THE FIRST TRAGEDY

Pastor James J. Barker

Text: GENESIS 3:1-24




INTRODUCTION:


  1. The book of Genesis is often called the "seed plot" of the Bible. It gives us the beginning of everything except God, who has no beginning.
  2. Someone has said that Genesis is an easy book to analyze if you break it down to these eight words:
    1. Creation
    2. Fall
    3. Flood
    4. Babel
    5. Abraham
    6. Isaac
    7. Jacob
    8. Joseph
  1. For those who like alliteration, Genesis is a book of facts, firsts, faith, forecasts, and funerals. It begins with the creation of heaven and earth and ends with a coffin in Egypt.
  2. So Genesis is a book of "firsts" and today I would like to preach on "The First Tragedy."
  3. Life is full of tragedies. Everyday we turn on the radio or pick up a paper and hear of some new tragedy. They had a big parade in Brooklyn and three kids were crushed to death. That’s a tragedy!
  4. Man instinctively knows something is wrong with a world full of tragedies. But by carefully looking at the first tragedy, we are better able to understand the factors in all tragedies. Four important Bible words tell the story:
      1. SATAN
      2. SIN
      3. SUFFERING
      4. SALVATION

 

I. SATAN WAS BEHIND THE FIRST TRAGEDY.

    1. Satan is introduced to us in Gen.3:1 in the form of a serpent (cf. Rev.12:9).
    2. Immediately we see the devil putting forth doubts in God’s Word – "Yea, hath God said?" (3:1). This has been his strategy ever since.
    3. Satan is a liar. Our Lord said in John 8:44, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."
    4. Satan is a master of deception (cf. Rev.12:9). He is very good at confusing people and putting doubts in their minds about the accuracy of the Word of God.
    5. Satan is behind all these new Bibles, rock music, weird and immodest clothing and hair styles, etc.
    6. Every time some unbeliever says, "Yea, hath God said?" he or she is just imitating the devil.
    7. First we see Satan misrepresenting God by saying that Adam and Eve could "not eat of every tree of the garden" (3:1).
    8. Next we see Eve adding to God’s Word (3:3).
    9. Then we see Satan contradicting God (3:4; cf. 2:17).
    10. Satan’s lies are still popular today:
    • "Ye shall not surely die" (3:4).
    • "Ye shall be as gods" (3:5).

 

II. SIN WAS THE CAUSE OF THE FIRST TRAGEDY.

    1. Eve willfully disobeyed God (3:6). This is the first sin recorded in the Bible.
    2. She was deceived. Adam was not deceived but willingly went along and sinned (I Tim.2:14). This brought sin into the world (Rom.5:12).
    3. Now we are all born with a sin nature (Ps.51:5; 58:3).
    4. And the wages of sin is death (Rom.6:23). "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezek.18:4).
    5. They yielded to temptation but sin did not make Adam and Eve happy (Gen.3:7). Their eyes were now opened to guilt, sorrow, shame, and misery.
    6. A sense of guilt and shame gripped them as God spoke with them (3:8-10). Notice that God went after them (3:9). "There is none that seeketh after God" (Rom.3:11b).
    7. They both tried to shift the blame (3:11-13).

 

III. THE FIRST TRAGEDY BROUGHT MUCH SUFFERING.

    1. God judged the serpent and cursed him (3:14,15).
    2. There was to be suffering upon Eve and all women that would come after her, specifically pain and sorrow in child-bearing (3:16).
    3. There was to be suffering upon the man. God cursed the ground (3:17-19).
    4. So all the suffering in the world can be traced back to the fall. In the next chapter we see the first murder. In a few generations man got so wicked that God had to send the flood and drown the entire human race except for Noah and his three sons and their wives.
    5. In this life we will experience pain and suffering. But for those of us who are saved it will end when we die. But what about those who are not saved?

 

IV. AFTER SIN AND SUFFERING COMES SALVATION.

    1. God had promised that salvation would come through the seed of the woman (3:15).
    2. Adam got saved. Consider: he called his wife "Eve," meaning the "Mother of all living" (3:20). This would be a strange name for a lady who was soon going to die.
    3. Adam’s sons, Abel and Seth, were saved. Who taught them the things of God?
    4. Salvation was foreshadowed in the coats of skin (3:21). God Himself provided them by shedding the blood of innocent animals.

CONCLUSION:

Adam and Eve might have gotten saved, but what about you?





Pastor James J. Barker
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