Have
you ever experienced buyer’s remorse? Just before we buy something major like a
car or a house we feel the surge of excitement that comes with getting
something new. It’s the same feeling a child has when he or she gets a new toy
for their birthday or for Christmas. After we buy the item, sometimes we are
hit by a wave of remorse. We ask ourselves if we really needed the item or if
we should have spent the money.
The
present condition of the world reflects what Adam and Eve knew after the Fall:
We are in the season of Lent. It is a season where we are invited to answer God’s call to come into the open, face the hard truths of how we have broken trust with God and with each other, remember how God has joined us in Christ and listen for the invitation to take and eat the bread of life, which we will do in a few minutes.
Bibliography
1. Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible, New King James Version (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013, pp. 8-9)
Buyer’s
remorse is nothing new. In fact, the first instance of buyer’s remorse is in
the reading we heard from Genesis earlier in today’s service. It began with the
crafty serpent and his sales pitch. He was also the first example of a salesman
who sold “snake oil.”
Sin
is a mystery. It arises from within God’s “good” creation. The serpent is one
of God’s creatures. Human suspicion about God’s motivations was embedded within
human hearts from the beginning of time. It merely needed the serpent’s
encouragement to bring it out and convert it into action.
Obedience
is at the core of all that God wants for and from his children. In Eden, God
didn’t ask Adam and Eve for love or faithfulness, only for obedience to one
fundamental command: “If you want to walk with Me, do what I say.” God has set
boundaries for us. They are like painted markings on a highway. Without those
markings to give directions, there would be confusion and accidents. We are
surrounded by a world where people live by their own moral codes and defy God’s
boundaries. These people don’t have any peace or sense of security that moral
guidelines provide.
The
serpent tried to make God’s command not to eat the fruit of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil sound more restrictive than it really was. The
serpent tried to get Eve to question God’s character and motives for herself.
In her reply, Eve twisted God’s prohibition. She left out the words “surely”
and “every”- “surely,” because God said so, and “every,” because of God’s
generosity. She also added to God’s prohibition, “Neither shall you touch it.”
Where did that come from? Was it an exaggeration, or was it something she
and/or Adam added to build an extra wall of protection between themselves and
the tree? There is a danger in adding to or taking away anything from God’s
Word. Any alteration changes the meaning. All we have to do is look at the
Pharisees and their 613 rules to see what happens when God’s Word is changed by
man.
Doubt
led to disobedience, and the world has suffered the consequences ever since
that fateful day. When we turn our back on God’s Word, we turn our backs on
God’s world. Evil appealed to false pride, and this false pride replaced God
with the self. The inflated sense of importance overshadowed God and others. It
made man the centre of creation. Pride is at the root of many temptations. All
of us suffer from temptation. We become victim to it, and therefore all of us
sin.
There
are two ways for us to gain experience. If we gain experience by obeying God,
we will gain wisdom. If we gain experience by disobeying God, we will become
slaves to sin. Adam and Eve gained experience by listening to the serpent
instead of listening to God. Consequently, they became slaves to sin, and
through them all of mankind became slaves to sin. The danger is that once we
have sinned we are not equipped to deal with the consequences of our sin. We
are not always equipped to deal with our new knowledge let alone being able to
control the circumstances of our lives.
As
a result of disobeying God, Adam and Eve found out about good and evil. Their
sense of guilt made them afraid to meet God. They would go on to know and
experience every kind of sin, suffering, pain and physical and spiritual death.
When we make choices that are contrary to God’s Word, we experience the same
things and the same fears. As we try to run away and hide from God, he kindly
and graciously calls to us and seeks us out. God wants us to look for Him. He
wants us to come to Him with a repentant heart and honest words.
As
soon as Adam and Eve sinned against God by eating of the tree, the process of
death began. They became susceptible to the physical degeneration of disease
and old age, and they faced a more serious form of death: spiritual death and
eternal separation from God. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they were kicked
out of the Garden of Eden. They became homeless nomads. We are also homeless
nomads spiritually when we try to find our way back to God.
When
we stand before God like Adam and Eve did, we will be asked to account for our
actions on the basis of our human responsibility. It doesn’t matter what the
reason for our disobedience will be. We won’t be able to blame someone else or
something else like Adam and Eve did. There is no place for excuses in the
Christian life.
Listening
to God is not a one-time event. We must always listen to His Word or we’ll
begin to listen to the wrong voices. By listening to God, we will be prepared
for the assaults that will come our way. We were created to serve God.
There
are many voices in our world that give us conflicting messages. We have the
responsibility to know what God is telling us, to listen to Him and to act on
those commands. We have to make God’s Word our guide and not deviate from it
regardless of how appealing the world’s messages might sound.
Eve
did what so many people do even now: she revised and then rejected what God
said. This sin always produces the same result-separation from God and,
ultimately, death-unless sin is atoned for. Every false religion has an element
of truth, and so do false teachers. This makes their teachings believable to
those who don’t know and believe what God says in the Bible. Satan’s words
contained a partial truth- “your eyes will be opened”-a common tactic of his
when tempting humans. He appealed to Eve’s desires, just as he did with Christ
in the wilderness, and as he does with all Christians. When Adam ate of the
fruit, sin and death became earth’s realities.
Before
Adam and Eve sinned, they enjoyed three very special privileges:
1.
They were in
communion with God; they walked and talked with Him.
2.
They knew God as
He is. Their minds were not clouded by falsehoods or half-truths.
3.
They had
spiritual life. They were alive not just physically, but in every sense of the
word their souls were alive.
When
Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command and rebelled against Him, they lost all
three of their God-given privileges:
1.
Their intimate
communion was broken. They hid from God.
2.
When they
believed Satan’s lie, their knowledge was corrupted and their understanding of
God damaged. What God had said became twisted in their minds.
3.
Perhaps most
important, instead of knowing life as they had once known it with God, they
began to know death.
1.
People are
alienated from God.
2.
People are
ignorant of the truth of God.
3.
People are
condemned to physical and spiritual death.
Everything
Adam lost in the fall is exactly what people lack today without Jesus Christ.
Thankfully, God provided a way for us to regain what Adam lost. God provided a
way for us to be restored to Him. He became flesh, human and vulnerable. In
Jesus we are reliving the broken relationship between us and God. Jesus is
God’s way of returning us to the Garden of Eden and a right relationship with
God. The way back is the way of confession and repentance.
We
can’t hide from God like Adam and Eve tried to hide. God knows exactly where we
are. Instead of hiding in fear, we can say the same thing the tax collector
said in Luke 18:13- “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
We are in the season of Lent. It is a season where we are invited to answer God’s call to come into the open, face the hard truths of how we have broken trust with God and with each other, remember how God has joined us in Christ and listen for the invitation to take and eat the bread of life, which we will do in a few minutes.
1. Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible, New King James Version (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013, pp. 8-9)
2.
ESV Study Bible. Part of Wordsearch 11 Bible software package.
3.
Briscoe, D.S. & Ogilvie, L.J.: The
Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 1: Genesis (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson
Inc.; 1984; pp. 47/54)
4.
MacArthur, J.F. Jr.: The MacArthur
Study Bible, New American Standard Bible (Nashville, TN; Thomas Nelson
Publishers; 2006)
5.
Stanley, C.F.: The Charles F.
Stanley Life Principles Bible, New King James Version (Nashville, TN:
Nelson Bibles; 2005)
6.
Lucado, M.: The Lucado Life Lessons
Study Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson; 2010)
11.
Richard E. Nystrom, “Footsteps in the Garden: Truth and Grace.” Retrieved
from www.preaching.com
13.
Dr. Tony Evans, “A Kingdom Man Takes Responsibility.” Retrieved from Crosswalk@crosswalkmail.com
18.
Greg Hollifield, “Why Death?” Published in the Spring 2017 issue of
Preaching Magazine (Nashville, TN: Salem Publishing; p. 56)