The Fall and Cover-Up Genesis 3:6-7 (Sermon)

 

WELCOME

Back from Turkey Run, we are full steam ahead into the fall: the fall season and the story of humanity’s fall from perfection. We are preaching through Genesis, the first book in the Bible, verse by verse and chapter by chapter. God created the heavens and the earth in Chapter 1. He rested at the beginning of Chapter 2. Then, in verse 4, the book pivots to revisit the creation of humanity. God made the first man and placed him in the Garden of Eden. He gave him the charge to guard and keep it. It was filled with food, water, and animals, but lacked one thing: a helper fit for the enjoyment of being fruitful, multiplying, and filling the earth. God had Adam rest, removed a rib, and created the first woman, Eve. It was a picture-perfect wedding. It was just them, naked and unashamed. Chapter 3 comes along, and we learn that a talking serpent questions God’s character in a conversation with Eve.

TEXT

I asked B.S. to read the two verses I will talk about today. As B. comes up here, would you please stand with me in deference to God’s Word?

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 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. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (Genesis 3:6 7, ESV)

PRAYER

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for all that you have done. We need you. Open our hearts, minds, and souls to receive what you would have for us today. We pray this in Jesus’s name. Amen. You may be seated.

CONTEXT

The passage is part of a larger narrative in Genesis called the Fall. Our verses break into, 

1. The descent into disobedience (vs. 6).

2. And The resulting reaction (vs. 7). 

MAIN IDEA 

Eve saw, enjoyed, and ate the forbidden fruit; Adam didn’t stop her, but indulged himself. Consequently, they recognized their nakedness and tried to make it right. The main point seems to be that obeying disobedient desires leads to shame and a cover-up. Let me show you why I say that, and how God’s path is better.

THE DESCENT INTO DISOBEDIENCE (VS. 6)

Look at verse 6: 

“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 was to be desired to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6, ESV).

Stop there. The Bible said that Eve saw the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And she saw three things: 

1. The tree was good for food. 

2. It was a delight to her eyes. 

3. And it was desired to make a person wise. 

This relates to what we already read in Chapter 2. Verse 8 reads,

And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:8–9, ESV)

So, the first two things that Eve saw were correct. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was good for food and a delight to the eyes. God made every tree that way. But we get to the next clause: “the tree was to be desired to make one wise.” Out of context, desire doesn’t seem wrong. 

DESIRE IS NOT BAD 

We all have desires. And desires can be good. 

• Desire can motivate a person to get up in the morning and go to the office. 

• Desire can take you to the gym. 

• Desire can lead a young man to ask a young woman to marry him. 

• Desire can help you turn in an assignment. 

What do you desire? Here are a few of mine. 

1. Security

2. Comfort

3. Pleasure

4. Lunch

DEFINING WISDOM

What did Eve desire? Wisdom. What is that? Webster’s Dictionary defines wisdom as, 

marked by deep understanding, keen discernment, and a capacity for sound judgment (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wise )

The Hebrew word can be translated as understanding, prudence, and insight. Those are all good things. 

SOLOMON’S DESIRE FOR WISDOM 

Thousands of years later, Israel’s third king, Solomon, desired wisdom:

At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, “Ask what I shall give you.” And Solomon said, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you. And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day. And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” 

It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. And God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days. And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.” (1 Kings 3:5–14, ESV)

Solomon’s desire for wisdom was good. It is good to seek and desire wisdom. God tells us, 

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5, ESV).

Solomon asked God for it and got it. But what did Eve do with her desire for wisdom? She didn’t go to God. She listened to another voice, the serpent’s. She wanted what she wanted, when she wanted it, the way she wanted it, and chose another path.

WHO ARE YOU LISTENING TO

Who are you listening to these days? Voices scream at us on TV, computers, and phones. They are a siren song.

SIRENS 

The sirens in Greek mythology were part woman, part beast, and lived on an island. They sang beautiful, bewitching music that lured sailors to them. If you are familiar with Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus is heading home and wants to hear the Sirens. So he has his men plug their ears and tie him to the mast with his ears wide open. He listens, and it drives him mad. Those who give in to the sounds meet their demise. The ship passes these wicked notes. The world, our passions, and the devil can be like those lovely invitations that would sap us of all joy and goodness, stealing away our lives.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY 

In his book, Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” I say that because, functionally, Eve believed that God was wrong. She may not have articulated that. But that was what her actions were saying. 

ME TOO 

I can relate. In my head, I know the right answers. I am a Bible-believing pastor with multiple degrees. I am well-read and studied up. I can tell you God is good and trustworthy all day long. But in the heat of the moment, when I am tempted, I can yell, and huff and puff, and blow your house in. In those moments of anger, fear, and temptation, I functionally am not trusting God. I can be trusting that if I put the right pressure on whomever, they will do what I want. Again, I would never say I don’t trust God, but if we analyze why we go against God’s ways, it is because we’re functionally saying our way is better. We are forgetful people. Eve forgot or didn’t believe in the heat of the moment.

CHOICE 

In paradise, with unlimited food and water, and with a blessing with Adam to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue, and have dominion over it, she was given a mission of joy, bounty, and blessing. She found the one thing she should not have: the fruit from the tree. She had a choice before her.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

When we were kids, my mom would buy us choose-your-own-adventure books. Have you seen those? They put the reader in the story with options:

You walk up the hill with your friends on a moonless night at Turkey Run. You were camping out in the back woods. You come upon an outbuilding that had fallen into disrepair. The roof sags; a pane is broken in the window, and a straight stick leans against the front. The wood smells like rot. On the door, hanging at a slant, is a rusty sign that reads, “No Trespassing.” A coyote howls not too far behind you. Then another to your right, closer still. From the other direction, another. You are surrounded on three sides. A twig snaps, leaves rustle. You shine your light in its direction; two eyes glow a yellowish green. Then another behind it. In all directions, the eyes shine like sickly stars in the dark. The moment tastes like a bite of a rotten apple. What do you and your friends do in that second? Do you open the door to the decaying building and go in for safety, or do you grab the stick from the wall, turn, and face the coyotes?

How many of you would open the door? Raise your hands. 

How many of you would face the coyotes? And I am not talking about the volleyball, soccer, basketball, or baseball teams. That is the kind of adventure these books offered to us as kids. 

PICK A PATH

What path would Eve pick? Would she give in to her desires, or not? Satan had given her half-truths and lies, as Dave Smeltzer taught last week. God had given her blessings, with a rule and a warning. Which voice would she listen to? Who would she trust? Her decision would demonstrate in that moment what she believed. She took and ate. But eating was not the root of the problem.

PHARISEES

Thousands of years later, religious leaders thought the root of the problem was not being religious enough. They added extra rules and tried to clean up their public image. Jesus countered this line of thinking, basically saying that the heart of the problem was a problem in the heart (Matthew 15:18–19, ESV). The heart, not the muscle, but the seat of the soul, is where we find the root cause of our failure. Jesus’ half-brother put it this way.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. (James 4:1–2, ESV)

And he also wrote,

“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:14–15, ESV).

Sin begins not with an action, but with a thought entertained, conscious or unconscious.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote,

            “The heart is deceitful above all things, 

      and desperately sick; 

      who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, ESV).

NOTE: DESIRES ARE NOT ALL BAD 

Our desires can get out of sync with God’s. We all have desires. Where have yours gotten out of sync with God’s this week? We know God’s desires by being in his Word, listening to his Holy Spirit, and connecting with his people. If you have neglected any of these, you may not even be able to tell where you are out of sync. Just because we want something doesn’t make it right. Society will tell us to follow our hearts. Our hearts can lead us to hell. Eve’s heart was buying into Satan’s scam. Our intuitions, values, fulfillment, and identity must be grounded in God and his Word, or they could slowly shift us away from God. Let us go back to the Bible as our GPS to guide our life journey. Solomon wrote this:  

            Trust in the LORD with all your heart, 

      and do not lean on your own understanding. 

            In all your ways acknowledge him, 

      and he will make straight your paths. 

            Be not wise in your own eyes; 

      fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. 

            It will be healing to your flesh 

      and refreshment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:5–8, ESV)

God is good, friends, and gives good gifts to his children, like wisdom. Don’t listen to Satan, the world, or our base tendencies at work inside your heart, mind, and soul.

​

What are we to do instead?

1. Pray 

2. Take your thoughts captive 

3. Be in God’s Word 

4. Go back to our faith in God

Solomon prayed to God and the New Testament agreed. Let’s do that. God invites us to: 

“Take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5, ESV).

Grab ahold of your desires. God also says, 

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2, ESV).

Renew your mind by being in God’s Word and resisting conformity to the world. And when we face the Devil and his half-truths and lies, the Word says, 

“In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16, ESV).

Go back to what we know: our faith in who God is and what he has done to resist the evil one. Eve needed to rein in what was happening in her heart. I do too. Do you?

1. Pray 

2. Take your thoughts captive 

3. Be in God’s Word 

4. Go back to our faith in God

LUTHER QUOTE

Again, desire is not bad in itself. It is what we do with it. Martin Luther said, “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” Don’t let the temptations roost in our brains.  

PRACTICE 

Perhaps even now you are struggling with jealousy, lust, worry, or something else. It is wild that we can do great in one area, then get proud about that, which is a sin, then fall into despair and hopelessness, which is a sin. We can cycle through sins like revolving doors at a hotel. God promises,

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. [You are not alone. There is probably someone sitting in this church struggling with the exact same sin.] God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:12–13, ESV)

Use these four options to help you choose God’s way, not the alternative. 

VERSE 6 

Eve went her own way. Let’s go back to verse 6: 

“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 was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:6, ESV). 

She took the fruit and ate it.

FEDERAL HEADSHIP

Then we get to the next statement: 

“and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate” (Genesis 3:6, ESV). 

Interestingly, in the coming weeks, we will read that Adam received a longer punishment from God and was blamed in Romans 5:12:

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men” (Romans 5:12, ESV).

Briefly, why would God hold Adam accountable if Eve sinned first? Here are some possibilities I thought of:

1. God gave him the law. We don’t know how Eve learned the law. Adam may have failed to communicate with her. Perhaps he sinned that way.

2. Adam was there. And he obviously didn’t stop her. God gave him the job of guarding and keeping the garden. He didn’t guard and keep Eve from sinning. Perhaps that's another reason he got the brunt of the blame.

3. The Bible says that Christ is the head of the husband, and the husband is the head of the wife. I believe this type of headship puts the onus of guilt on Adam. We see this type of representative responsibility in parenting. For example, in Michigan we have a,

“Michigan Parental Liability Act (MCL 600.2913), parents can be held civilly liable if their unemancipated minor child (living with them) maliciously or willfully destroys property or causes bodily harm to another” 

All that said, Adam was with her and chose to follow his heart instead of God.

RESULTING REACTION 

What happened next? Verse 7, 

“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths” (Genesis 3:6 7, ESV).

They recognized that they were naked and ashamed. Their eyes saw something they had not seen before. In Genesis 2:25, they were naked and unashamed; now they saw their nakedness and felt shame. So what did they do? They covered up. They tried to make things right. And next week: we’ll see that they hid from God. Can you relate?

COVER UP

People do this today. On one side, some hate themselves; on the other, some hate others. On one side, they may want to fix things through self-punishment. On the other hand, some might shift the blame and not accept personal responsibility. In both cases, people can grab for control. Their efforts didn’t undo the fact that they had disobeyed.

RESPONSE 

What does God want from us when we blow it, choose the wrong adventure, or listen to the sirens? Let’s look at other verses in the Bible. Here are three things he wants from us: admission, repentance, and faith.

ADMISSION

1. Admission

2. Repentance

3. Faith

We need to admit what we did. God says, 

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8–9, ESV).

Let’s not deceive ourselves. No one is perfect, including you. I think we don’t spend enough time confessing our sins as a people. I know that is true for me. Maybe you get an A+ for that discipline. Great. Let’s take a moment to confess our sins in our hearts quietly. Sin can be failing to do the good we should have done, or doing the wrong we should not have done. It can be in our thoughts, words, and actions. Any time we have not loved God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, or our neighbors as ourselves, which includes our siblings, spouses, co-workers, bosses, and customers, we have sinned. [PAUSE]

REPENTANCE

God wants us to repent. Jesus preached, 

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15, ESV).

Repentance is turning from our sinful ways to God’s ways. Will you stop doing what is wrong? Or will you only give lip service? What would it look like for you to turn from the sin you just confessed to God? Let the Holy Spirit lead you in his ways.

BELIEVE THE GOSPEL 

Finally, we must put our faith in God again. Perhaps you have spent your whole life sewing fig leaves for yourself and hiding from reality. God has something way better for you: Jesus. God will robe you with Jesus’s perfection in a miraculous way. You need to embrace his provision for your sin. Believe in him, not the lies of your heart, the world, or the devil. Are you fed up and exhausted trying to fix things each morning? Do you need God’s help? Let God give you a new heart, mind, and soul, with his Spirit to boot.

EZEKIEL 

I love how the prophet Ezekiel spoke for God this way, 

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes an*Alld be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. (Ezekiel 36:25–29a, ESV)

Join Isaiah the prophet who was praising the Lord for the rightness that God gives his imperfect kids:

            I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; 

      my soul shall exult in my God, 

                  for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; 

      he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, 

                  as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, 

      and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 

            For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, 

      and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, 

                  so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise 

      to sprout up before all the nations. (Isaiah 61:10–11, ESV)

Friends, today could be the day of your salvation and freedom from disordered desires as we wrap up; trust in Christ and his provision. He gives good gifts to his children. Run to him, everyone. After the service, we will have people praying for others up front. Are you robed in Christ’s righteousness or your own works? Throw off vain attempts to fix things yourselves. Trust in Jesus’s work on the Cross to be our punishment and give us his righteousness with God.

PRAYER 

Let’s pray. 

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