STUDY THEME: ADOPTING A BIBLICAL WORLD VIEW                    7-02-00
UNIT 2: CONTOURS OF A BIBLICAL WORLD VIEW
"HUMANITIES GREATEST FAILURE."  GEN. 3: 1-7, 16-19; ROM 5: 12-14, 18-19

PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO GENESIS 3.

The "Life Question" for today's lesson is "What's the big deal about
sin?"  The subject of sin is a much debated one. Some people deny the
reality of sin. But, according to 1 John 1:8, this is to deceive
themselves and in Vs. 10 to make a liar of God. Others laugh at sin, but
the Bible says in Prov. 14:9 that "fools make a mock of sin." Still
others according to Rom. 1:32, take pride in their sin. 

The most dangerous attitude toward sin is to tone down its awfulness.
Psychology calls sin mal-adjustment; biology labels it a disease; ethics
suggests that it is a moral lapse; philosophy regards it as a stumbling
in the upward progress of the human race. Paul said in Romans 3:23 that
"all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." We do well to gain
a clear understanding of sin, its consequences, and its remedy; then
shall we better contend against it. 

The basic words for sin in both Hebrew and Greek mean "To miss the mark."
The idea is that of missing a target. The target is the will and
character of God.  According to Rom. 3:23 to miss it is to "come short of
the glory of God." The basic nature of sin is at its root transgression
or disbelief. W. Hershey Davis defined sin as "an illegitimate expression
of a legitimate desire." We live in a society that fails to take sin
seriously but Gen. 3:11 teaches that "sin is a serious matter." 

The basic elements in sin are God's will and man's transgression of that
will. Man measures or weighs sin, but to God all crossing of His will is
sin. What man does after he violates the will of God is secondary. We
call some men murderers and others liars; God calls both sinners. Sin is,
basically, rebellion against the sovereign will of God. The ground out of
which sin comes is selfishness, wherein men place their wills before the
will of God. Thus the root sin of all sins is unbelief. 

>From our first Scripture reading from Gen. 3: 1-7 we find the serpent
used half-truths and lies to lure the woman into eating the forbidden
fruit and thus rebelling against God. When the woman offered Adam the
fruit, he also ate and disobeyed  the clear prohibition of God. 

1. PLEASE READ GENESIS 3: 1-7.

This is the first verse in the Bible with a question mark after it. All
the preceding statements in the first two chapters of Genesis are
declarations of truth which only the Devil and his followers doubt. But
when we come to this first verse in Genesis 3, the great heart chapter of
Genesis, we meet with a question, and we are not surprised, when we
realize who it is that is speaking. It is none other than the
serpent--Satan incarnated in the most beautiful beast of the field which
God had made. In Rev. 12:9 Satan is identified as "The Old Serpent, he
that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.
Jesus said in Luke 10:18, "I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from
heaven."    

It is the Devil who asks the first question in the Bible, casts the first
doubt upon the Word of the Lord, and by clever deception gains the ear of
Mother Eve. Satan is the great deceiver. He comes in the garb of a
beautiful animal, walking upright in all its dignity and with the power
of speech, the only instance in nature of a beast being able to
communicate with man, except by special permission of God. The word
serpent means the "whisperer" and this itself is highly suggestive. And
this tempter comes to Mother Eve and asked "Yea, Hath God Said?" 

By careful innuendo he plants the seed of doubt in Eve's mind and then
misrepresents God. He says, "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of
every tree of the Garden?" What a foolish question, and we marvel that
Eve gave him an answer at all. If God had forbidden them to eat of every
tree of the garden, then how in the world were Adam and Eve to live? They
were limited to a vegetable diet, and yet the Devil dared to ask, casting
aspersion on God's goodness, "Did God really forbid you to eat of any
tree in the garden?"

Now notice carefully the answer of Eve, for in this answer we have the
nature and the beginning and character of all sin. Most people think of
sin as an act rather than attitude. It is generally believed that Eve
sinned when she actually ate of the tree which God had forbidden, but
this is hardly true. Eve's sin was committed before that, when she
believed the Devil instead of God. That was the root of her sin and the
act of taking of the fruit was only the natural result of her unbelief of
the Word of the Lord. Sin is not primarily an act but an attitude toward
God. 

We think of murder as sin, but the Bible says, "He that hateth his
brother is a murderer." We think of immoral acts as sin, but Jesus said,
"He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath already committed
adultery in his heart." Stealing and theft is not the real sin, but the
covetousness which results in sin. Sin then is not in the hand that takes
the forbidden fruit, but in the heart which does not believe God's Word.
This is tersely summed up in the epistle of James when he says in James
1:14-15, "But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own
lust, and enticed. Then when  lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin:
and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death."  

One we look at sin as God sees it, as a thing of the heart and as
unbelief, we can indorse the indictment of Paul in Romans 3:23, "For all
have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." The Bible taking this
view of sin declares "that there is none righteousn, no not one." 

And so the Spirit of God has inserted in the record in Genesis 3, this
account of sin of Eve in the garden. So we repeat Eve sinned when she
doubted God's Word and listened to the Devil. All the rest followed in a
most natural way. Notice therefore, what Eve said to the serpent: "And
the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of
the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the
garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it,
lest ye die." 

Right there Eve fell, right there Eve sinned, and the subsequent eating
of the fruit was only the result of this first sin. The first sin of Eve
was doubting God, and the next was lying. Eve was a liar. Before she
became a thief, she was a liar, and before she was a liar she was an
unbeliever. Now don't wince at this, for it is right here in the record.
What Eve quoted God as saying was an untruth. God never said that at all.

Let's compare the two statements. God had said: In Genesis 2: 16-17  "of
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day thou
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."   

Compare this with Eve's statement. "Ye shall no eat of it, lest ye die!"
God said, "Thou shalt surely die." Eve said, "Lest ye die." There is a
great difference in those two statements. The first is a certainty; the
second is a possibility. Eve misquoted God's Word, she lied and quoted
God as saying something He had never said.

Now in examining this statement of Mother Eve in Vs. 2 & 3, we find that
she made three mistakes, which always lead to disaster. First, she added
something to God's Word. Second, she changed something in the Word of
God, and then, finally, she left something out of the Word of God. Notice
each one of these. 

First, she added something to the Word, "neither shall ye touch it." Now
God had merely prohibited eating. He had said nothing about touching.
That was Eve's own interpretation, and she added it. Second, she changed
something in the Word. She changed he certainty to a bare possibility by
saying, "Lest ye die," instead of "Thou shalt surely die." And finally,
she left out the most important part of God's Word, surely. God had said
"Thou shalt surely die." from there on the rest was easy, and the record
goes on to say that she looked at the tree, desired it, and ate of it,
and fell and found out that in spite of her own interpretation of what
God meant, it still was true and she died.

Eve fell, not when she reached forth her hand to take of the forbidden
tree, but she fell when she doubted the Word of God and gave ear tot to
the tempter Satan, speaking to her thru the serpent in the he Garden of
Eden. In Vs. 6 we have the three fold temptation which followed the
threefold mistake Eve made when she: (l.) added to the Word of God; (2.)
changed the Word of God; and (3.) took something away from the Word of
God. 

In Vs. 6 and 7 of Gen. 3 we also have three definite things. Eve saw the
fruit of the tree, that it was good for food, good for sight, and good
for wisdom. Three things, food, sight, wisdom! he appeal of the
temptation attacked Eve from three sphere of her being: body, soul, and
spirit. 

First the temptation of her body came through the channel of the
appetite: she saw that the tree was good for food.  The first temptation,
therefore, was to the physical side of Eve, her desire for food. The
second temptation was to the soul. She saw that it was pleasant to the
eyes. The soul is the seat of appreciation of beauty, the seat of our
appreciation of our likes and dislikes, our ability to enjoy pleasure and
the seat of the emotions. 

The most common channel to the soul is the eye: therefore, while most
temptations of the flesh come through the body,  the temptations of the
soul comes through the eye. Someone has aptly said, "The eye is the
window of the soul." The third temptation came to the spirit of man. Eve
saw that it was a tree desired to make one wise, undoubtedly the wisdom
which the serpent had promised her when he said, "Ye shall be as gods,
knowing good and evil." The tempter implied that God was only concerned
that they not become like God.

In these three temptations we have summed up every temptation man is
subject to. Every temptation of life falls under one of these three:
body, soul and spirit: food, pleasure and knowledge. There are no other
temptations known to man. They correspond to the flesh, the world, and
the Devil. John tells us in 1 John 2: 16 that this is all the temptation
there is in this old wicked world:  "For all that is in the world, the
lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is
not of the Father, but is of the world." It is a significant fact that
when Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil, He met
these same three temptations. 

I believe with all my heart that the victory which the Lord Jesus gained
over the tempter could have been Adam and Eve's as well. For instead of
doubting God's Word, Jesus quoted God's Word. In each case Jesus answers,
"It is written."  

Gen. 3:7 seems to sum up in terrifying brevity the story of human
depravity as the result of sin: "And he eyes of them both were opened,
and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leave together,
and made themselves aprons." 

Their eyes were opened to sin and closed to holiness. They learned
something they had never known before: they were naked before God. They
forgot something they had known before: that God was their friend, but
their eyes were blinded to that; and so they flee from God and hide in
the garden and seek to cover their own nakedness and sin by the work of
their own hands. Before they sinned, they had been clothed by a garment
of sinlessness and perfection and holiness and now suddenly they find
they are without it and are naked. 

Behold the awful effect of sin! Man knows he has sinned, but he does not
know the remedy. His entire concept of God is changed and twisted and
distorted. He misunderstands God and His love. He thinks now that God is
someone to fear rather than One who has the only remedy for his
condition. He hides from God, he makes excuses, he lies, and, foolish,
foolish sinner, he imagines he can do something himself to make amends
for his wrong. He imagines that by the work of his hands he can recover
the garment of holiness and make himself again presentable before God.  

They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. Sin does not
need a covering; it needs an atonement. The mistake which Adam made is
the mistake of all ages, thinking that sin is something on the outside
which can be covered by our own works and our own efforts. But sin is in
the heart; fig leaves can only cover the external shame of sin, but it
can never take it away; it cannot remove the penalty of death. They sewed
fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. 

Fig leaves then, in the Scriptures, represent man's own efforts to save
himself and make himself right with God once more. Adam started the fad
of fig-leaf dresses, and every Adam's son born from that day until now
has tried the same thing until convicted by the Spirit of God of the
necessity of God's remedy and God's righteousness for salvation. Every
effort of man without the blood of  Christ is an abomination in the sight
of God. It is Fig Leaves.  

Jesus said to one of the finest, moral, upright, religious, law-abiding,
respectable men of His day, "Ye must be born again." Stop hiding behind
your flimsy fig leaves and let God clothe you with  the garments of
salvation through the blood of Christ.  Acts. 16:31 says, "Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 

2. PLEASE LOOK WITH ME AT GEN. 3: 16-19. 

Tragic indeed, were the results that followed man's disobedience to God.
These results were threefold.
(l.) To the man and woman.--By their fall the man and woman marred the
image of God within them and lost their fellowship with God. They were
filled with fear and shame and tried to hide themselves from the presence
of God. A curse was pronounced upon them:
Unto the woman in Gen. 3:16 God said, "I will greatly multiply thy pain
and thy conception; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and they
desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
And unto Adam God said in Gen. 3: 17-19 "Because thou hast harkened unto
the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded
thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy
sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also
and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of
the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground."

But the more terrible result of man's sin is summed up in the word
"death": Gen. 2:17 says, "For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die." This death was both physical and spiritual.

>From the day man disobeyed God, he was a dying creature. His body did not
die in the day he sinned, but it became subject to disease and physical
infirmities which end in death. But man did die spiritually the day he
sinned against God. Death does not mean cessation of being, but
separation or dissolution. 

Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. It is
described as "giving up the ghost." Spiritual death is the separation of
the soul from God. All men, in their natural state, are spiritually dead.
Conversion is passing from death into life. John 5:24 says "Verily,
verily, I say unto you. He that hearteth my word, and believeth him that
sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed
out of death into life."

Man's fall not only brought ruin unto hiself but upon all posterity. As
head of the race, Adam passed the effects of his sin on to his
descendants. They became heirs of his fallen nature. 

There are Scripture verses which seem to indicate that the curse of man's
sin fell upon all the rest of creation. I fell upon the animal kingdom
and upon the ground. The very environment was cursed because of Adam's
sin. The worst consequence of their sin, of course, was that their sin
separated them from God. 

PLEASE TURN IN YOUR BIBLE TO ROMANS 5. 

Adam's sin set in motion a cycle of sin and death in which all are guilty
of sin. With sin came the consequence of death. This was true even in the
 years before the law was given through Moses, and it continues to be
true. 

3, PLEASE READ ROMANS 5: 12-14. 


In Vs 10-11 Paul wrote "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled
to God by the death of his son...and not only so, but we also joy in God
thru our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received atonement
(reconciliation). 

The word "atonement" means at-one-met which means "to cover." Seven times
in the O.T. the verb is translated "to reconcile," or "to make
reconciliation" or to make a thorough change. The basic idea, therefore,
in atonement is to make two as one, to reconcile a difference or to
remove a separation between two persons. The perfect fellowship which was
broken by mans sin must be restored through an at-one-ment of God and
man. 

In Vs. 12 Paul said that sin entered into the world through the
disobedience of the first human. With sin came the consequence--death.
Because creation has been marred with sin, life is limited. It must end.
Because of sin, unrepentant and unbelieving people grow old and die and
spend eternity apart from God.  

The effects of sin and death in creation did not end with the incident in
Eden. Sin spread from Adam and Eve to their descendants. With sin's
spread, death also spread. Sin and death touch everyone. However, just as
Adam could not blame Eve for his sin, neither can other generations blame
Adam. Although sin and death entered the human race through Adam and all
people inherit Adam's sinful nature, people do not perish in eternity
because Adam sinned. They die spiritually because they sin--because all
sinned. Everyone sins. Jesus is the only exception. 

"But sin is not taken into account when there is no law",  means that God
does not legally charge an individual with violating a command if no
command was given. Vs. 15 points out that sin is not taken into account
when there is no law. That is, sin is not considered as a transgression,
unless there is a law that has been broken or violated.

People who did not know God's law also sinned. Generations lived and died
prior to God's giving the law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. All of them sinned,
and all of them experienced  the same consequences of sin as Adam--death.
Death reigns over all people because all people sin. Law defined sin, but
sin existed long before the law was given. Sin is universal. Sin is every
person's problem. Always has been; always will be.

Sin is a fact of life. Every person is a sinner and experiences the
consequences of sin. Death is a stark reminder of the gravity of sin's
seriousness. 

4. PLEASE READ ROMANS 5: 18-19. 

The good news is that Christ provided a way out of the deadly cycle of
sin and death that Adam set in motion and we perpetuate. Although we are
Adam's descendants who are sinners condemned to death, through Christ
death we can be made righteous. 

Sinful rebellion against God is not the end of the story. Death is not an
irreversible fate, and life does not have to end in tragedy. In Rom 5,
the Apostle Paul contrasted two men: One man, Adam, disobeyed God and
opened the door for sin and death to enter the human race. One Man, Jesus
Christ, lived righteously, and through His act of obedience--His death on
the cross--He opened the door of salvation and eternal life to the human
race.  

God created Adam and placed him in the garden of Eden. By is
disobedience, Adam lost his innocence and his home. He became condemned
in a hostile world. His descendants were not born and reared in the
wholesome environment of Eden. Instead they fought to stay alive in the
unfriendly environment of fallen creation. Each generation followed in
the footsteps of their predecessors and sinned against God. Therefore,
they received God's condemnation. 

Another man, Jesus Christ came into the hostile environment created by
Adam's rebellion. Paul descried Christ's redemptive work as one act of
righteousness. From the moment of Jesus' birth to His last breath on the
cross, He completely conformed His life to the will ill of God. The
attitude hat guided Him can be seen in His prayer in Gethsemane. As Jesus
confronted the horror that loomed before Him, His human reaction was to
escape the agony of the cross. He asked His Father, "If it is possible,
may this cup be taken from me." However, He added in Matt. 26: 39, "Yet
not as I will, but as You will."

The greatest desire of Jesus' life was to obey God. This desire was so
strong that Jesus willingly died for the sins of others. Through His
righteous act God offers humanity justification. Justification removes
the sentence of death and replaces it with life. The offer of life is
available to all men. This does not imply  that people will escape
physical death. Believers and non-believers both continue to die. The
emphasis is on the spiritual realm. The separation from God. The
separation from God that is the consequence of sins removed. Life that
results from justification is more powerful event than physical death.
When Christians experience physical death, they then begin to enjoy life
in he presence of the Lord.  
  
Just as one person's disobedience resulted in all becoming disobedient to
God, the obedience of one Person offers acquittal to all. Paul did not
suggest that all people automatically become righteous. Rather, the
opportunity to become righteous is offered to all. In Ephesians 2: 8-10
and again in Acts 16:30-31 the apostle clearly specified that  salvation
is the result of faith in Christ. By simply trusting in Christ, an
individual is made right with God. Death, the natural consequence of sin,
is displaced with life--the divine result of Christ's redemptive act.

Today, we should rejoice that thru Jesus Christ we can overcome sin and
receive new life in Christ. Because of Him, hope exists for a fallen
world. Sin is humanity's greatest failure. Its consequences demonstrate
just how big of a deal sin truly is. All of us have rebelled against God
and earned he ultimate punishment of death and eternal separation from
God. 

God has overcome our sin and made new life possible. This achievement
required Jesus' death on the cross. However, the power of the living God
was too great to be crushed even by death. Christ rose from the dead and
lives today! You can share in His new life thru faith in Him.

Ephesians 2:8-10 says "For by grace are ye saved thru faith, and that not
of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works lest any man should
boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good
works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."  

  Acts 16:30-31 reads, "--Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" "And they
said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy
house." 

NEXT SUNDAY THE LIFE QUESTION IS "hOW CAN I BE CONFIDENT THAT GOD IS IN
CONTROL OF THIS WORLD?"                       A.V. DAUGHERTY  7-9-00