Genesis 2-3 Bible Study: How the Fall of Man Changed Everything

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has taught home-style Bible classes for twenty years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les' teaching is so interesting, people say the time seems to fly by. And now, here's Les Feldick. Good evening, and it's good to have you back again, and let's, tonight, go back to where we left off two weeks ago in the book of Genesis. Now, if you remember last week, we talked a little bit about the Middle East situation and we didn't get into Genesis at all, and of course that's what happens so often in our weeknight classes, which are two hours long. Someone asks a question, and it'll just eat up the whole two hours, and we don't make any headway. But in this thirty-minute set of a program, we're going to try and stay with the text as much as we can. All right, if you'll turn with me to Genesis chapter 2, we've got a few verses that we skipped over, and maybe I should review just a little bit. Remember that on the sixth day of creation, God created Adam, created him out of the dust of the earth, formed him, made him in God's own image, and we hopefully got across that that was in the area of our invisible makeup in our personality, the very fact that we are mind, will, and emotion, and God placed that then within a body. But Adam was perfect, and this is what I want to emphasize, that Adam was perfect in every way. He was sinless, he was immortal, he could have lived forever, and God had created a perfect environment in which he could live, an ideal climate, no heat, no cold. All of archaeological proof shows that at one time this world did have a constant climate from pole to pole, and that was the situation into which Adam was brought. It must have been a beautiful earth, far more land area than what we've got on the earth now. You know, I was shocked, even as I should have known it, but do you realize that our present planet—it's kind of hard to get out—is just about 80 percent water? Something between 75 and 80 percent of our surface is water. That only leaves about 20 to 23 percent that's land area. Now of that 22 or 23 percent that's land area, how much is inhabitable? Again, less than half. You take the vast areas of the Sahara—uninhabitable. Even in our own western United States, many parts of the Rocky Mountain area is practically uninhabitable. And vast areas of Siberia and all around the planet, we've got unimaginable square miles of planet that's uninhabitable. So it really boils down to a small percentage of the surface of our planet is fit for human livelihood. But before the flood and at the time of Adam, it was practically the opposite, we're quite sure. And so there was abundant, abundant vegetation. There was room for an abundant explosion of not only the human race, but animal kingdom as well. And that, of course, gives rise then to the tremendous fossil beds that we've been able to find as a result of the flood, but we'll be coming to that later. Adam is brought into a beautiful created earth. Now then, even though, as we pointed out a couple weeks ago, he was given dominion over everything on the earth, from pole to pole, from east to west, nevertheless, God, I think, set up a special little place, which we call the Garden of Eden, and it naturally, as most of you realize, was there in the Middle East in the cradle of civilization in that area in the Euphrates River. All right, now let's pick that up then in chapter 2, and let's go to verse 8. Genesis chapter 2, verse 8. We're reading, "...the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed." You know, I thought of something the other day that I've never thought of before, as long as I've been teaching, and I wonder how many of you have. Where do you suppose He actually lived with His beautiful wife? You ever thought of that? Did God give them a home? Did they just lay down in some vegetation and sleep? Did they just totally eat off the trees and the fruit, or did they have a place where they could prepare a meal? You ever thought about that? I never had, but I think it's something interesting to think about. Where did they actually—what we would say, where did they live? And I think most of us always just think of Adam and Eve, you know, in that beautiful garden and that was it. Well, the Bible doesn't tell us, and of course there's a lot of things the Bible can't tell us, because if it told us everything we'd like to know, we'd have to have a truck to carry it around. But God has seen fit to make it concise enough that we have everything we need to know, and yet in a book small enough that we can carry it wherever we go. All right, so He placed them in the garden. And then verse 9, Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight. Can you imagine how beautiful that place was? And good for food. The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So how many two particular—I've already said it—how many particular trees? Two. We've got here the tree of life, and someplace just a little ways away from it, I think, was the tree of good and evil. Now, it's interesting to note that after Adam sins, the tree of life disappears from the scriptural account. But where does it come up again in the book of Revelation? Remember in our very opening class—my, that's already over two months ago—we pointed out that so much of what is introduced in Genesis always comes back again in Revelation? Well, the tree of life is one of them. It'll disappear from view after Adam and Eve leave the garden, and we won't see it again, it won't be mentioned again until we get to the last chapter of the last book of our Bible. All right, so these two trees we want to take note of. The tree of life, which had Adam been able to partake of, he would have definitely been able to live forever. That was the idea of that tree. It would enhance eternal life. And that's why it comes back on the scene then in the last part of our Bible in Revelation, in the new heaven and new earth, because there it will definitely enhance eternity. It won't be, as it says in our English, a healing, but it'll be therapeutic. It will enhance eternal life. But all right, set over apart from it now is the tree that's the most interesting and the one that we better learn the most of, and that is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Verse 10, "'And a river went out of Eden to water the garden.'" Now I've got to stop a minute. Remember I made special note a week or two ago that with that beautiful climate, it never rained. And, of course, the Bible says up in verse 5 of chapter 2 that God had caused it not to rain, but He watered it from a mist that came from beneath. All right, now I've had someone interrupt me as we come to verse 10. I said, now wait a minute, Les. If there was no rain, then naturally it didn't snow, where did the river get their water? Because that's the way we are now acquainted with it. The water goes to the ocean, and it evaporates, and it comes back up over land, and it rains or it snows, and it feeds the rivers, and so it goes year in and year out. Have you ever seen a river come from the base of a mountain? Sure you have. I know Iris and I years ago stopped at the foot of a mountain out in the Rocky Mountains for coffee one morning, and we looked behind us, and sure enough, right out of the base of the mountain came this little stream of water, and 30, 40 miles down the road, it was now a river. And so I have no problem with this when I say on the one hand it never rained, and on the other hand, I can show you that there were rivers. All right, let's go on. The river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted and came into four heads. And we don't have to be too concerned about the names of these rivers. The name of the first is Pisan. That is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good. There is Delium and the Onyx Stone, and the name of the second river is Gihon. The same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. Now that gets kind of confusing, because Ethiopia as we understand it is clear down in Africa, but I think maybe that kind of settles the confusion if we realize that before the flood, I think the whole land mass was practically in one chunk. There was no great separation of the continents, and so this just simply gives us a great area of the Middle East that was involved in what we call the Garden of Eden. All right. And then the fourth, and of course, is the river Euphrates, which we're still acquainted with. In fact, it's in the news every day, because the Euphrates River goes right through Baghdad. The Euphrates River was the one on which the Tower of Babel was built, and so it has been an important river scripturally from day one. All right. Now if we go on to verse 15, and the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Now remember, there were no weeds, there were no thorns or thistles and soils, a relatively mild occupation to keep that garden. And then verse 16, and the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. Everything there was for him to enjoy, verse 17, but—there's another one of those important three -letter words—even though God could let him have everything that he desired, of any tree or any vine or any herb or anything that grew, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Now the first question that comes into, I think, the average individual's mind, now if God had everything so perfect, and He's created a man that is perfect and could live forever, why in the world put something in front of him that would make it possible for him to lose it all? It's a good question. And you remember a few weeks ago, I think I answered it, whether you realize it or not. Remember I said that God and His creation of mankind had a direct parallel with the husband and wife relationship? Do you remember that? That the whole idea of everything in God's universe is that God wanted a creature that He could extend His love to and receive what? Love in return. Remember? And I pointed out the same way in the husband and the wife relationship, God expects, God commands the husband to love the wife, because how did God create the woman? To respond to that love. All right. Now then, in order for man to be put in a place of exercising that will, in order for man to show that he really and truly loved the God that created him, God had to give him an alternative, didn't He? Otherwise, you see, he'd have been a robot. And God didn't create men to be robots. He created us with that choice, that power of will, or that will with the power of choice, it would probably be better. And so He had to make something that would put man in a place of choosing. He chose the tree. And so He says to Adam, everything is yours to enjoy. You can live forever, but of that one tree you shall not eat, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely, and God made it emphatic, thou shalt surely die. Now, I've often wondered just how much understanding Adam and Eve had of that word die. I don't think they really had ever pictured anything having died. But nevertheless, God made it so emphatic that they were not to eat of it, or the consequences would be dire indeed. Now, keep that in mind, because this is what we'll be looking at when we get into chapter 3. Then we've already covered these other verses in previous lessons, how that Adam gave names to all the creatures, and how that, in verse 21 through 25, he now brings the man and the woman together. We taught that, I think, quite in depth a few weeks ago. And so now let's go down to chapter 3. Get the picture now. Adam and Eve are living in that beautiful, beautiful part of a beautiful earth, in an ideal climate, ideal environment, ideal people, the ideal couple. What more could they hope for? Well, the whole lesson here is that even though the sociologists idealistically think that if they could just set up every home with a decent income, a decent home, a decent environment, we'd settle all our social problems. It just doesn't work that way. And this is the perfect proof of the pudding. Adam and Eve are under perfect circumstances. They couldn't ask for anything better. Were they content? No. All right, let's read on. Chapter 3, verse 1. Now, I accidentally went into it a few weeks ago in case you've been watching all the programs, but let's look at it again. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he, the serpent, used now of Satan, Lucifer, and the serpent said to the woman, Yea, hath God said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Do you remember I said if you would go home and look up in your dictionary the definitions for the word subtle? And there's a list of words, probably 10, 12, 14 of them, all describing this creature by the word subtle. He was deceptive. He was sly. He was intelligent. It was all these things that Satan could use to his advantage. Remember I made the statement that Satan always uses the best that he can get his hands on? And I think that was the case here. I think of all the creatures that were contemporary with Adam, the serpent filled the bill more than anything else. Indeed, it was beautiful with all of its colors. I said then I think it walked upright on two legs. In zoology you'll still very many times study the place where appendages were upon a reptile. I think also, and I'm going to stretch the point maybe to a place where you can't possibly swallow it, but I think the serpent was capable of speaking. And the reason I think so is because Eve was not the least bit shocked when it did. She just turned right around and communicated with it. So anyway, the serpent now approaches the woman, and he says, Hath God said? Now you see, this is one of the primary approaches of Satan even today is to plant doubt. Doubt. Oh, it's an awful word. Because you see, doubt stands in bold relief against the other main word in Scripture, and that is what? Belief. See? Belief. But opposite is doubt. And this is Satan's big gun. Oh, as soon as he can get a human being to doubt the word of God, to disbelieve it. You know where he's got that person? Right in his hip pocket. And on the other hand, God comes back and all he asks is that we what? Don't doubt, believe it. And see, this is the whole problem with even a lot of our ecclesiastical leaders tonight. How do they approach the word of God? Believing? No. They approach it with doubt. They just can't believe that it happened the way God's word said it did. But oh, God is so pleased. And maybe we should go—no, we took time here a while back. I'll just quote the verse in Hebrews chapter 11. That without faith it is what? Impossible to please God. Without faith it is impossible to please God. It's the only way of approach. And so when people say, well, I just can't really believe this, then they have no fellowship with God. They can't have. All right. Now then, verse 2. So 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, or the middle of the garden, God hath said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Now the point made here is, did Eve fully understand what God said? Sure she did. Sure she did. You can't blame God for keeping these two people unaware. They had a full understanding of what God expected of them. Now again, let's bring it down to terminology. As long as they avoided that tree like a plague, what were they doing? They were believing. They were believing. Yes, God said that we're not to touch it. But you see, this is the first thing that Satan blows away, and he makes them doubt. And so it wasn't that they were ignorant of the fact. It wasn't that God wasn't fair with them by not explaining. They knew full well. All right. Now then, verse 4. I know our time is again going way too fast, but verse 4. Now the serpent said unto the woman, you shall not surely die. You know what I call that? That's the first lie in the human experience. This is an out-and-out lie, because what had God said? The day you eat thereof, you shall surely die. But Satan comes back. Now do you see why Jesus called him what? The father of the lie? And he's still a master of it tonight. He is the perpetrator of what I call the lie, and it'll carry all the way through Scripture, the lie. All right. Here it is. You shall not surely die. Verse 5. And this is all part of the lie. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as what? God. Now do you see what that's saying? That is the lie that is still being thrown at the human race tonight, and people are gobbling it up by the thousands, yea, by the millions. Because how many groups, many of the cults, and many that aren't cults—I made mention of it several weeks ago. I guess the newest perpetrator of it in the present-day scene is Shirley MacLaine. And what is she proclaiming? That you'll one day become God. And there are many others. Listen, that's the lie, because this is what got Eve to partake of the tree, even though she had everything. There was nothing more she could have desired in this material world. She had it all. But what thing was left? Oh, she could be like God. You know, I think every one of us can remember back to when we were little, and you'd watch a bird fly. What automatically crossed your mind? Oh, how you wish you could fly. But you see, within the human makeup there's also that desire that if only they could have complete control of everything, if they could only be their own God. And that appeals to the human mind. To be like God, to have control of my own—and isn't that what they teach? Sure. You can be whatever you want to be. You can have whatever you want to have. Just think it within your heart. And if you think it, and you dwell on it long enough, and you motivate yourself hard enough, you can literally become your own God. Hey, that is the lie. All right. Now then, he presents it as you can be as gods, knowing good and what? Evil. Now, up until now, they knew no evil. See? They knew nothing of sin. They knew nothing of death. They knew none of that. But now Satan is making it look as though that's something to be desired. And again, bring it into our own contemporary situation. What can Satan do with the things of this world that do nothing but destroy us? Oh, he can glamorize it. He can make it look as though if you aren't doing that, you're not living. Isn't it true? Oh, and it'll do nothing but just tear people down. But this is all part of the lie. And it began right back here in the garden. All right. For just the few moments we've got left, let's just go on into verse 6, because I imagine we'll have to come back to it in our next program. Verse 6, So when the woman saw... And remember, she isn't called Eve here yet. She's only referred to as the woman. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye, and a tree to be desired to make one wise... Now, what's that contemplating? To be like God, see? She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. Now, in the original Hebrew manuscripts, I've read not too long ago, that after the word eat, there is a punctuation mark in the Hebrew that denotes a long pause. You know, I was tickled when I read that, because almost for the 20 years that I've been teaching, I have explained it as clearly as I know how, that when Eve partook of this forbidden tree, that Eve, that Adam, wasn't right there with her. She must have been, at least temporarily, alone. And that moments later, Adam comes upon her. And then when I read this, that the Hebrew texts show a punctuation mark that denotes a time lapse in there, I said, well, you know, I'm so glad that I've been right, because it's the only way that it makes sense, that had Adam been right there at the time that old Satan was dealing with Eve, I think Adam would have done something to keep her from it. She was caught alone, and again. Doesn't Satan always know when to catch us? Oh, listen, every one of us, I don't care how mature we are in our Christian faith, we have to be constantly on guard, because when we least expect it, that's when Satan is going to hit us. And he'll hit us from the blind side, and he'll take us at our weakest moment. We never get past that. And it's the only thing we can come back to the Word and realize that we have to be on guard constantly. So I think Eve was caught at a moment when she was alone, it was a moment of weakness, and it was a time when she had no support from her other half, all right? And so she saw that it was pleasant to the eye, a tree to be desired, to make one wise, and she took thereof, and ate. Now let's forget about Adam for a minute, let's go all the way back to the New Testament again quickly, I think we've only got about one minute left. Go all the way back to the little letter of 1 John. Now that's clear in the end, in fact if you might as well go back to the book of Revelation and then just come forward from Revelation through the book of Jude, and you'll come to the little epistle of 1 John. And come into chapter 2, 1 John chapter 2. And all I want you to see here is that we have the very same set of circumstances listed that we're to be warned of that Eve faced at the forbidden tree. Verse 15 of 1 John 2. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, for if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Now here it comes, verse 16. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, now that doesn't necessarily mean just sexual, that means any appetite. In Eve's case it was what? Hunger. Alright, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, because how did that fruit look to her? Delicious. The lust of the eye and the pride of life. What was involved there? Oh, if she ate she could be like God. She would really be somebody. Now next time we come together we're going to pick up from these three segments and we're going to show how that even the Lord Jesus faced every one of them. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick a weekly Bible study. If you would like to be part of our studio audience call 1-800-369-7856 that's 1-800-369-7856 or if you would like a copy of today's Bible study on tape send your gift of $5 or more to Les Feldick Ministries Kinta, Oklahoma 74552