In this sermon, the preacher reflects on the consequences of Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden. He imagines the toil and hardship that Adam must have faced as a result of the curse, working hard to provide for his family. The preacher also discusses Eve's temptation and the three qualities she saw in the forbidden fruit: it was physically desirable, visually appealing, and promised wisdom. He connects this temptation to the three areas of sin mentioned in 1 John 2:15: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. The preacher emphasizes the importance of guarding against these temptations in marriage and in the world, as they can lead to dissatisfaction and infidelity.

Turn with me, if you will, to Genesis chapter 2. Genesis chapter 2, verse 15 is where we'll pick up the story tonight, looking at marriage and at the marriage, specifically, of Adam and Eve. Then the Lord God took the man, and he put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may eat freely, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat it, you shall surely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him. Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and he brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all the cattle, to the birds of the air, to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. Then the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs, and he clothed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more cunning than all the beasts 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, You may eat of 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. And the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and the tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together, and they 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 among the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called to Adam, and he said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree, which I commanded you that you should not eat? And the man said, The woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, What is that that you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. Well, we'll hold it there. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. And we thank you, dear Lord, for your wonderful love for man and woman in marriage. Oh, Lord, that you intended and desired it to be, and Lord, that which you can make it be. And we ask that as we would go through these studies, as we would look at these marriages in the Bible, Lord, that they would be wonderful lessons to us, to strengthen, Lord, our own homes, to strengthen, Lord, relationships around us, to share the message with others. But, Lord, that you would strengthen and teach and edify us all. For, Father, we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the story of Adam and Eve, it's interesting to me oftentimes, and one of the things that I like doing is looking at marriages. Many times, most of the times, when we look at Bible characters, we usually either look at them as individuals. We'll look at Adam, or we'll look at Eve. But rarely do we look at Adam and Eve in the marital relationship. We'll look at Abraham, and we'll look at Sarah, but rarely do we find ourselves learning from their relationship, from the marriage. And I think that that's a sad thing, that we don't do that, that we don't study it more, because I think there's wonderful and tremendous lessons in it. And to me, I see some wonderful phases that I think their marriage went through. The first part of this, I've just labeled for my own thought on it, is that there's, first of all, initially, it was an innocent love, wasn't it? I think that's quite a fair word. I think they had the honeymoon of honeymoons. Whatever the word honeymoon was ever supposed to mean, they knew what it was. The word moon, of course, was for new moon, is where that actually came from. When there was a new season, there was a new moon. And when they put honey, it was sweet. And so it was like, that somebody, where the word honeymoon came from, is when somebody's entering into a whole new season of life. When they're entering into, in a sense, a new moon, and that wonder of that relationship, it's the sweetness of it, is what the word is really supposed to mean. And then until the next moon comes, whatever happens after that, I don't know where the second and third moon, or what moons follow, it should get better, but oftentimes, unfortunately, it doesn't, until somebody oftentimes learns some things in their relationship. Watching, of course, this marriage as it starts off, it's so wonderful, because, first of all, this is a reminder to us that marriage is something, obviously, it's created by God. This was something entirely done by God. I think it's important to constantly remind ourselves, you know, of such a thing as that. So often, you know, we know that man was made by God, we know that woman was made, we know that God created the family, created children, and so, so often, you know, we know human beings, where they came from, but we don't realize that God also, he created marriage, and it's an extremely sacred thing to him. It's something that he loves it. He loves the, this whole dimension of a relationship, the depth of it, the accountability of it, the communion that's possible within it. There's no relationship this side of heaven as wonderful as is a marriage relationship, that nothing has the potential of it, that is, if it's taken care of right, and if it's understood, an understood will. But it's also something to me, I think, that what we see here that happened in the Garden, though I believe, obviously, the book of Genesis, quite literal, I'm one of these, that my own persuasion is that God created the world in six days, as it says. There's other opinions on it, but I don't have much room for them. And, but in here, in the creation of Adam and Eve, it was exactly this way, exactly this way, and here it was something that as God had created Adam, there he put him there in the midst of the Garden, and there he gave him the whole world, and then as he formed all of the animals, it tells us they're out of the ground, you know, the Lord God formed every beast of the field, every bird of the air, and he brought them to Adam, and so you just see almost God just manufacturing these little animals, you know, and making one, you know, one after another, all these different forms about them, every, you know, form of life, you know, and then he would just as he would bring them before Adam, after he made one there, fashioned it, took the clay, you know, the earth, and then, you know, gave it life, and created it, and made it a living being all of its own in such a phenomenal way, and then as it came trotting before Adam, and he says, okay, Adam, you name them, all create them, and then you name them. And it had to be, and then the Lord was quite interested, he'd given Adam there a soul of his own, he wasn't some mechanical piece out of his workshop at all, he had a wonderful independence about him, he had a wonderful ability to think all on his own, his heart was to be totally united in love and devotion and submission to God, but he also, though, had a mind of his own, he had thoughts of his own. And here was something that God had put this in Adam, he made him, he says, okay, now Adam, pick a name, as it would come by, and each thing as it came by, you know, and he came up with something, you know, alligator, I don't know, I, you know, maybe, you know, maybe, who knows what he, of course, that's not what it was in Hebrew, was it? Of course, it wasn't Hebrew, that was, there weren't Hebrews yet, I don't know what language it was, obviously, nobody does, but it's something there, as he came up with these words, God says, that's it, okay, you know, let it be written, let it be so, or something, and there it was, animal after animal, it's interesting, it just hits me all of a sudden here that he didn't make even till after he named the animals, probably had a lot of animals and it would have taken way too long if he had any counsel or any help on this, or any second opinions on this thing, so, well, the ladies' Bible study, when you do Genesis, you can do it your way, but it just hit me there, it's funny, he didn't wait for the both of them, he just, she did add stuff, now let's be honest, ladies, you do have a tendency to kind of add a little to it, you'll notice there, right the first time that she ever speaks, first words out of her mouth, when there, that we know of her, is that when God, when the devil came to her in the garden, and he said to the woman, you know, there, as God said, you shall not eat of every tree in the garden, the woman said, verse 2 of chapter 3, we may eat of 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, now God never said that, he just said, don't eat it, didn't say don't touch it, she just, but she just had to add a little something, you know, I mean, I guess somehow or another, but I can just see, so God probably figured, Adam, let's name them first or they'll have real long names, so, I don't know, but the, but at any rate, here, you know, he created them, and then he watched Adam, but even as wonderful as it was, and it tells us there that, you know, as God is watching, whatever Adam called each living creature, that is its name, and you can just see there just something like God just watching, watching him think, watching him function, watching his heart and his mind independently work within himself like this in such a wonderful way, and then he created it all, but as wonderful as it all was, it wasn't wonderful yet, because God had yet to create Eve, he had yet to create this wonderful relationship that Adam had no idea of it as yet, perhaps there as he realized all these animals, male and female, and realized they were there in twos, and realized that there was something there, the ability to reproduce and have their own families, there's nothing said of what, how this, what impression this may or may not have made upon Adam, but all we do know is that in the process of it, God came to Adam, and it was God saying, it isn't good that man should be alone, I'll make a helper comparable for him, I'll make somebody that's there that's his other self, I'm going to make somebody for him to share his life with, I'm going to make him somebody there that's just alongside of him, somebody that's his counterpart, his counterbeing, and of course that's what God always desires, it's a wonderful, wonderful thing that God had within his mind there, and in his creation, you know, of it, it's wonderful on how it happened, for it goes on to tell us there, essentially there, that while Adam, though perhaps somewhat unsuspecting of what was going on, God there, because he probably couldn't describe a woman to Adam, wouldn't have any idea what he would be talking about, would he? That comes to my mind, nobody still would know, but I mean here if he tried to say I'll make this for you, he wouldn't know, but it's something there that God just put, caused this deep sleep, and here the great physician, in a sense, oversees his first great surgery, and he applies this great anesthetic there as he puts Adam to sleep, so much so as he can open up his side, and there he takes out this rib, and there out of it, he makes Eve, and this was something that it wasn't to be an independent thing from Adam, he could have reached into the ground like he did with Adam, he could have reached into the ground like he did with all the animals, but he wanted this to be something that had a much direct, had an absolute and a direct connection to Adam, and so there he took it right out of Adam, not out of the earth, man is out of the earth, but woman is out of man, and here it was something he wanted them to have this desire, and this connection with one another was far more than just as simple as all of the other ones, and so there God put Adam to sleep, and out of his side he took Eve, and as an old Hebrew proverb has it, so wonderfully put, it wasn't out of his head that she would rule over him, yet not out of his foot that he would walk all over her, not out of his front that she would go before him, not out of his back that she would follow behind, but rather under his arm that he might protect her and near to his heart that he might love her, and there God then he gave them to one another, and as he created Eve, then he stepped back, no doubt, and there he was just waiting now for Adam to wake up, and of all the things that he'd seen Adam say and think when one animal after another came before him, God had to be quite excited to see what would come across Adam's thoughts now, and there he woke up, and he looked, and he saw Eve, and it tells us there that she was beautiful to look upon, it was something there that from his perspective and from his heart it was something that immediately the thought within his heart, within himself, as he immediately knew, this is unlike any other creation, this is another realm, this is not an animal, this is not a bird, this is not a fish, this is not something else, he looked there and he realized she's woman, she's out of me, behold she is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, it is something there that he realized she is a connection of him, she is part of him, and in the most wonderful sense of the word and there that even though that generations will come and reproduction and reproduction will happen, he then goes on and he says, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife and they too shall become one. There he is reiterating right in the very first relationship that this same thought, this same relationship, this same intimacy that Adam thought when he looked at Eve was something that was going to be redone in every marriage, this was not a unique marriage, this was not a separate marriage, this was not one that just started the whole race and then will go on from there, but right in the very next verse after it, it tells us this connection will live, it will be repeated over and over and over again, and then it goes on and describes the depth of this relationship, unlike any other, it says they were both naked, the man and his wife, they were not ashamed. Here is the two of them, that their lives, spirit, soul and body, their entire being was entirely open, it was exposed, they were unashamed of it, there wasn't even the thought that something might be wrong, there was nothing to be embarrassed, no thought, you know, within them, no behavior within them, nothing out of place, nothing at all there that would happen between the two of them, and there as God instructed them, you know, and set them off to be fruitful and to multiply, it was something there that he immediately, you know, invited them into the depth of the relationship in every dimension, knowing him, walking together, having a counterpart, and then reproducing, all of which to him was absolutely wonderful, and there in their nakedness there is no shame. That's the way that marriage was intended to be, that's the way it's still intended to be, that there would be something where two people in the wonderful, you know, intimacy of any part of their relationship, all of which, and in every dimension of it, Lord, thank you for this wonderful gift of marriage, thank you for this wonderful, whether intimacy in a marriage in the physical sense, in the mental, in the emotional sense, in the sharing of our lives and the complete exposure of ourselves to one another, it was absolutely wonderful. It was something designed and planned, you know, thoroughly by God, you know, for them, and there as Adam looked at Eve, he realized she was part of him. There was something there, I believe that this, again, is one of the things that even today, when a man would take his wife and embrace her and hug her, if he could pull her right on inside of himself, he'd do that, because that's where she came from. There was something there that when God, I think, Adam, there was something when he woke up, something was missing, far more than just a bone, far more than just a rib, there was something taken out of him. There was something, whether of the softness or of the tenderness, there was part of his being there, there was an absence, that now he looked at her and he knew immediately he was looking at the completion of himself, something that was there, it's gone, it's missing, it's absent. And God created it that way. Created it in such a way as that growing up, there can be this sense of absence alone, unless God gives a gift of celibacy or a call or other circumstance, but it's something there that there's nothing wrong with that. It's part of the design of human beings. But here is God created them and he gave them to each other. I'm sure it was something there as he realized, here's his equal. Not like an animal, not like anything else that was there at all, though the animal kingdom had wonderful pets, no doubt, the lion and the lamb would have all lay down together and play together and no problems at all at this point so far. But it's something there that no doubt as he then reached out and he drew her to himself, there was a wonderful tender love, an innocent love. Something about it that every thought, every behavior, everything about it is absolutely pure, absolutely right, absolutely innocent. She ended his loneliness and no doubt he brought her much mutual satisfaction and assurance. And I think what an indescribable and an intense pleasure they had to have and each other's company, just being there together with each other. And to me it was innocent not only because it was the first, not only because they were so simple and so naive about it all, but there was also an innocent love in the sense that it was without sin and also that their priorities initially, they were absolutely perfect. Here as these two looked at each other, they walked with God, they walked with one another, there was no wall between them, and the priorities were just right. And it was wonderful. In Adam's eyes obviously his love for God was only probably strengthened if that was such a possibility through this creation. And as far as there is Adam would look at Eve, his priorities. She was to him, when you would think of this, and I think that this sounds like a very simple or almost ludicrous statement, but I think it's very important. I don't know how I could stress this so much, but the thing, one of the greatest qualities about their relationship is that their marriage, their relationship with each other is that it was one there, it was without options. There was no alternative to each other. And that's because there was no alternative to each other. It was something, when Adam looked at Eve, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She was not only Miss Garden, or Miss Mediterranean Valley, or Miss Eastern Hemisphere, or Miss World, she was Miss, not galaxy, she was Miss Creation. She was the only woman in the world. It was something that as Adam looked at her, there was no comparison, was there? There wasn't, she wasn't one among many. She was one. And so too with Adam. When Eve looked at Adam, there was, he was not one among many. He wasn't somebody that she could, you know, rate, you know, by somebody else. Was there somebody else around that was handsomer, or stronger, or could run faster, or could do something? But no, he was the only one for her eyes, the only one for her to think of, the only one for her to share with. And there was no option to it at all. And that is a great secret of a marriage. Now today, obviously, there's some 5 billion people on the planet, but there's something about a marriage that when it has those priorities, when there's something where two people have really looked at each other, and they've understood marriage, and they've entered into it with the relationship, and the conviction, and the concept that you are no longer, maybe when I first met you, you were one among two and a half billion women, or you were one among two and a half billion men, or some odd number like that. But there the day the two people commit their lives to each other in marriage, they now put each other in a category, and themselves in a category, where they're never ever again one among many. They're the only one. They're it. There isn't something where they're ever rated by all the rest, or evaluated by all the rest. That there isn't anything any longer. And anytime a marriage enters into that, without that concept, the two people enter into a commitment to each other, but they still even remotely think that there could be somebody. Or they ponder it. Or they allow themselves to be enticed. And we're living in a world that is constantly telling, you can't turn on the TV, you can't go any place, without having all sorts of subliminal messages that says, here, I'm an alternative. Let me get your thoughts. Let me get your heart. Let me get your attention. And in subtle ways, I mean, they don't come right out and say it at all. Hey, think about me instead of your mate. Evaluate me against your mate. But so often, in the world in which we live, there is this constant thing to where, you know, in our lives, in our marriages, that we're evaluating in ever so subtle of ways, how are we doing with other people our age, how much money are we making, how do we have this, what are we doing there, how are we fitting in, how, what does he make, what does she do, what do they have, where should we be. And rather than that, to look and say, our relationship is evaluated by us and us alone. Period. From now on. And anytime anybody has options, they're in trouble. I so often I see people that I realize that they did not mean their marriage vows. When they look, when somebody gets married, maybe many of you said, in forsaking all others, I pledge thee my troth. Well, that's old English, and it's not used that much any longer. But what it means is that when somebody, that word troth, it means fidelity. It means that when I have given myself to you, I'm forsaking all others. For you and you alone, you are in a realm all of your own. You are never to be evaluated or discussed or compared. Ever again. You and you alone. That's what Adam and Eve had with the Lord. That's what they had with each other. They had a marriage. It was without options there initially, wasn't it? It was one that, and it was deep. When I sometimes I'll see people, they're young and they're married, and in ways I'll watch him to where he can kind of be married, but he kind of flirts around a little at the office. He has little ways to wear his kind of toys, and you'll see people like this sometime, and you know they're on a collision course right there. You know just by their mannerisms, the way that they can just kind of, you know, with the gals around or with somebody in the neighborhood, there's little flirty ways about them. They're in trouble. Because it tells me they've got options. Oh, they may say they don't. They may not be thinking about it, but they are. When you see her, that she's not dressing for him and him alone. She's dressing for others. She's thinking about others. She's liking the attention of others. There's something that can oftentimes be unhealthy about it. There's options that subtly get in. Well, you see people in their marriage to where they'll start using words. One of the things that we had to learn early on in our marriage, because we'd get, you have some tense times, we could get in an argument, and you'd use words like divorce. Be in the middle of something, and he says, you look at me, you say, do you want a divorce? No, I don't want a divorce. Well, what do you want? You know, we could do that. I shouldn't say we, I don't think she never did, but I would. There'd be times where, you know, I'd be frustrated and she maybe wanted to talk to me about something and where I maybe had failed or had, you know, let her down or she, and so she'd dare to, you know, call me on it in a sense, and I'd just say, hey, you don't like it? There's the door. Well, obviously, you're not just suggesting, why don't you see if the hinges work, you know, or something like that. But oftentimes, I mean, we say words that suggest you can leave any time. And that's kind of the threat. And something I think for every marriage it needs to do, we had to decide that there was words that we would never ever use again. And that it's entirely out of our vocabulary. We had to, there's no options to it. There's not, you know, the word divorce. We haven't used it in 20 some odd years. We use the word murder now and then and stuff, but not the word divorce or anything. But the thing is that when you do, when you just throw out all the options, how many times I want to look at couples and I wish, by the way, they can talk and behave, that they'd just go seal their marriage, all the little doors, all the little windows, all the little things, find anything in their behavior and their actions and their attitudes that suggest an escape route, that long before they would even consider it or before different tensions or trials could come, go seal them all up. Every one of them and say, those are not options with us. They won't be discussed when the storms come or when the pressures come. We'll never use them. They're gone. And it's something to hear the wonderful thing about Adam and Eve is that they started, they had a wonderful and innocent relation, no options, love the Lord, loved each other, no sin, their lives completely open and unveiled to one another. What a thing, what a wonderful thing that it had to be for them. I've called it an innocent love. They didn't stay there for long, but that's where they started. Their marriage then had to develop. It had to mature. It had to mature because of failure, because they ended up ultimately failing God and failing each other. And then the second phase of their marriage is it had to become what I call a redemptive love. Something there that what happened thereafter, you know, the serpent came into the garden and there the sin entered. It initially severed, it almost mortally wounded, you know, their marriage, but it not only survived, it ended up coming back stronger, I believe. It ended up being even more wonderful than the innocent love was. I'll come back to that in a few minutes, but it's something I'm personally of the conviction that it did. But of course, what happened in the garden I think is tremendously important to reflect upon, for it tells us there that there Satan came into the garden. And there as he came in, he asked Eve the question, did God say? You know, has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? The thing that is so interesting about this is that right in that question, what was happening now is that the devil was putting it there within Eve, there to take, you know, to think for yourself. Think for yourself. Don't think just because God has said something. I want to know, Eve, what you think. You're an intelligent human being, you think. And right there is where I believe the trouble oftentimes enters. Right there is when a human being begins to say, well, maybe I should check God out. Maybe, you know, after all, I've just been going hook, line, and sinker for whatever he said. I'm just following him right down the beaten path. Don't know where he's going. Don't know what he's doing. Come to think of it, I know very little about him. And, you know, maybe I should check him out. Here he created her, created him, created their life, created their marriage, created every animal. She knew certain things around. But then went again, went back to what is God's authority to do this. That's what he was coming at. And there he found a way that human reason couldn't reason. And ultimately, he attacked her faith right on. And, you know, essentially is what happened. And the Bible tells us that in the essence, the foundation of Christianity, it's always by faith. Something that faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. We ultimately even know as Hebrews chapter 11, I think it's around verse 4 or 5 or 6 in there, it says by faith we know that the worlds of old were created. We, you can't, by human reason, we can factor a lot of things out and we have definitely shown and pretty well proven the ridiculous nature of things like evolution. And there's nothing to disprove the reason of creation. That's for sure as time has gone on. But we still can't prove it by reason. And here what happens in the garden is that the devil's coming and he's saying, Eve, I want just, I want to talk to you all by yourself. Now you reason this out and you give me an answer. And then as soon as she started reasoning, she started failing. And I don't blame that on her, by the way. I'm, I kidded, you know, about this or something when I read it. But this is just human nature. That as soon as I have to go back and I better check God out or I better do it rather than just I'll go right with what it is, he can trip us up. And I kiddingly say on how she added things to it, but she did. I think Adam would have done it, anybody would have done it. I don't think it has to do with gender. I think it has to do with human nature. But here what happened there is he says don't eat of it, you know, and nor touch it. There was something there. Maybe initially what was happening is she on one hand, I know he's there, but I, and she's trying ever so hard, but it's something there. He's getting her and he, and he trips her up with their own things. Touch it. That's a new thought. But then he asked her obviously to study it. Study the thought. He gives her something she had no ability to at all reason out. Now that he got her to reason, he now gave her something she couldn't reason. He laid the trap, got her to try to be reasonable. And as soon as she stepped into the reasonable world, she then there found herself to where she is. She, he gave her something she couldn't reason with because he said to her, the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die for God knows the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil. And now all of a sudden he is not something she had no understanding of, no ability to reason out what, you know, and now he says, God lied to you when he told you that. And he says, you know why? You may wonder why he would do that. And that's because he wants to keep you under his thumb. He wants to keep you under his control. But the moment that you go do it and you eat of that, that's the only thing that's holding you back from becoming like God. You'll be just like him. And uh, uh, your eyes will be open and you'll be like God is exactly what he said to him. And there, how do you, how do you counteract that? How do you reason that through? What can you do? You can't, you can't sit there and say, well, I, huh, I never knew that. I didn't think that, but she got herself out of his presence and she got herself into herself. And of course the devil, he did the same thing there that he's done in most all cults. One of the interesting things and where Christianity and culture are a world apart is Christianity is to be in his likeness. All the cults are to be like him. One of them is based upon human effort and human strength and eating something that makes you to be like him. But the issue is that she was already in his likeness and uh, uh, but now, you know, he offers them that you can be like God. That's of course the same thing. And, uh, that's what Mormonism does offers the same thing. No, they don't even shadow it. Well, tell that Mormonism offers you come into Mormonism. You will be like God right on down the road. You'll just work your way up through the progression. Same thing with Jehovah's witness. And, uh, but here the issue was, he was already in his likeness. She was made in his image. She derived her very life and nature from his presence. But then he then turns to her. So the woman ponders it. And then in verse six, and she did the very fundamental thing that happened. This story has happened. Well, billions of time in verse six. So it says, so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and the tree desirable to make one wise, uh, she took of its fruit and ate. Here's the thing that happened now. Very simply is that all that the devil really did with the, even the garden is he asked her to exchange and change your priorities in one sense. What happened here? I mean, no, obviously she sinned, but the interesting thing is he showed her three things. She saw there that the food was good. I mean, that the tree was good for food at number one, number two, it was pleasant to the eyes and number three, able to make one wise that she saw three qualities there. One of them, it was physically desiring. It was good for food. Secondly, it was pleasant to the eyes. It was something to have it there to own it there, you know, to, uh, uh, was desirable and then it would make one wise. This will lift me into a higher realm in which I am now. There's only three levels of, there are only three areas in which sin has ever been. And second, first John, pardon me, two 15. John writes and he tells us, he says, love not the world, neither the things that are of the world for the things that are the world are the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. There's only three things and those are the exact same three things that Eve saw. She saw there that was good for food. That's the lust of the flesh. That's just merely the physical appetites. She just allowed the physical appetite to take control of her life. She then secondly saw that it was pleasant to the eyes. The second thing there that John tells us, love not the world, neither the things that are of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes. She, you know, the next thing that there is is that there's either passions or there's possessions. Here was something she could have. It was pleasant to the eyes, able to make one wise or as first John two says, the pride of life. So only three things. One of them was inviting to the physical realm and the physical senses or the sensual world. Another thing is the physical world and then the third thing is the spiritual world. There was the physical, you know, the physical body, the appetites. There was the appetite of possession and there was the appetites of position. All three of those. She saw those things and essentially all that the devil asked her to do was to do the thing that is hurt and usually hurts most relationships. It's always one of these things. Anytime you see a marriage in trouble, somebody's eaten one of these or all of them. Essentially, when you see strain in a relationship, there's somebody, for example, that they have put their own sensual world above their marriage or above their relationship with God. Or they've put on each other that somehow another, some thing is more important than the person. I want this thing, how many times in marriages if it isn't somebody has gone out and that they have been enticed into a sexual relationship or an adulterous affair or some form of it, I mean, obviously what that does to the marriage bond. The same thing can happen because what's happened there is that the man has put a higher priority over his wife or the wife or husband. When they've gone out and they've been enticed into, you know, they've eaten of something that's not there and they've put that now over their mate. And obviously you know how that devastates it, the pain that it brings, the suffering, the severing. Also with it can, if it isn't that, another thing that puts terrible strain in a relationship is when the physical world out there becomes more important than the marriage world and the relationship with God. When there's something there to where, you know, he is, you know, or she maybe or whichever one maybe puts the pressure on, honey, we just must get this car or we must, you know, buy this thing or we've got to have something out there and they put it above the other person. And now the other person has to almost take a lesser place in order to get this physical thing there. And how much stress and strain that can put on a relationship rather than two people looking and saying, you, I always want you to know you become before anything sensual in this world, you be, or anything, you know, the physical appetites. You are more important to me than anything in the world. And you're more important to me than any position in the world. How many times have you seen marriages threatened because he's gone and he's always at the office. He's trying to build the empire. He's going to do this great thing and he's going to bring this fruit home for her to eat. Honey, I'm going to be a great success. I'm sorry I have to neglect you now. I'm sorry we haven't got the time that we ought to have together. I know this probably isn't the best priority, you know, to sacrifice this time that we need, but I'm going to make it up to you. It's so common. But when two people here, Adam and Eve, what made their marriage innocent, what made it precious is they had a relationship with God. They had a relationship with each other. And all these other things, you know, came after. All of these other things were ones like Jesus in Matthew 6.33, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. All these things will be added unto you. Don't worry about what you'll eat, you know, what you'll drink, wherewithal you'll be clothed. Don't worry about all these things in life. Just worry about your relationship with me or be concerned about it, your relationships with one another. Seek first the things of the kingdom. And he says all these other things, they will fit, they will come in due order. But when marriages are in struggle, when oftentimes there's pressures, they're losing their innocence because their priorities are misplaced. And they find themselves in stress. She's saying, where are you? Why don't you come home? He's, you know, wondering and curious about other women. And other things can happen. And what a terrible thing can occur when people get their priorities mistaken. But when somebody has in their marriage to where they love the Lord and they love each other, and then all the other things come after, then they're going to be fine. It's going to be a strong marriage when they keep it there. But so often you get married and you hurt each other. I had told the story before, but when we first got married, we hadn't been married long, but the opportunity to me of a lifetime is how I thought of it. There was a Porsche and I loved Porsches, little sports cars. And it came, one came along for sale. It was the deal of a lifetime as far as I was concerned. The only thing I had to do was spend all the money we had to get it. The money that was basically, we, when we got married, we, you know, kept a lot of the wedding presents, but we'd also return, we had things that we didn't, wouldn't use and didn't want or like a lot of married couples used to get married. You got all these gifts and when you can get credit for them, you can get money back. We'd got, so we'd get married, we had some money here and we'd taken stuff back and we'd kind of had this little war chest kind of started going. Well, but that was also basically, we'd taken things back that, you know, utensils and pots and pans and crystal goblets or other things that we weren't going to keep. And I just took it and got the greatest car in the world. I mean, it was quite simple to me, you know, on a thing, but yet it was something to her. Well, this was our pots and pans. This was, this was stuff like bedding. You know, this was for stuff like food, utensils to eat with, stuff that she thought was important to me. I didn't think it was important. It wasn't in my sense of priority at all. I didn't care about any of those things. I mean, you can find a lot of things to eat on and a lot of ways to eat it with and a lot of stuff, but there are not a lot of Porsches out there. You know, it was quite simple reasoning as far as I was concerned, but I reasoned it on my own. I didn't reason it with her. I didn't, we'd sit down and say, let's discuss this together. Let's go, let's pray about this. I think you had Eve there said, well, wait a minute, devil. Let me talk to you tomorrow about this. I'm going to talk to my husband and we're going to talk to God about it and I'll get back with you. I think you can be tempted all the time. So far, there was nothing really wrong here, but, but instead of taking it to where it ought to go, she figured it out on her own. And when he or she figures it out on her own, they're in trouble. Well, that's the next thing you know, a marriage goes from the innocent level to where now it's, it's got to move into a new gear for it to go on. It's got to learn redemptive love. Innocent love is wonderful, but it's never as strong, I think, or as, as powerful as, as a redemptive love. And, uh, the sad thing that happened here though, is Adam and Eve, they sinned. They ate it. And of course, uh, next thing you know, their relationship was severed. The relationship with God was severed. Obviously their relationship with each other was severed. Here was something, if you can imagine, here they are, though they're hiding together, they really weren't together at all, were they? Uh, they'd come along and, uh, first thing they did is they decided they realized they're naked. They looked today, you're naked. Well, you're naked. I didn't know we're naked. Well, let's cover it up. We got to hide. And so they get, of all things, and this is something I've never figured out. They got fig leaves. I don't know if you've ever seen, you've been around fig trees, but fig leaves, uh, they got to be the itchiest leaf that there was ever in the whole world. If you can imagine sewing these things together, and, you know, it's just kind of itchy. You know, I mean, well, I don't know, I mean, just the thought of it. Somehow, Adam, there's got to be this beautiful garden. I mean, there's got to be some better leaves than to pick these scratchy, itchy, hairy leaves. But anyway, that's what they picked. But that's, but to me that's indicative, though. Sin, you can cover it, but you're never comfortable. You can cover it, but it doesn't fit. No covering fits right. Nothing is comfortable about it when you hide it. And when you cover it, you're extremely uncomfortable. You're extremely on edge. But here's something to where, uh, next thing you know, these two, they're at odds. They didn't really even know how much they were at odds until God came along. The Lord, as He walks out in the cool of the garden, the cool of the day, to fellowship with them while they're hiding. And there's God calls Adam. Adam, where are you? I'm hiding. Why are you hiding? I'm naked. Oh, how'd you know that you were naked? What is it that you seem to want to hide? You never needed to hide anything before. Now there's something you must cover. And, uh, there he said, Adam, you've sinned. He said, oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, I didn't. It sounds, but, uh, not, not quite right. It was the woman that thou gavest me. She did give to me, didn't I? And you know, the interesting thing about this is that this is a story. I think if you, if any attorney, you could probably take this case to court and win it for Adam. I think probably, I mean, in the sense of saying that as far as Adam was concerned, Eve sinned. I'm sure he absolutely, he was completely honest. It is the woman. There's no question about it. I was happy. Everything was wonderful. Everything was fine, you know, about the whole thing. And one, and then she came to me and she gave the, she ate of it first. And then she came and she asked me to eat it. And, but she's the one that initiated the whole thing. It was fine until he did her. And then he made it an interesting thing. He looked at it and, uh, uh, he says, you know, he says the woman, and then he had to stick this little jab in there. He says, whom you gave me. As if to say, you know, look, there's three of us here. There's her and me, and there's you. Uh, but I want you to know, I don't have anything to do with it. It's between you and her. It's the woman who you gave me. You two go talk about it. And I'm going to go on my own way. And, uh, that's, that's, he just shifted the blame, didn't he? And, uh, and of course there, then she learned from him quite well, because then when he says, Eve, tell me about it. And he says, the serpent, the serpent did it. He deceived me. And, uh, but both of them just learned how to shift the blame. Both of them learned there just how to accuse each other. You don't have to be married long until something happens. Something gets in to where your own selfishness comes along. Something in there of your own reasoning. Something gets into a marriage where you reason for yourself. You must do it your way. This is the smart thing to do. And you figure it out, and the next thing you know, you're in, you're in terrible trouble. And then you're blaming each other. And I'm sure these two, they had to have some tough times in their marriage. I'm sure they had some real tough times. I imagine Adam when he came home after, you know, some of those, those days. Here the guy, I mean, he had the world, you know, at his feet. He had everything. He had this phenomenal garden. He's there to where he got to name every animal. They were all like pets. Sin happened. He gets kicked out of the garden. The animal world is afraid of him and runs from him. He's now sent out. From now on, he says, you're going to work by the sweat of your brow, and the earth is going to bring forth thorns and thistles, and you're going to plow a field and feed your family. And there, I think, you know, as he, you know, heads on out day by day, I imagine, you know, by the end of the day, after trying to roll those rocks, and trying to get the ground to irrigate, and trying to get everything to grow, and plant, and the thorns, and the thistles, and pulling those things out from between his fingernails, and his back aching, by the time he walked home at the end of the day, he probably had more than a few words at times for her. Probably said, I wonder how many times he sat down and said, Eve, why? Why didn't you call me when this little snake came along? You know, why? You know, I mean, he could probably really be upset with her. Of course, I imagine she probably looked there as she's there carrying Cain, and carrying Abel, and then delivering these things, and no sedatives, no Lamaze classes, no nothing, but as the Bible says, now Eve, you'll have, you know, pain in childbirth, and there as she's there screaming, she probably like, actually like my wife did to me. She's always been a nice lady, except for she's not good to be around when she was ever delivering a child. She had this way, she could grab your whole body, and pull it right into her face, and say, stop this pain, and I did, every, whatever they wanted, I'd gladly pay it, or she'd kill me. But the, I mean, you look there, and she's in this pain, and blamed it on him. He's in his pain, and blamed it on her. Until finally, though, God had to come and teach them the way of, if you're going to get it right, Adam, if you're going to get it right, Eve, you've got to not only be forgiven by me, you've got to be forgiven by each other, and I'm going to cover you, cover you with an animal skin. An animal had to die for their life to get right with him, or right with each other. A sacrifice had to be offered up, and there as God went out, and He showed them the way of forgiveness, and there as He took the animals, He sacrificed them, and then He covered their nakedness. It was something there that their marriage, obviously, I think, went through some tremendous tests, but all the strength that it could have, the wonder of the whole thing. It's, I think, as exciting as innocent love is, it is not as wonderful as redemptive love. In the sense of when two people, though you may look and it's terrible to hurt one another, there's no justification for that, don't get me wrong, but what it is that makes a marriage really strong isn't two people that have never failed. It's two people that as they fail, they're loving, and forgiving, and strengthening one another. They're determined that as much as we once had in the innocent stages, as much as we had in these frolicking around happy times, but as we moved on into the depths of the marriage, and into the commitments of it, and into the struggles of priorities of the whole thing, but as we got it where it ought to be, and as we failed, and as we learned to listen, and realized, God, you've got to help us again, you've got to cover us again, you've got to forgive us again, and I think every marriage, every marriage that's strong, every one I've ever seen that's worth its salt is one that is not because they've never failed each other, it's because in the process of their humanness, they're learning how to fix each other, and how to forgive each other, and how to receive forgiveness of each other. It forms an attachment that's only paralleled in the Bible with God and man. The reason you love God isn't because you never let him down. The reason he loves you isn't because you never let him down. But it's because in the process of failing, the process of sin, it's opened up the capacity of God to reveal how great his love is to redeem us, and to wash us, and to cleanse us. And that's the way a husband is to love his wife, as Christ loved the church, and to wash her, as Ephesians says, and to cleanse her, and on how to people that when they get mud all over themselves, and their priorities are wrong, or their tensions are there, or they're irritable, or their priorities are somewhat wrong, is there they can come and say, God, wash us, God, cleanse us, keep us sensitive to you, and sensitive to one another, and help us grow out of this. And it becomes a stronger thing. Marriage, I think a lot of times, it's like a it's like a tree, an oak tree, but if you can take a mighty oak, and if you just keep it innocent, it'll never be a mighty oak. If you take an oak tree, and you plant it by a huge house, or a barn, and you let that thing grow up, but all the years it's growing, it's protected. There's this huge barn that protects it from the wind, and the rain, and the storms that come across the plains, and there it is, and then one day you take that barn down. The entire root system of that tree, it will, you know, it'll be one that as soon as almost the slightest wind comes, will take hardly any wind at all, that tree will fall down. But if that tree is one that as it's planted, and as it grows, and as the roots go down, the winds come, and they hit that every day that's coming, and the seasons come, and it's been hit, and it's been hit, and it's been hit, but each time that happens, every season, those roots, like sensors, they know where the winds, and the rains, and the storms come from, and they get deeper, and they get stronger, and stronger, and stronger, and it becomes a mightier tree. I think in a way, a marriage is much like that. As we find out our selfishness, as we find out our, and how we can be, many people, their problems in life, their stresses, we're just selfish. We, everyone theologically knows we're selfish, but you don't know how selfish you are until you get married. Isn't that true? Those of you that are married, you sure ought to be able to nod your head. Before I got married, I thought I was quite a wonderful person. I'd been a Christian a little while, and I thought I was really quite a saint, and I thought I was pretty spiritual. I got along with people wonderfully. There was no stress in my life. There was hardly anything. I did great, and people thought I was a marvelous Christian, and I was growing, but all of a sudden, when you start sharing a refrigerator with somebody, and you start sharing a thermostat with somebody, and you start sharing a bed with each other, and you start sharing lights, and noise levels, and music types, and cars, I mean, the next thing you know, you find out how selfish you are. You find out how I want my own space, my own world, my own time. I want to do this. I want to do that. You find out how carnal you are, and marriage is a wonderful place to, you know, to discover, and to want to deal with selfishness, and if somebody realized, God, I don't want to be selfish. To a selfish person, marriage is threatening, but to a person who looks and says, I want to be a Christian, it's not. It's a test, though. Lastly, and one other thing, because it's time to close it here, I think Adam and Eve's marriage, it went from an innocent love, and then it went on to a tested love, to where it became a redemptive love, but then it ended up, ultimately, to be quite a mature love. I say that because Adam, I don't know if you're aware of this, but Adam was 930 years old when he died. He was around for a little while, wasn't he? Actually, a lot of people are unaware of the fact that Adam lived up until 132 years before the birth of Noah. He was around for a tremendous amount of history, and when you look at this marriage, I mean, it's gone on, you know, for so many, many years, and these two, you know, I think, as they had been through so much, they'd been through the innocence, they'd been through the garden, they went through having children, and they'd been out, you know, watching the world become populated, but to stop and think of all of these centuries together, and what a story these two had to tell. You imagine how many people would want to come and to sit down at Adam and Eve's home and say, tell us again. Tell us about where we came from. Tell us about God. Tell us about the garden. Tell us about, you know, this wonderful place, you know, called Paradise, this Garden of Eden, where you actually lived in and how it was. And they probably asked him, I'm sure many times, Adam, don't you wish you could go back? Wouldn't you love to go back? You know, I have no idea, but I'll bet he said no. I'll bet he did. It probably mixed feelings, I'm sure, about it, no in the regret that he had sinned, but in the sense, though, of realizing what he had discovered about God, what he'd come to know through sacrifice, what he'd come to know of the love of God. Adam knew little of the love of God until he sacrificed for him, until he made a way of forgiveness for him. Adam and Eve, I don't think they knew much about each other. Oh, it's fun to play in the yard together and, you know, skip rope and swing together, you know, maybe as little innocent kids, but then when it's really called upon there to where you love each other and you grow and you've forgiven each other and you've you've grown out of it and you've plowed a field together and you've born children together and you've gone through the pain of these things together and you've hung together through all of these things and to realize, you know, the wonder of it and how the attachment that you have, you know, maybe they came and Adam, would you ever like another wife, a younger one, you know, I mean, maybe, you know, just one that's ever, you know, maybe one that's only three, four hundred years old, just some young chick, you know, or some sort of a thing, you know, I mean, you know, who knows, I mean, these after a few centuries, you know, but four or five, six centuries together, you'd think it might get old, but the thing is, is that when their love grows with the years, when it continues to grow, it ought to be irreplaceable. It ought to be something that in a marriage that one day people look at each other and says, you know, I picked you out of a crowd, which I'd have to say that's what I did with my wife, I picked her out, I wanted her, she was beautiful to me and I liked her person, I liked everything about her, but there was a time she was just one among the many, she was, and I was too, and, but the thing is, is that through the years, and the wonderful thing I think that can happen in a marriage is so, is that you find that you're irreplaceable, you find that what happens through the years, you can't, what it is that you've got, the beauty and the strength of it, it is, there's no competition for it, because nobody knows you so well. Once, in a sense, and before God and before one another, you've been, in a sense, open and naked with your lives, you've thought together, you've functioned together, you've grown spiritually together, you've been, your whole lives have been so blended together, you realize what I have with this person, it's not replaceable. You know, the only way that I have this with this person is it's taken decades. It isn't something that there's competition out there for, because I don't have that with anyone else in the world, and to me the thing that can happen in a marriage is it can become beautiful, because as the years go by, it's something that there's no competition for it. And something that I think Adam and Eve learned is something that every marriage, every relationship, to stop and realize God looks and he puts people together, but then he wants it to be sacred. And then when we fail, which we all do, that we can then turn and grow. Instead of blaming the other or covering our nakedness, we can go and say, no, let's stay uncovered. Let's stay open to God. Let's stay open to each other. Let's let him cover it, not us. Let's go to him with it and confess it, and then let him with the animal, or not the animal any longer, now of course the blood of Jesus, let's let him fix it. And when that happens, you've got something that's unlike anything else in the world. And Adam and Eve to me, they were in innocent love, but that I'm sure it was wonderful, but not as wonderful as a redemptive love. And I'm sure that was wonderful, but not as wonderful as a mature love. They're all wonderful. Well, let's pray. Father, how we thank you for your word. And Lord, in this day and age where marriage is in such a low estate, when people are seemingly taking their options all over the place, and it's devastating, and the severing. Lord, in there, we just ask that you would teach us. Lord, I pray for every marriage here, every marriage in our body, Lord, that when as we fail each other, that we'll learn to be quick to forgive. That when we get our priorities out and we put pressure on the other to do or to be something, to say, just please, just let me have this priority for a short time. I know it puts stress on you and I'm asking you to take a lesser place in my heart than maybe seems right, but in the long run it'll be good, really. Lord, that when we hurt each other, when we fail, Lord, help us to know the way of covering and of forgiveness, that our marriages can be strong, that they can be open, that our lives can be naked before you and unashamed. And so, Lord, strengthen us, teach us all. For Father, we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.