DEFAULT SETTINGS PART 3

CONSEQUENCES FROM MANKIND’S FREE CHOICE TO DEFY THE COMMAND OF GOD

Sin is the Biblical word that means ‘to miss the mark’.  What is God’s ‘mark’?  Perfection.  No ‘mistakes’.  Forgetting is not an excuse.  The standard of God is perfection.  Morally pure God-- Man, made in God’s image and to reflect this image of moral purity. 
What does God say and do for this one act of disobedience from Adam?

First to the serpent we read:

14 The LORD God said to the serpent,

"Because you have done this,

Cursed are you more than all cattle,

And more than every beast of the field;

On your belly you will go,

And dust you will eat

All the days of your life;

15 And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her seed;

He shall bruise you on the head,

And you shall bruise him on the heel."

Next to the woman:

16 To the woman He said,

"I will greatly multiply

Your pain in childbirth,

In pain you will bring forth children;

Yet your desire will be for your husband,

And he will rule over you."

Now for Adam, who acted as a federal representative for the whole human race, you and me included!

17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it';

Cursed is the ground because of you;

In toil you will eat of it

All the days of your life.

18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;

And you will eat the plants of the field;

19 By the sweat of your face

You will eat bread,

Till you return to the ground,

Because from it you were taken;

For you are dust,

And to dust you shall return."

This doesn’t look like what Satan promised, right? It gets worse.

20 Now the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

22 Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"— 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

What has changed?

·        Fear-based relationship between mankind and God

·        Sense of shame and guilt between mankind and God and between husband and wife

·        Continual enmity between Satan and humans. 

·        Woman—pain in childbirth, yet desire for her husband

·        Woman—submission to her husband will never be easy; there is the seed of distrust and the memory of her own guilt in her disobedience to God by way of her deception

·        Woman—her husband will experience great difficulty in safely trusting in his wife’s counsel and advice…yet the woman will have a strong desire to please the man

·        Man—his deliberate disobedience to God and the resulting curse on his family and the earth will forever cause him grief; all of mankind forfeits Paradise as a result of his rebellion toward a Holy God

·        Man—ground is cursed, work no longer fun and easy

·        Man and woman—body will die, return to dust

·        Man and woman—need skins to cover them; own efforts not sufficient; God’s Holy eyes cannot look on sin unless the blood of an innocent victim comes between the wrath of God against sin and the sinner.  The life of the flesh is in the blood.

·        Man and woman—driven out of Paradise..for just one mistake

·        Mankind takes on a new “Default Setting” which operates according the new nature, the “sin or flesh nature”.  Mankind continues to have no ability to choose good and no way to avoid doing that which is evil and God’s eyes. 

·        One day the human body dies and returns to dust.  Death came to all humans because of sin

·        The need for and the promise of a Deliverer, a Saviour; Genesis 3:15 Amp “And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; He will bruise and tread your head underfoot and you will lie in wait and bruise His heel”