Of course adults are different, right? Well, maybe not. If you ask adults if they would rather have their way or please God...
This year's study of Genesis has brought about some big thoughts into my peabrain. That's encouraging since the book says that what we think about affects what we are becoming.
Remember the two trees out in the middle of Eden's orchard? Until now, I don't think I could verbalize exactly what the trees were about. Remember one was the "Tree of Life" and the other was the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil".
TREE OF LIFE. Of all the trees made available to Adam and Eve, the Bible doesn't mention them ever trying to eat from this tree. They had permission to eat there; the prohibition was against eating from the other tree. But that's like people today. Your future is your choice. There's no prohibition against choosing to live forever with God, but there's no big line forming.
When the hissssser-serpent came promoting his five "D's" (doubt, deception, desire, defiance, and division), he slithered up to the couple and cleverly asked..."Has God really said that?". "Oh, you won't die!" "Such knowledge would make you wise like God and God just doesn't want you to be like Him." Satan carefully tweaks truth and fans desire as he divides to conquer.
Adam and Eve could have turned away from temptation, but they turned away from God. We do like that feeling of dethroning God and stepping up to declare what is best for us. Adam and Eve knew better than God and I've been there.
John Piper says "The modern secular world—the world which tries to remove God from his all-creating, all-sustaining, all-defining, all-governing place—has no choice but to make itself god and to create its own morality. In other words, when man abandons God and his self-revelation as the source of what is objectively true and right and beautiful, the next highest court of appeal is man himself."
Proverbs speaks truth when it says "there's a way that seems right to a man but its end is the way of death". Rather than be god-pretenders, we need to see what the Almighty has to say. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways are higher than our ways. I'm old enough to remember Frank Sinatra singing the serpent's theme song "I Did It My Way". But we don't get to define truth or say what is good or evil; that is God's place. When we eat of this tree, we stamp our foot and take charge.
Scripture says when the woman saw the fruit was desirable for making wise, she took and ate and then gave to Adam, who also ate. Then THEIR EYES WERE OPENED and they knew they were naked. John Piper says a "Grand Canyon" opened up for Adam and Eve "between appearance and pretension". Their first consequence was to see themselves accurately and realize they WEREN'T like God and they needed to cover themselves.
I'm not loving like God or wise like God. I'm a sinner and so were they and so is the modern world. We all like to put on covering, too. We do bodybuilding and go to tanning booths and wear skinny jeans and fine jewelry and drive shiny cars in order to enhance our image. But we're puny and we're certainly not the Fountain of all beauty. Piper says we want to be God, but we don't want to see God. In order to see God, we need a miracle of new birth.
God the Father gave grace in a Genesis 3:15 promise to send a Rescuer for man. "In the beginning" God explained how the story would end. The Rescuer would be the offspring of a woman who would come to CRUSH Satan's head, while the serpent would bruise His heel (a picture of Christ on the cross). The cross would make possible full redemption for man and give grace the last word.
All through the Old Testament, the Rescuer is promised and defined. Then the New Testament explains His arrival in fulfillment of all the prophecies. Now we are all on our way to you, Jesus. Remind us that You are the Almighty and we are not.
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