The Fall

Moving on, we now arrive at what believers call The Fall. God gave Adam the world, literaly, with only one rule:

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Gen. 15-17)

But, as many know and as is evident today, Adam and Eve did eat the fruit. They broke the ONE rule they were given. How did it happen?

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Gen. 3:1-7)

The snake tricked the woman into eating the fruit. Now, I know a popular question to ask is;

Why would God restrict the fruit? Did He want us to remain naive? Did He just want child-like adults running around doind whatever Daddy tells them to do, no questions asked? Didn't God want us to have minds of our own and make our own decisions?

It's not that God didn't want us to know, it's that He didn't want us to have to know. Let me explain; God didn't want Adam and Eve to know good from evil because He created them knowing only good. He didn't want them to have to know what evil is. Sit for a moment and imagine what your definition of evil is. Turn on the news and see if there is, or has been, anything you consider evil. How does that make you feel? Perhaps scared at the state the world was in? Angry? Pained? God didn't want us to know these emotions, He only wanted us to know joy, happiness and love. He didn't want His children to have to know what pain, anger, envy, intolerance, bitterness or hatred was. That's way He told us not to eat the fruit, so we wouldn't have to experience these things. He was just trying to protect His children. I know alot of teens and young adults right now are rolling their eyes at that 'over-used' analogy, but it's true. Until you have children, you will never know the desire a parent feels to keep their children away from anything negative, painful or dangerous. I don't have children, only a younger sister and two god-children, but even towards them, I want to shelter them from all the anguish and evil in the world. That's what God wanted, because we are God's children. He wanted to protect us.

Then why put the tree there in the first place?

To allow us to choose. If God didn't put the tree there, give us the choice, then yes, all He would have wanted was mindless servants worshipping Him. But instead, He gave us free will, that is, the ability to make choices. And, it just so happened that we made the wrong choice. And what happened because of that choice?

So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
    "Cursed are you above all the livestock
    and all the wild animals!
    You will crawl on your belly
    and you will eat dust
    all the days of your life.

And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and hers;
    he will crush your head,
    and you will strike his heel."

To the woman he said,
    "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
    with pain you will give birth to children.
    Your desire will be for your husband,
    and he will rule over you."

To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
    "Cursed is the ground because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat of it
    all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
    and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
    until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
    for dust you are
    and to dust you will return."

Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen. 3:14-24)

In a nutshell; we screwed up. Big time. Not only did we loose paradise, but also our relationship with God. God was right when He said we would die if we ate the Forbidden Fruit; not only were we not allowed to eat from the Tree of Life again (which guraded us against death. Basically we were immortal when we could eat the fruit. That's immortal not invincible. Eating the fruit from the Tree of Life means we wouldn't grow old and die. But now, we are not allowed to eat that fruit anymore, so now we are going to grow old and die.), but we also died spiritually. Our relationship with God died the moment we decided we didn't need to listen to Him anymore. We destroyed the trust He gave us. Notice that never again in the Bible is there an account of God with man again after this. God still talks to man, when man is listening, but never again does God physically walk with man. Man has brought sin into the world, also referred to in the past as The Curse. The effects of sin can be seen right away in Adam and Eve's children. Cain commits the first murder out of jelousy. Sin has now become a generational, or what we refer to as genetic, curse.

Not only are humans affected, but the world too. The ground, the plants, all of creation falls under the curse of sin. Not only humans, but the whole once good creation is now corrupted by sin. Poisonous plants apppear, extreme climates, the whole nine yards.

Through sin, man willingly hands stewardship of creation over to Satan. Sorry won't cut it for this one!

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