Episode Details

Remsen Bible Fellowship, 11/15/2023

Introduction

Last week we looked at the fall narrative of Genesis 3:1-7: a snake, a creature both crafty and cunning, entered into the garden of Eden, where God had placed the man and the woman. This sly serpent engaged the woman in conversation, asking “did God really say, you cannot eat of any tree that is in the garden?”

As we discussed last week, this question wasn’t honest. Satan knew the narrow prohibition God had given - one “no” in a world full of “yes”. But by totalizing the “no” the snake is introducing into the woman’s mind a question: did God actually say what he said? How could he lay prohibitions on something which would be good and pleasurable for me? What kind of a God is that? Maybe it would be better if I were my own God. 

In all of this, Adam stood by silently. He never confronts the snake. Never corrects or confronts his wife. He silently allows the snake to lie to his wife and then he passively follows her into sin. And when they ate, their eyes were opened. The snake had told a half truth. He promised their eyes would be opened, and they were. But instead of the awareness of evil giving them god-like omniscience, instead it brings them an awareness of their own nakedness, their shame, their now-bankrupt state before God. And so they sew fig leaves together, making loincloths. And they hide.

Disobedience Brings Shame

8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 

We can see immediately the dissonance between this scene and what life in God’s world was meant to be. God came and made his presence known in the cool, or the Hebrew says “wind”, of the day. It seems that the original pattern was something like this: the man and woman worked during the day and God would come and commune with them in the evening. But on this day Adam and Eve aren’t out in the living room of the garden. They’re hiding away among the trees.

So God calls out, “where are you?” He’s not looking for both of them, though. Notice that verse nine says God called out to the man, and then the Hebrew form of “you” in verse 9 is in the singular: God is saying, “Adam, where are you?”

Why is this? Well, as we said last week, though the woman was first to sin, and she is at fault for what she did, God holds the man responsible. He, as the keeper of the garden and head of the family, was responsible to teach God’s word and protect the family from false teachers and the dangerous threats - the very things he failed to do by passively watching the snake and following his wife. 

So when God came into the garden, and the man and the woman were hiding in shame, Adam was called to account.

Men, this pattern hasn’t changed. God holds husbands and fathers responsible for the state of their homes. The spiritual temperature, state, condition of those in your home is your responsibility. You’re not God, you can’t make people believe or obey or any of the rest. But you are responsible to create conditions and take actions conducive to obedience - to following God. And if you don’t, God will call you to account. 

If you’re skeptical, or think I’m stretching the text beyond what it can carry, look briefly at Colossians 3: