Here’s How Our World Became Such a Mess!

1st Sunday in Lent, 3/9/14
Genesis 2:7-9, 15-17; 3:1-7


Here’s How Our World Became Such a Mess!


Do you know what your name means? I’m sure most of you do. My name means “man.” In Hebrew it’s pronounced A-dam. You’ve brought that Hebrew name directly into English. Adam. Man. That’s rather appropriate, wouldn’t you agree? After all, I was the first human being.

On the one hand, I’m rather amazed at what the world has become. In my days on earth, birds were the only things that flew. Now your skies are crisscrossed each day by countless aircraft. I understand you even have them orbiting the earth. I’m amazed at the medical technology you’ve achieved. Your hospitals are truly monuments to medical science. Speaking of science, the way you’re able to produce energy and use it in countless modern ways is truly astounding. In fact, everywhere I look in your world I see things I never even dreamed of 1000s of years ago.

On the other hand, though, I’m not surprised at all. I can see that nothing has changed. You deal with the terrible crime of murder every day. My son Cain murdered his brother Abel. I know what that’s like. Your world is full of perversions. That started just a couple generations after me. You deal with stress and pain on a daily basis. I know what that’s all about. I felt them, too.

But it wasn’t always that way. No, in the beginning things were good. Real good. In fact, they were perfect. Imagine spending a day in perfect happiness. Not a thing goes wrong. No stress. No pain. No frustration. No disappointment. Everything I attempted to do, I accomplished without breaking a sweat. I ate a perfect diet and had no trouble maintaining the perfect weight. But I can’t take the credit. No, it was all God’s doing. He did all that for me in his perfect love for me.

Recall some of the details of that astounding love from your reading in Genesis which you heard earlier. God had created this perfect world in perfect order. First, he created an earth. Then he separated land from water and water from sky. He created vegetation. Next he created the heavenly bodies. On the following day he returned his attention to the earth and placed fish in the water and birds in the air. On the sixth day he created all kinds of animals that live on the earth.

And then he created me. And note the special care. Instead of simply stating, “Let there be Adam,” he formed me with loving care from the dust of the ground. And then he breathed life into me. I received life from him in a special way. He endowed me with a soul. What’s more, he made me in his image, meaning that my will and his will were in perfect harmony. And then he gave me authority over all that he created to use it and enjoy it in a perfect way.

But he wasn’t finished yet. Inside this perfect world he made a special place for me to live, literally a paradise on earth. It was called the Garden of Eden. Here I lived in perfect harmony with all the plant and animal life. It was amazing! Everywhere I looked I was surrounded by evidences of God’s astounding love for me. I lacked nothing. I had all I wanted in perfect measure.

Your reading from Genesis made special reference to the trees in the garden. It was full of trees and many of them were ladened with perfect fruit to eat. I never got hungry. All around me were fruits and vegetables just waiting to be eaten.

But there were two special trees—the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were in the middle of the garden and God took special effort to point them out to me.

Connected to those trees was this clear command from God, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 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.” The man from whom your church denomination gets its name—Martin Luther—called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil my church, my altar and my pulpit. Here’s where I showed my love for God by not eating of that tree. Here’s where I declared the amazing love God had showed me by providing all that I needed. Here’s where I called upon my God to help me resist the temptation to eat of that tree. And in his love for me, God gave me the ability to obey him perfectly. I wasn’t simply some robot that God programmed to obey him. I obeyed him out of love from a perfectly free will.

My wife Eve shared that image of God and perfectly free will with me. And she’s another example of God’s amazing love for me. He wanted me to enjoy this perfect world with another human being that corresponded precisely to me and me to her. He created her from me to be my perfect helper. I was made to serve her by leading her in enjoying this perfect life, and she was made to serve me by helping me through this perfect life. In every sense of the term, we enjoyed a perfect marriage in a perfect world. And it was all due to the love God had for us.

But then came the day that Satan inhabited the body of a serpent. Some people scoff at such an idea, but, as good Bible readers, you know that’s not so unusual. Look at how many demon possessions Jesus faced during his days on earth. And a legion of demons once inhabited an entire herd of pigs. Satan is able to use living objects to make his presence known. And that’s what he did on this day.

And before I go any further in this terrible account, I want you to know that Eve wasn’t alone that day. As the text relates, I was with her.

First, Satan engaged her in conversation. Actually, he was setting her up for a fall. He got her to defend God by stating something that was blatantly false. He asked, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” If he did, that would be preposterous. The garden was full of trees that were full of fruit that was desirable and good to eat. And Eve defended God. She told Satan that we were free to eat from the trees in the garden. However, he did forbid us to eat from one tree, the one in the middle of the garden. The punishment for doing so was death.

And then came Satan’s bald-faced lie. “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” His lie asserted at least three things about God that weren’t true. First, God isn’t so good. He doesn’t only want what is best for us. Second, God can’t be trusted. He knows something and he’s keeping it from us. Third, he’s preventing us from reaching our full potential. We could be just like he is, knowing good and evil, as if knowing evil was a desirable and beneficial quality.

And just that quickly it happened. Our roles were reversed. I was there all the time. I was created to serve Eve by leading her into all things that were God-pleasing, but I failed. I said nothing. I did nothing. I let her go.

Instead, she took the lead, but not in doing something God-pleasing. Just the opposite. She took some fruit and ate it and gave me some to eat as well.

Immediately we were changed, just as Satan had said, but not for the better. For the absolute worst. And now we knew evil and it infected us all the way to our hearts and minds. Instead of being filled with holy thoughts and desires about each other as we had since the day we were created, we experienced the opposite. We thought about how to use each other for our own gratification and we were filled with shame.

You know the rest of the story. From that moment on our world fell apart. My daily life from that moment on became an unbroken string of sinful days. Eve gave birth to children that were sinful just as we were. It wasn’t long before the world became a mess of sinful people. I’ll accept my responsibility. As the Bible states, “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12). I’m that one man. I’ll take the blame. Here’s how our world became such a mess.

But will you take responsibility for your part in it as well? I’ll let any sinless person here this morning point their finger of blame and judgment at me. Go ahead. That’s what I thought. No one is perfect. Our sinful records are the same. We’re impatient and judgmental. We lack compassion and care for our fellow human beings. If we’re not lashing out at others, we’re throwing personal pity parties. When times are good, we over-indulge and when times are bad, we complain. We don’t even trust our God who has been nothing but loving towards us. Instead, we worry and stress over the smallest situations. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Here’s how our world became such a mess.

But that’s why the Second Adam came. He came to undo all the damage that we had done. Where I failed to resist Satan and where you failed to resist Satan, he succeeded, every time. By his perfect life he sent Satan home defeated. And then he crushed him. It happened on another tree, a tree in the form of a cross punched into the side of a hill called Calvary. There the Second Adam suffered the punishment of hell—separation from God—for us. And when he cried out, “It is finished,” his work was over. The payment for all sins of all time had been made. How do I know it was sufficient? How do I know that it was for me and for you and for every sinner? The Second Adam rose from the dead just as he promised he would. And Satan and all his demons screamed in horror.

Here’s how our world became such a mess and here’s what our loving God did about it. He did it for you. Lent give you and me the opportunity to marvel at his love for us and, in response to that love, to rededicate ourselves to walking closer with Jesus, the Second Adam. Walk more closely with him this Lent and receive the victory over Satan. Amen.