Falling Hard; Recovering Strong - Part A

It's the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, and it's a real story about a real man and a real woman with a real experience. It is biblical history. I want to underscore that because whenever you get to the first few chapters of Genesis in the New Testament, whenever it's spoken of or treated, whether it's Jesus or Paul or anyone else, they always refer to it not as mythological or allegorical, but always as literal historical reality. Today on Connect with Skip Heitig, Pastor Skip begins a message called, Falling Hard, Recovering Strong, and looks at the real historical event that was Adam and Eve's fall in the garden.

But first, here's a resource that gives you a glimpse of what eternity holds. Hell, here's what C.S. Lewis said about this subject.

C.S. Lewis wrote in his book, The Problem of Pain, these words, There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and especially of our Lord's own words.

It has always been held by Christendom and it has the support of reason. Ecclesiastes says God has put eternity in our heart. To help you understand what awaits both believers and unbelievers in eternity, we've put together an exciting resource called the Eternity Package, featuring Skip's booklet, Hell, No, Don't Go, and seven of his strongest teachings about eternity, including the truth about hell and what most people don't know about heaven. This powerful new resource package is our thanks for your gift of $50 or more to support the broadcast ministry of Connect with Skip Heitzig. So get your copy of the Hell, No, Don't Go booklet and the Eternity Package on CD or as a digital download today when you give a gift of $50 or more.

Give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. This eternity package is some of the most powerful information for you and to give to family and friends. See, if there is no hell, then the Bible is a book of myths. If there is no hell, then Jesus was just a misguided soul. If there is no hell, then the crucifixion was pointless. There's no significance in dying to save us from what? If there's no hell, then you should sin as much as you possibly can because it's not sin. It's just fun, right? It's just all about you getting pleasure in this life, sucking it like an orange, dry at every drop of enjoyment you can. So get your copy of the Hell, No, Don't Go booklet and the Eternity Package on CD or as a digital download today when you give a gift of $50 or more.

Give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Now, we're in Genesis 3 as we join Skip today. You and I grew up with nursery rhymes, especially Mother Goose nursery rhymes. They seem innocent enough, but have you ever stopped to look at the words?

When you do, you discover that some of them are macabre, downright disturbing. Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. Now, little Jack was not a king. This was not a king's crown that he broke. That's an old English word for his head. So you're singing about a kid who had a skull fracture. It's raining.

It's pouring. The old man is snoring. He went to bed with a lump on his head and didn't get up in the morning. He didn't get up. Why didn't he get up? I'm guessing he died in his sleep.

Some intracranial bleeding, some hematoma, some bad thing happened to him. Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub. I don't even want to go there. Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub.

I don't even want to go there. Then there's a nursery rhyme about an egg that turns into scrambled eggs for a king. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

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. That was a great fall, but that is a sort of a setup for something I want you to look at that is not a nursery rhyme. It is not a fairy tale.

It's a real story about a real fall, and the repercussions of that we are still feeling to this very day. It's the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, and it's a real story about a real man and a real woman with a real experience. It is biblical history. I want to underscore that because whenever you get to the first few chapters of Genesis in the New Testament, whenever it's spoken of or treated, whether it's Jesus or Paul or anyone else, they always refer to it not as mythological or allegorical, but always as literal historical reality. Jesus referred using marriage as the topic and went back to Genesis 3 and went through what happened between Adam and Eve. So if this isn't right, then Jesus isn't right.

If Jesus isn't right, then you're believing somebody who didn't tell you the truth. Also, Jesus' own genealogical records go back to Adam. In Luke chapter 3, there's name after name after name, and it goes all the way back to Adam. His genealogical record is traced to Adam. Then you get to the book of Jude, that single chapter book in the New Testament, where in Jude verse 14, it talks about the biological record of Enoch.

Listen to what it says. Who was the seventh from Adam? So we are dealing with the back story behind why everything in the world is so bad. It's because of the fall that happened. It wasn't Humpty Dumpty who sat on this wall. It was Adam and Eve who sat on this wall, and they had a great fall.

They fell hard. You might say he bombed. This was the first Adam bomb.

Adam really, really bombed out, and we are bummed out because of it. Paul refers to this in the fifth chapter of Romans, when he wants to just kind of show everyone why it's so bad. He goes, through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, so that death spread to all.

The one man he was referring to is this man, Adam, and he makes a contrast between the one man, Adam, and the one man, Jesus, who came to fix it all. So the entire world and all of humanity was affected ever since. Now we're doing a series, Crash and Burn, and the premise of it is that we want to learn to fly by looking at those who fell. We want to get good lessons from bad examples.

So you know the story so well. You know it so well, and typically when I teach this, and I have taught it on many occasions, I outline it. You always want to give an outline to hang your thoughts on.

I typically outline it according to the people involved or the plot that unfolds, but what I want to do is jump right in and outline it based upon the principles that we find. I want this to be very practical, and there are there are warnings that are written about in Genesis chapter 3, and I'm going to give you five of them. I'm going to give you five useful lessons, five warnings to keep us from falling like these two, and here's the first. Choices will be challenged.

Whatever good choice you make will be challenged. Verse 1, Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Eve is immediately challenged by Satan. Shortly after they are created in the garden, Adam and Eve, they're now enjoying this new relationship of marriage in the garden, and she is questioned. She's alone. Obviously, Adam has gone off somewhere naming animals somewhere or exploring the garden God has made, but he's not there, and he'll be back.

We'll see. But Eve is questioned by Satan, by this being we looked at in part last time. And she tells the reason why she has chosen to obey God, because God said something. This is what God said. I'm obeying because God said this, to which he counteracts it, and saying God didn't say that. So just look at this a little more carefully, because the Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians that we are not ignorant of Satan's devices.

I wish that were true of all of us. We are not ignorant, or we are not unaware of his schemes. So let's look at some of these schemes, because this is the conception of deception. This is where it all begins. And you will notice that, first of all, Satan challenged God's love.

Verse 1, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree? Now, in that question, there is an implication. This being, Satan, is implying if God loved you, why would he keep you from enjoying yourself? Why would he dare keep away from you something that would bring to you happiness?

Sound familiar? You've heard that. If God is a God of love, why would he not allow you to have joy? Why would he keep you in this marriage? You're not happy here. Go get out of it. You're not happy here. Go get out of it.

Whatever makes you happy. He tried the same with Jesus Christ when he took him to a high mountain and tempted him. He said, hey, since you're the son of God, why are you hungry? How can your father be so loving that he would neglect the needs of his son, turn these stones into bread? Man, you can make a bakery right here.

You could put a Panera bread stand right here in the wilderness. Why would your father keep you from that? So he challenges God's love. Notice in verse 4, he challenges God's word. As soon as Eve says, well, this is why, because God said this, he says in verse 4, you're not going to die.

You're not going to die. God said you're going to die, but you're not going to die. In other words, he's calling God a liar. This is a direct attack on God's word. Satan gets you to question God's blueprint, God's word, the Bible.

Oh, this thing's outdated. This won't work in my situation. The Bible won't work in real life. You have to go to the secular world to get real help. It's good to believe on Sunday, but I'll never forget a couple who came to one of the services some years back. I know about this because somebody who attends here all the time was there that day right behind them, and he overheard her turn to her husband as I was teaching and said, oh my goodness, he actually believes this book literally.

I said, well, I'm glad you got that message because it's true, I do, but it was such a shock. Satan challenges God's word. Third thing I want you to notice, he challenged God's truth. In verse 5, he says, well, you know, God knows that in the day that you eat of it, your eyes are going to be opened and you're going to be like God, knowing good and evil.

Now, Satan is suggesting something here. You're going to be like God. God knows that. God doesn't like competition. Actually, he's sort of speaking autobiographically. His own experience is he said, I will be like the Most High, and he is still sort of reeling from that, saying God doesn't like anyone to be his equal. He won't tolerate that. God knows if you eat, you're going to be just like God.

Now, let's just cut to the chase here. Satan is a liar. That's what Jesus said, John chapter 8. Satan is a liar and the father of lies, and he lies about two things principally, God's character and God's word, who God is and what God has said, and his strategy is to get you to think that what God said isn't the truth, but that he, Satan, will tell you the whole truth. God can't be trusted.

His word can't be trusted, and if his word can't be trusted, then you might as well replace the Bible with whatever you feel is right for you at that time. Make it up as you go along, and so we'll take and we'll change terms around, and our culture has become very good at taking old sins and giving them new names, even the word sin that I just mentioned. Try seeing if that's tolerated.

You want a fun little experiment? Talk about sin tomorrow at work. Just bring that up. Just say, hey, I just want you to know that God says that's sin, and you shouldn't do that. Just try that out.

See how far that conversation will last. There are new terms for old sins. There's a book that's been put out a few years ago. I grabbed a little snippet of it called the Officially Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook. Some of it was written tongue in cheek.

Some of it was written based on just pure research. The term promiscuous or immoral is now simply sexually active. When is the last time you heard anyone being referred to as immoral or promiscuous?

They're just sexually active. Instead of dishonest, a person is ethically disoriented, differently honest. A drug addict is a person with a pharmacological difference. Oh, that sounds like like you earned that. If you're drunk, you're just chemically inconvenienced, sobriety deprived. Stealing and looting is now non-traditional shopping.

What are you doing shopping? A serial killer is somebody who's socially misaligned, one with difficult to meet needs. Well, that puts a whole new spin on the Ten Commandments. Instead of thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not be socially misaligned.

Instead of thou shalt not steal, do not be a non-traditional shopper. Listen, we're all going to be challenged. When you put the stake down in the ground that says who you are and what you believe, your faith is going to be challenged, your positions are going to be challenged, your love for God will be challenged, God's love for you will be challenged.

Jesus in the Bible says, don't marvel if the whole world hates you. So you just got to know that going in and you have to, you have to be prepared for how you're going to deal and manage that kind of challenge, how you're going to meet it. Like the old saying, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

So when you are challenged, what are you going to do to meet it? The Bible says in Proverbs 22, it's the prudent man that sees danger and takes refuge. So what you do going in is you take up the full armor of God, it says. You cling to the truth. Jesus said you will know the truth, the truth will set you free. Satan will say, oh no, God wants to put you in bondage, I'll make you free.

Just know that he'll do that going in. When you get up in the morning, put on the full armor of God before you go out the door. So choices will be challenged. Here's the second warning. It comes from our text. Allurement does not mean entitlement.

In other words, just because something looks good doesn't mean you should have it. Verse 6, so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise, what's wrong with any of that? Well, she took of its fruit and ate.

She also gave to her husband with her and he ate. This forbidden fruit, whatever it was, and we don't know what it does. Well, I thought it was an apple. That's just an old kind of a legend that comes from a few Latin words. And so people think it's an apple and there's even a legend that says that Adam choked on his apple. That's why men today have an Adam's apple. I mean, I kid you not.

This gets nuts. So we don't know what kind of fruit it was, but whatever it was, you know, I wouldn't be tempted by an apple. A mango, yeah. Well, whatever it was. To Eve, it was attractive in every conceivable way. It was attractive to Eve, it was attractive in every conceivable way. It was attractive physically, nutritionally, educationally. It's good for food, pleasant to the eyes, desirous to make one wise. That is what I want. It looks good.

I want it. Now listen to this and see how closely these verses parallel. In the New Testament, John writes in 1 John chapter 2, Love not the world, neither the things that are in this world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world, and the world is passing away, and the lust thereof, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Now look how closely those parallel. She saw it was good for food, lust of the flesh. She saw that it was pleasant to the eyes, lust of the eyes. She saw that it was desirous to make one wise, the pride of life.

I mean, it was just kind of like check, check, check, fire on all cylinders for Eve. It just looked good, and she felt it looks good, I ought to have it. It's like the woman I had told you about, I think, in previous times about this gal. She was married to a cheapskate. Her husband said, whatever you do when you go out, you are not allowed to buy anything for yourself unless you ask my permission first.

Some men still sort of do that today, but this guy was just a miser, right? So she went out, and she said, I'm going shopping, and her husband reeled around and said, you're going what? 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 thee 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'll 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. 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 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.

That concludes part one of Skip's message, Falling Hard, Recovering Strong, from the series, Crash and Burn. Find the full message, as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series, at connectwithskip.com. Right now, listen as Skip shares how you can share life-changing teaching from God's unchanging Word with more people around the world.

To understand what God desires of us and for us, we need to be in His Word, seeking His wisdom, asking His direction. And this broadcast ministry exists to do that very thing, to connect people around the world to God's Word, so you can enjoy His presence and do His will. I want to invite you to join in that important work today. Through your support, you can help keep these teachings that you love available to you and so many other people around the world. And with your generous partnership, you'll help make these messages available on more stations in more major cities in the USA. Here's how you can give now. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give a gift. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Thank you for your generosity, and we're excited to send you more content from Pastor Skip and this ministry right to your mobile device. To join our new text messaging group, just text the word connect to 74759.

That's connect to 74759. Join us again tomorrow for part two of Skip's teaching to reveal the consequences of Adam and Eve's terrible fall. 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. Connect with Skip Hyten is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.