Consequences

There is nothing else in all creation as unique as a human being. As we saw last week we are unique socially. We celebrate holidays. Our faces are expressive. Our language is precise. We have an extraordinary capacity to love. We are unique physically. After God created Adam the Bible says in Genesis 2:20 (NIV) that, "...for Adam no suitable helper was found." The birds, the fish, the livestock, and the mammals were a total mismatch for man. Only after God created woman did man finally meet his match.

We are unique spiritually. We have souls that cry out for the living God. We long for heaven. We speak of life after death. We pray. We worship God. We are unique morally. God’s law is written on our hearts. We have a conscience that judges our thoughts and actions. We have this inner sense of justice that causes us to establish laws and courts and to stand up for the poor and weak. We are unique intellectually. We are unique emotionally.

But most importantly, God created us with a unique purpose. We exist to glorify God and to make his name greater. We exist to magnify his image in our lives. We are most fully alive when in all our uniqueness, we choose to exist for God’s glory. Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV) lists the fruits of the spirit. ".....love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control..." These are the results of choosing God’s purpose for your life.

Consequences Prove We are Truly Free

But all this raises an important point for our consideration. God is not a puppet master. When I was a youngster my parents took us kids to Disneyworld. One of the places we visited was the Epcot Center, where engineers had designed dozens of real-to-life, animated robots that would reenact key events in our nation’s history. The robots looked completely human, right down to their skin color, clothing, voice inflection, facial features, gestures, and movements.

Several times I got so caught up in the wonder of it all that I forgot that I was watching machines. These machines were perfectly controlled by engineers through the use of sophisticated computer software. The machines never missed a cue. In fact, the machines couldn’t miss their cues. They were technical marvels.

Now I suppose that God could have created biological machines to glorify himself. God certainly has the power, the knowledge, and the sovereignty necessary to control us like little puppets to do his perfect will. If he so chose, God could make us stand, sit, speak the perfect words, tithe, and evangelize. Like robots, he could make us obedient to any part of his will. But God doesn’t control us like puppets. He doesn’t force us to be obedient to his will. Instead he created a world where the possibility of sin exists and the prospect of pain is all too real.

Genesis 2:15-17 (NIV) says, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, '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.' "

Over the weekend, a father in Wisconsin took his two daughters ice skating. One daughter fell through the ice and presumably disappeared beneath the water. As the other daughter ran for help, the father jumped into the water to save his daughter. Neither the father nor the daughter survived. A few miles from there an older man was hunting with a neighbor boy in the woods. Hopping on a four wheeler, the boy decided to leave a few minutes early. A short while later the older man saw the four wheeler bobbing in the water of nearby lake. Every year authorities send out a warning about recreating on ice. "There is no safe ice." But in Wisconsin this week there were three painful deaths, three painful reminders, and three tragedies.

We can be quick to blame God for such painful tragedies. "Why did you allow that, God?" But we must remember the one thing that distinguishes us from puppets and robots. A puppet has no choice but to obey its puppet master. A robot has no choice but to obey its engineer. If you think about it, robots and puppets have no life in themselves. They have no will. They have no freedom. They are for all practical purposes, dead. But as human beings created in the image of God, we have the freedom of choice. We can choose the tree of life and live forever. But then we can also choose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and, "surely die."

Power of free will.

It is tragic that our choices, even the most innocent of choices, can lead to death. But would you have it any other way? Would you rather be a robot or a puppet? At home, Lara has all these stuffed animals. One of them looks like a schnauzer. That stuffed animal makes the perfect pet. It never barks when the doorbell is rung. It is never hungry or thirsty. It doesn’t wake me up in the middle of the night wanting to go outside. It doesn’t get into fights with our other schnauzers. It doesn’t get into the trash. It sits on a shelf and is completely forgotten. It's practically a pillow. But the dog I love, the dog I cannot ignore, has a will of his own. He makes good choices and bad choices. He can choose me, or he can choose Lara. The fact that he consistently chooses me, and rarely chooses Lara, even after Lara tries to bribe him, makes me smile. Now our other schnauzer, Addie, doesn't choose anyone. She just sleeps. She’ll lay on the couch for up to ten hours without moving. We call her name just to make sure she is still alive.

You know, I’ll take a real schnauzer over a stuffed schnauzer any day. God would rather have a real human being who is truly capable of choosing the good he desires,over a biological robot that lifelessly puppets every impulse of his will. Our freedom of will is what allows God to have a relationship with us. Our freedom of will is what causes God to truly be glorified. It’s the fact that we could choose otherwise, but still choose him instead that causes God to smile. To have a meaningful relationship with man, God had to allow for the possibility of good and the possibility of evil.

"And the Lord God commanded the man, '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.' "

Three choices.

I want you to turn in your Bible to Genesis 3 and see the choices set before Adam and Eve. God wanted Adam and Eve to trust his word, obey his commands, and glorify him as God. But he had to allow for the possibility that they would not trust, obey, or worship him.

Genesis 3:1-24 (NIV) says, "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. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, 'Where are you?' He answered, 'I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.' And he said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?' The man said, 'The woman you put here with me— she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.' Then the LORD God said to the woman, 'What is this you have done?' The woman said, 'The serpent deceived me, and I ate.' "

"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."

Trusting God’s word or questioning God’s word.

Adam and Eve had a set of three choices put before them. Their first choice was between trusting God’s word or questioning God’s word. Did you notice what the serpent first said to Eve? "Did God really say.....?" "You will not surely die..." How many times in the course of a day do you encounter that same voice? How many times are you faced with the simple choice of taking God at his word, or searching for some loophole? There are always a chorus of voices questioning God’s word. It’s the television, a magazine article, an unsolicited e-mail, a friend, your spouse, your children, or a coworker.

Glorifying God or excluding God.

Adam and Eve’s second choice was between glorifying God or excluding God. In Genesis 3:5, the serpent essentially convinces them they didn’t need God, "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 you glorify God, you express a level of dependence on God. But here the serpent was telling them, "You don’t need God. You can be like God. You can make better choices for yourselves than God commands for you in his word. If your eyes were completely open, you would see that this sin is no big deal."

Obeying God or pursuing pleasure.

Adam and Eve’s third choice was between obeying God or pursuing pleasure. In Genesis 3:6 we're told that, "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." When God’s word has been discredited, when self has been exalted above God, one has no other recourse than to live for his own pleasure. Obey your thirst! Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. If it feels so good, how can it be so bad?

Adam and Eve came under a curse because when presented with a choice, they questioned God’s word, then excluded him, and they pursued pleasure.

What were the consequences?

First they experienced shame. Then separation from God. Then relational turmoil as they began blaming one another for their sin, and struggling against one another for domination. Then they experienced God’s judgment. Pain and hardship, pain in childbirth, and pain from working the ground. Suffering would increase. But most notable is the fact that they were banished from the Garden of Eden. They could no longer see God and walk with him. They were forbidden from partaking of the tree of life. They fell under the curse of sin and death.

Of course, all of this is just the bad news. God was not giving up on Adam and Eve. As we’ll see next week, God establishes a covenant first with Adam and Eve. Then with Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Then with the nation of Israel. From among their descendants a child would come, a promised seed, through whom God would bless all the nations on earth and redeem his creation for his own glory. But first, they had to experience the deep pain and consequences of sin.