Falling Hard; Recovering Strong - Part B

So I think it's summed up nicely when Paul in Galatians 6 says, do not be deceived.

God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. And if he sows to the flesh, he will of the flesh reap corruption. If he sows to the Spirit, he will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. Adam and Eve had no clue, but here is the truth. A hard heart brings a hard life. Life now gets much harder.

For this couple. God simply will not let sin go without consequence. And today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip examines what happened to Adam and Eve as a consequence of their disobedience. But first. Hi, this is Pastor Skip and we have prepared a package about seeing this life through the eyes of eternity.

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You can give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. We'll be right back. So I'm going shopping. It's not non-traditional shopping.

Don't worry. I'm not going to steal anything. I'm just going shopping. He says, you're going window shopping. You will look, but you will not buy.

You got it? She goes, I got it. I know, honey.

So she comes back a couple hours later with a bag and a brand new dress. Husband said, I thought I said you're not to buy anything. She goes, honey, I know, but I tried this dress on and it looks so good on me. And I was tempted. He said, you were tempted. You should have said, get the behind me, Satan. She goes, I said that, but when he got behind me, he said, you know, from the back, it really looks good, too.

I'm just saying. Eve's cravings blurred Eve's convictions. What she saw and she looked at it and she kept looking at it and she gazed upon it. And in so doing, she ignored God's warnings about it. So Eve's look offset God's law.

She thought, I have to have it. Proverbs 23 says, do not look on the wine while it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly. At the last, it bites like a serpent and stings like a viper.

In other words, there's lots of pretty things in this world that will hurt you. They look good. They seem good.

They feel good, but they're not necessarily good. And before you think, well, I'm entitled to it. I deserve it.

Let me tell you something. We are entitled to whatever God gives us. Whatever God, God knows what you need. He knows your needs. He also knows your greed. And He's promised to meet your needs, not your greed. He knows what you need. And you are entitled to whatever God in His grace decides you ought to have.

Nothing more, nothing less. Paul the Apostle might have thought, I'm entitled to a heat. I'm entitled to healing. After all, I'm the great Apostle Paul. I do more to spread the gospel around this world than anybody else.

I'm right in the chunk of the New Testament. I deserve for God to heal me. Because he had a physical affliction. And he said, I asked God to heal me three times. God told him this, my grace is enough. My grace is sufficient for you. And my strength will be manifest in your weakness, not in the absence of your weakness. So you and I are entitled to whatever God gives us.

That doesn't mean entitlement. Here's a third warning. Disobedience is worse than deception. Now, I'm stating it this way because Eve, we will find out, was deceived. Adam knew what he was doing. In verse six, it says, the woman saw the tree was good for food. She's checking it out. It was pleasant to the eyes. She's scoping it out.

A tree desirable to make one wise. She's thinking about it more. She took its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Now, that's all it says about Adam.

He ate it. That's all we're told here. Eve is a little different. She's listening to the devil. She's having a conversation with him. She's reasoning this thing out when it comes to Adam. He just, like a guy, grabbed it and ate it. It's like, done.

It's over. When you get to the New Testament, you know who the blame for this whole fall falls on? Not Eve. Adam. He's the guy responsible.

And here's why. Paul the Apostle, 1 Timothy 2, verse 14, tells us, Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. All of that to say, Eve was tricked.

Adam knew what he was doing. He rebelled. So deception is one thing. Disobedience is another. Both of them are bad. What they both did was wrong. But one is worse than another. Disobedience, flat out, I'm going to do what I want when I want it, is much worse than being tricked into something. This is why the prophet Samuel said to Saul, to obey is better than sacrifice, to heed than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry. Now we've got to ask this question. Why did Adam eat it if he knew it was wrong? She didn't.

She goes, yeah, maybe you're right. Oh, okay. But Adam comes along, knowing it's wrong, says I'm going to do it. Why did he do that? If he knew it was wrong, why did he eat of it? Well, we don't know for sure, but perhaps some suggest it's because he loved Eve so much that he wanted to share in her punishment, didn't want her to be alone.

We're in this together. Now that might sound noble and chivalrous, but I got to tell you, it's dumb. In fact, it's idolatry.

Whenever you place your wife or your husband or your child or anyone else above God, that's idolatry. That was not a smart move. Now, I don't know what he was thinking.

He could have thought, but we love each other so much, and our love will get us through this hard time. Disobedience is worse than deception. There's a fourth lesson I want you to notice, and that is a hard heart will bring a hard life. Or put another way, life gets harder when you decide not to do what's right. I'm sure Adam and Eve had no clue how bad things were going to get after this. Do you?

Do you think they knew all the repercussions? Uh-uh. But what are some of them? Verse 16, to the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrows and your conception. In pain, you will bring forth children.

So every time you go through labor pains, women, when you have those wonderful babies and they're hurt so much, just say, thank you, Eve. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Then to Adam, he said, because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken.

For dust you are, and to dust you shall return. And Adam called his wife Eve because she was the mother of all living. And let's just say that Adam made the decision to join his wife, knowing it's wrong, but he said, you know what? I don't know what's going to happen, but whatever happens, our love will be able to take it.

We can sustain it. We love each other so much. I bring this up because, you know, I've met so many couples over the years who are in a marriage, things aren't going right, and then they see somebody else, and they are swearing, that's my soulmate, and we're together, and boy, we have a love, and we have a spark when we enter the room together, and I know that if I have this affair and maybe leave my wife and her husband and have this person, that it's going to disrupt things and my friends and my kids, but our love is so strong, it's going to carry us through whatever storm we face.

I've heard that. What I want you to know is this, whatever price you think you'll pay is not the price you will pay. The price that Adam and Eve actually paid is not what they thought.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have done it had they known how bad it's going to get. Now, just think for a moment how good life was for Adam and Eve in the garden, right? They had it made in the garden. They didn't pay any rent. They didn't have to pay any bills. Every need was met. Every meal was provided.

Life was good. But when they crossed the line from obedience to disobedience, from compliance to noncompliance, everything in life, everything in life changed and became much harder. Now, they're no longer pure. Soon, they will no longer be kept in that garden. They will be cast out of the garden. Now, no longer can they get low-lying fruit already hanging there, already provided for them. All they have to do is walk by and take it and eat it. Now, they have to work the ground.

Now, they have to sweat and earn and work the ground themselves. So, I think it's summed up nicely when Paul in Galatians 6 says, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. And if he sows to the flesh, he will of the flesh reap corruption.

If he sows to the Spirit, he will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. Adam and Eve had no clue, but here is the truth. A hard heart brings a hard life.

Life now gets much harder for this couple. Now, not only for them, but this marks the darkest day for the human race. What happens to the human race after this, in fact, this is where all the trouble begins. Up until this point, innocence was flowing through the blood veins of Adam and Eve, but now a fatal contaminant has entered. That contaminant that was first seen last time when we were together and we studied the fall of Lucifer in heaven. And he said something in his heart. He thought something in his mind.

I will, I will, I will, I will. That contaminant is now on earth in Adam and Eve. That sin contaminant will flow through every human being throughout history. From that time till our time. You see, when Adam sinned, he generated what theologians call a constitutional change of character.

He acted as the federal head of the human race so that he did something that affected all of us. It's like a kid standing in front of a lake in the mountains early in the morning. A pristine reflection can be seen of the mountains in the distance on that lake. Everybody's enjoying the reflection. It's a perfect moment until one kid decides to take a rock and throw it in the lake. And the image is marred.

Adam was the kid who threw the rock in the lake. And the image is marred. In the image of God, though we're created in the image of God, the image is marred.

And has been ever since. In fact, not only does it affect Adam and Eve, not only will it affect their children and their children's children and children's children's children and our kids. All of creation is affected.

Did you know that? All of creation, Romans chapter 8, the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. That can be seen geologically in earthquakes, mudslides, landslides, volcanoes, avalanches. It could be seen meteorologically in floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, cyclones, droughts. It can be seen morally in the breakdown of marriage and family. In rampant sexual practices. It can be seen culturally in the tyranny of government. In economic injustice and in business practices.

It can be seen with a deprivation and decadency in art and music year by year. And it can be seen individually in physical disease, mental disease, separation from God. That's how bad of God.

That's how bad of God. Don't believe the hype, folks. Satan pulls something out and dangles it in front of you and you go, ooh, that looks good.

Look a little closer and notice underneath that little thing is a hook. That's just the bait. Don't believe the hype. He'll tell you the pleasure of drinking. He won't tell you the result of alcoholism. He'll tell you about the pleasure of illicit sex, not the result of a sexually transmitted disease. He'll tell you the pleasure of drug use, but not the result of an addiction. In other words, he'll dangle before you the immediate. He'll keep from you the ultimate.

Ooh, that looks so good. I'm going to eat that fruit. Life gets harder when you don't do what's right. I want to close with the fifth lesson, the fifth warning, the fifth principle that comes out of this chapter. And that is a covering is always better than a cover up. Immediately they try to cover up what they did. Verse 7, then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked. That's just a funny little sentence to me. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. So I hid myself and he said, Who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you that you should not eat? Then the man said, The woman. We always do that, man. We want to pass the buck. It's the chick. It's the gal. It's called passing the buck. But he's not just passing the buck to her.

He's actually saying, God, it's your fault. Notice what it says. The woman you gave to be with me.

This is your idea. I went to sleep single. I woke up married. This is the wife you gave me. She gave me of the tree and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done?

She sort of does the same thing. It's the serpent. He deceived me.

And I ate. Hiding is the instinctive reaction to guilt. When we have guilt, we hide.

Where's that person that used to come to church all the time with you? Why don't they anymore? They want to hide from you.

Why? They're uncomfortable being around you. They don't know what you're going to say to them or now what they're going to say to you.

So they hide. I remember when my son was a little kid. He got one report card that was particularly bad and I was looking for the report card. He had hit it and he goes, I had a report card.

Where is it? I don't know what I did with it. We finally found it and I understood why he wanted to hide it.

But when I looked at it, I smiled because I remember I also would hide some of my report cards from my parents that weren't so good. Now, where do we learn that behavior from? Adam.

Adam, he did it first. They're not even comfortable being around God anymore. God used to hang out with them and walk with them in the cool of the day.

They're not even uncomfortable in God's presence. And notice, they become very self-conscious. There's a new awareness. Hey, we're naked. I laugh at that because you mean you guys just now figured that out?

You don't think like a week ago or a day ago that the cool air on your skin sort of was a dead giveaway that you have no clothes on? The point is, they never thought about it before. Now, they become self-conscious. Now they're very self-aware. Guilt does that. It makes a person very self-oriented. When they're around people, they think about themselves.

What do they think of me? That's what happens. So look at verse 21. Also, for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us to know good and evil.

And now he has put out his hand. And lest he put out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. God didn't want him to live in that fallen state. That's why he kept him out of the garden. Therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.

So he drove out the man and he placed cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. So this whole fig leaf ensemble they were wearing was just not working. First of all, have you ever felt fig leaves? They're very rough.

I can't imagine putting them on the tenderest parts of your body. But they put fig leaves on. Now something happens. Whenever you pick a fig leaf or any leaf and you try to wear it, you know what happens to it eventually. It dies. It falls off. And then you're naked again. So it's a very temporary fix.

It won't last very long. So God clothes them with animal skins. This is the first instance of innocent blood shed to cover human sin.

They want to make a cover up. God wants to give them a covering. And so an animal dies.

In order to be clothed with animal skins, animals have to die. Blood has to be shed. That's what sin does. Sin kills. Now when this happened, I can only imagine Adam and Eve going, What? What just happened?

You know why? Because God made a promise back in chapter 2. In the day that you eat of that fruit, you will surely die. So I've got to tell you, when God came to the garden that day and said, Adam, where are you? Adam went, Oh goody, it's God. He was turning to Eve going, We're dead. We're going to die. God said, We're going to die. This is God coming after us.

Only to discover that they didn't die, that something died in their place for them to cover them. It's anticipating the gospel of Jesus Christ. The covering through the gospel.

God is showing that it's possible for a substitute to die for a sinner. You may want to cover up. You need a covering. You always have two choices in dealing with sin. Here they are.

Ready? Whenever there's sin, you can do one of two things. Run from God. Run to God.

Run from God. That's instinctive. That's guilt. That's hiding. That's separation. Run to God. That's redemption.

God, cover my sin. Well, Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. And Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. And all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty back together again. Humpty needs a better king. The king of kings can do what Humpty's king cannot do. The king of kings, our king, is in the business of taking broken lives and putting them back together. And he does so by a covering. By sending his son to die on a cross. As predicted also in this chapter in verse 15, the proto-evangelium of the Old Testament.

Don't have time to get into it. But it speaks about someone who will be born to crush the head of Satan eventually. Beautiful promise.

Adam and Eve are experiencing that covering in this moment. That's Skip Hyten with a message from the series Crash and Burn. Find the full message, as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at ConnectWithSkip.com. Now, here's Skip with an invitation for you to join he and Lenya Heitzig on a Holy Land tour next year. Hey, our 2024 Israel tour is coming up.

This is Pastor Skip, and we still have space on this trip that Lenya and I are hosting. We will be touring Israel from May 1st through May 12th. I hope that you'll join us firsthand to see some incredible sights like the Sea of Galilee.

I'm sure you've always wanted to see that. The Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the Garden Tomb, the place many people believe is where Jesus rose from the dead. The final deadline for registration is December 31st, so there's still time to take action and join Lenya and I for the trip of a lifetime.

Find full Israel information at ConnectWithSkip.com. Connect with Skip Heitzig exists to bring more people into God's family and connect listeners like you to his unchanging truth. That's why we make teachings like this one today available to you and others on air and online.

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Thank you. Come back again tomorrow as Skip shares a message showing you that the first murder in history was committed by a worshiper. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on his word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.