sin, rather than take responsibility for their own actions, Adam and Eve pointed the finger at someone – anyone – else. Sin damages our relationship with God, but also our own character.).
    3. It draws God's wrath (14-19; God is both holy and just. Combined, these two traits demand that He cannot tolerate sin. He must respond.).
  3. We are God's masterpiece (9, 20-24).
    1. He's looking for us (9; Even after we sin – even though He knows all about it – God comes looking for us.).
    2. He doesn't trash us because of sin (20; In most cases, God doesn't instantaneously smite us for sin. Sin is not the end of the world. Rather, despite the consequences of sin which we will experience, God's grace still makes it possible to have a relationship with Him.).
    3. He provides for our need (21; God recognized that, if He was to have a relationship with Adam and Eve, then their sin would have to be covered somehow. So He made for them clothes made of animal skins. It was the first sacrifice for man's sin, a precursor of the animal sacrifices which would eventually be prescribed for sin, and a type of the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ which would be required to cover our sin once and for all.).
    4. He will still use us (23; Not only does God provide for us to continue to have a relationship with Him by covering our sin with grace, but He also makes it possible for us to be effective for Him, even if the exact role may change as a result of sin.).

Ryrie

  • (1) The serpent was “apparently a beautiful creature, in its uncursed state, that Satan used in the temptation.”

  • (1) “more crafty” = “clever, not in a degrading sense at this point.”

  • (1) “Satan spoke through the serpent. PerhapsEve did not realize that animals could not speak; at any rate, she was not alarmed.”

  • (1) “The question was designed to suggest that God was not good and fair because He restricted the eating of the fruit of one of the trees.”

  • (6) “The three areas of Eve's self-deception are in the same categories of temptation as those found in 1 John 2:16.”

  • (6) “Eve was deceived; Adam ate knowingly. Their sin was more than merely eating forbidden fruit; it was disobeying the revealed word of God, believing the lie of Satan, and placing their own wills above God's.”

  • (6) “Sin, with all its dreadful consequences, now entered the human race and the world in general.”

  • (7) Notice the “keen sense of guilt immediately followed the act of sinning.”

  • (8) Adam and Eve hid because they were very much aware that “their intimate fellowship with God was broken.”

  • (14) “The entire animal kingdom was affected by man's fall, but the serpent's very form and movements were altered, and he was humbled (you will eat dust is a symbol of humiliation, not an item of diet).”

  • (15) The serpent's “offspring” are “the spiritual descendants of Satan.” “and hers” refers to “those who are in the family of God.”

  • (15) “he” refers to “an individual from among the woman's seed, namely, Christ, will deal a death blow to Satan's head at the cross, while Satan (you) will strike Christ's heel (cause Him to suffer).”

  • (16) “Women were condemned to suffer in childbearing.”

  • (16) 1 Tim 2:15 refers to this passage to say that the women will be saved through childbearing.

  • “Your desire may mean that the wife would have a deep attraction to her husband, perhaps to compensate for the sorrow of childbirth. Or this may mean that her desire would be to rule her husband.”

  • (17-19) “Man is condemned to exhausting labor in order to make a living, because of a curse on the ground. (Adam worked before his fall.)”

  • (20) Eve = “life or life-producer”

  • (21) “The garments of skin were God's provision for restoring Adam's and Eve's fellowship with Himself and imply slaying of an animal in order to provide them.”

  • (22-24) “Driving Adam and Eve from the garden was both a punishment and an act of mercy, lest they should eat of the tree of life and live forever in a state of death and alienation.”

  • (22-24) cherubim are “angels who guard the holiness of God.” You can find them also in Ezek 1:5 and Rev 4:6.

Reflecting God
  • (1) “Later Christian interpretation identifies the serpent as Satan; in Genesis he is one of God's wild animals.”

  • (1) “The Hebrew words for 'crafty' and 'naked' are almost identical. The craftines of the serpent led them to sin, and they then became ashamed of their nakedness.”

  • (1) “The serpent insinuated a falsehood and portrayed rebellion as clever, but essentially innocent, self-interest.”

  • (3) “The woman adds to God's word, distorting his directive.”

  • (4) “You will not surely die” is a “blatant denial of a specific divine pronouncement”

  • (5) “The serpent accuses God of having unworthy motives.”

  • (5) “The statement is full of irony. First, they were already like God, created in his image and likeness. Second, God gave humans the responsibility to care for creation, whereas Satan urges humans to pursue their own self-interest. Satan urges humans to pursue their own self-interest. Third, their eyes were opened, to be sure, but the result was quite different from what the serpent had promised.”

  • (6) “good for food... pleasing to the eye... desirable for gaining wisdom” are “three aspects of temptation.”

  • (6) “By God's grace they did not die immediately, although the fullness of life that they could have experienced was disrupted by sin.”

  • (7) The realization that they were no longer naked was significant. “No longer innocent like children, they had a new awareness of themselves and of each other in their nakedness and shame.”

  • (7) The coverings they made were “their futile attempt to hide their shame.”

  • (8) “Sin alienates from God,” thus they hid.

  • (9) “Where are you?” is “a rhetorical question. God graciously seeks those who attempt to hide from him to their sin and shame.”

  • (10) “The garden, once a place of joy and fellowship with God, had become a place of fear and of hiding from God.”

  • (11) “The point is not to fix blame, but to hold each one accountable for his or her own acts of disobedience. Failure to accept personal responsibility for sin is itself sinful.”

  • (12) “The man blames God and the woman – anyone but himself – for his sin.”

  • (13) “The woman blames the serpent rather than herself.”

  • (14) “The woman and the man were judged, but the serpent and the ground were cursed – the latter because of Adam. Due to sin God's curse limits the effects of his gracious creation blessing.”

  • (15) “The antagonism between people and snakes symbolizes the struggle between humans and parts of creation due to human sin. Early Christians interpreted the statement that the offspring of the woman would crush the serpent's head as a promise of Christ's victory over Satan.”

  • (16) Eve's “judgment fell on what was most uniquely hers as a woman. Similarly, the man's 'painful toil' was a judgment on him as worker of the soil.”

  • (16) Adam's “labor remains a gift of God, but it is distorted by sin.”

  • (16) “The woman was created to 'correspond to' the man without being dominated by him. While the woman's desire for her husband (and the husband's for the woman) remains as God gift for the husband-wife relationship, sin can distort that relationship in such a way that she experiences trouble and anguish rather than unalloyed joy and blessing.”

  • (17-19) “Though he would have to work hard and long (judgment), the man would be able to produce food that would sustain life (grace).”

  • (19) “The origin of [Adam's] body and the source of his food became a symbol of his eventual death.”

  • (21) “God graciously provided Adam and Eve with more effective clothing to cover their shame.”

  • (22) 1:26

  • (22) “In a terribly perverted way, the serpent's prediction came true.”

  • (22) “Sin, which always results in death, cuts sinners off from God's gift of eternal life and alienates them from full fellowship with God.”

  • (23) Although the relationship has changed, humans still care for creation. Now, however, they would have to work hard ground cursed with thorns and thistles.”

  • (24) “Similar to the statues of winged, human-headed bulls or lions that stood guard at the entrances to palaces and temples in ancient Mesopotamia.”

  • (24) “The sword of God's judgment stood between fallen humans and God's garden. The reason is given in v 22. Only through God's redemption in Christ do sinners have access again to the tree of life.”



  • Ryrie, Charles C. Ryrie Study Bible Expanded Edition. Chicago: Moody Press, 1994.
  • Barker, Kenneth, ed. Reflecting God Study Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000.
©2014 Debra Heights Wesleyan Church
4025 Lower Beaver Rd
Des Moines, IA
(515) 279-5212