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Study No.7 : Deception : Genesis 3:1-6

A. Find Out:

       

1. What did the serpent ask? v.1

2. What TWO things did the woman say they mustn't do? v.3

3. What did the serpent then challenge? v.5

4. What did he say would happen instead? v.5

5. What THREE things did the woman then see? v.6

6. How did she increase the crime? v.6c

    

B. Think :

  

1. What technique did the serpent use to put the woman on the defensive

    and extract information from her?

2. How did he then attack?

3. What was it that swayed the woman to eat?

    

C. Comment :

 

      This is one of the most informative passages in the Bible in respect of Satan's attacks on God's world.

  

      First of all he challenges an extreme position, something that God had not said, so that the woman would make clear what she understood the position to be. She added to what God had actually said under the pressure of the enemy's questioning.

      Second, he challenges the consequences of her actions and says she won't be harmed. This lie is always at the heart of deception, "It will be all right!".

      Third, he puts before her the supposed good that will come out of it. In that he appeals to the "self" in her, "YOU will be better off!"

  

      Note therefore, Satan's strategy so often: to push you into an extreme position from which you over-react, to make you forget there are CONSEQUENCES to all your actions, and to make you focus on the immediate pleasure that may be gained. It is essential we remember there are ALWAYS consequences to doing wrong and that temporary gratification is short lived!

    

D. Application?

 

1. Ask God to help you see when you are being tempted, the consequences

    of foolishly giving way.

2. Thank Him for His grace to overcome. Read and memorise

     1 Corinthians 10:13

  

  

Study No.8 : Guilt & Fear : Genesis 3:6-13

A. Find Out:    

      

1. What was the first immediate reaction to eating forbidden fruit? v.7a

2. How did they try to deal with this? v.7b

3. How did they then respond to God? v.8

4. Why? v.10

5. What was the man's response to God's challenge? v.12

6. What was the woman's response? v.13

   

B. Think :

 

1. How would you describe their first response in v.7?

2. How would you describe their second response in v.8-10?

3. How would you describe their third response in v.12,13?

   

C. Comment :

 

      We see in this passage the results that always follow disobedience to God. They are:

1. Self consciousness: sin always results in an awareness of oneself which is followed by an attempt at a cover up.

2. Fear and separation from God: guilt always has an accompanying fear of being found out and exposed. This fear drives us to hide from God.

3. Blame passing: wrong doing is always followed by self justification which is so often achieved by blaming others.

  

      Christian maturity is seen in the way a person deals with their own sin or failure. Maturity is seen in a willingness to face oneself, acknowledge one's own guilt and go to God with confession and contrition seeking forgiveness, reconciliation and cleansing.

  

      The Christian faith differs from all other religions or philosophies in the way it faces the human problem of sin. The Christian faces their failure for it is that very sense of failure that drove them to recognise their need of a Saviour.

   

D. Application?

 

1. Ask the Lord to search you to highlight unacknowledged sin. Face it,

    confess it and seek God's cleansing & forgiveness. (See 1 John 1:9)

2. Thank God that He sent Jesus to pay the penalty for your sin and to set

     you free from its power so that you may be reconciled to Him.

  

  

Study No.9 : Consequences : Genesis 3:14-19

A. Find Out:

         

1. Where did God consign the serpent to live? v.14

2. What will the woman's offspring do to him? v.15

3. How was the woman to be affected? v.16a

4. What would be her role with her husband? v.16b

5. How was the earth to be affected? v.17

6. How was that to affect the man? v.19

    

B. Think :

1. How was the serpent's life changed by God?

2. How was the woman's life changed by God?

3. How was the man's life changed by God?

    

C. Comment :

 

      In the previous study we saw three immediate effects in the man and his wife. Now we see effects that God brings because of their disobedience?

      First, the serpent will be an enemy of the humans. In v.15 there is a hint at the conflict that would arise between Jesus and Satan at the Cross. Jesus would deal with Satan but in the process would suffer wounds himself.

      Second, the woman is going to find increased pain in childbearing and the man would rule over the woman.

      Third, the man is going to have to strive with the earth to bring forth food from the ground, even the very earth itself will be affected.

  

      In the face of the question, “Why should these things be?" the answer may be suggested, "Because God's presence and blessing is no longer there." Previously the picture was of God walking on His earth (see 3:8) and wherever He was, there was peace and blessing. Because they chose to walk their own way, God left them to do that (see also the pattern in Romans 1:24 -28) and therefore His blessing was no longer there to be called on for their lives and their work.

   

D. Application?

 

1. Today these same conflicts continue, but we may know the grace of God

     to help us in all things.

2. Thank Him for His wisdom that is available (James 1:5), His grace that

     may be drawn on (2 Cor 12:9 / 2 Cor 9:8).

 

  

Study No.10 : Separation! : Genesis 3:20 - 4:2

A. Find Out:

        

1. What did God do for Adam and Eve? v.21

2. What did He say they must not eat? v.22

3. So what did He do? v.23

4. Who was Eve's first son? 4:1a

5. Who did she thank for him? v.1b

6. Who was her second son? v.2

    

B. Think : 

1. How, in general terms, did the Lord provide for Adam and Eve in this

    passage?

2. What must have happened to achieve that?

3. What was the purpose of them being put out of the garden?

 

C. Comment :

 

      This is a good-news, bad-news passage. First the good news. God provides covering for them both. They had become self conscious and had tried to cover themselves; now the Lord covers them with skins. Of course to do that an animal had to die first. Here we have a picture of what He would do through Jesus - clothe us in His righteousness through Jesus' death.

  

      The other good news is that Eve feels God has helped her have her first child. That is an encouraging sign because it indicates that there was no total cutting off from God by being put out of the garden. There IS hope for the future. The bad news is their exclusion from the garden. The reasons for that could be several.

      First it is the place of God's dwelling on earth and as they have chosen to go their own way, He puts them out of His presence.

      Second they are not to have eternal life by taking it from the tree in the garden for themselves. They are to die at some point and trust themselves to God's salvation afterwards.

      Finally there is a world out there to be looked after and populated. This is not the end but a new beginning.

   

D. Application?

 

1. Thank the Lord for the righteousness that IS yours in Jesus.

2. Thank Him that he has reconciled us to Himself through the death of

     Jesus.

  

ADDITONAL NOTE : THE FALL

       Chapter 3 has recorded that event which is usually referred to as “The Fall” when Adam and Eve fell to the temptation of Satan and fell from the wonder of their position as rulers of the earth in perfect harmony with God.

   

  

The Importance of the Fall

 

      Many have tried to write off the account of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden and their subsequent fall, but without them it is impossible to explain the state of mankind as we find it now, in the light of a loving God.

  

      If the Fall never occurred, we would have to say that God made mankind in the sinful state that we find now. We would have to say that God made evil man and that runs contrary to the idea of a loving and morally perfect God.

  

     The truth that the Bible shows is that God made man and woman as perfect beings, but with free will. More than that, this passage shows us that evil, or sin, is that which runs counter to God's perfect decreed will for the ways things have been designed to be. Thus Adam and Eve used their free will and chose to disregard God's stated way for them and instead followed Satan's suggestion. Up until that point they have never known or experienced that thing called sin and the feelings it causes, but from then on they knew it and because of that it became the knowledge / experience of every human being thereafter.

  

      Thus we have a world today that is marred and scarred by the ravages of sin, a world far from that made by God originally, but the cause is not that God made it so, but that man brought it about.

 

 

The Glimpse of Redemption

 

        As we have observed briefly in the notes, in verse 15 is a strange reference. The human offspring (actually many centuries later) would come in direct opposition to Satan. There would be war between them and the child to be born would strike or crush Satan's head and he, Satan, would strike at his heel. Thus the cross of Christ meant the defeat of the devil at a personal cost to the Christ. To strike the head means a death blow; to strike the heel is to cause damage that is neither fatal nor final. Here in this verse is a hint at the master plan behind all of God's Creation : the redemption of Fallen Mankind by the Christ.  

Study No.11 :Right & Wrong Worship : Genesis 4:2b-7

A. Find Out:

         

1. What did Cain bring to the Lord? v.3

2. What did Abel bring? v.4a

3. How did the Lord respond to them both? v.4b,5

4. How did Cain react? v.5b

5. When did the Lord say He would accept Cain's offering? v.7a

6. What did the Lord say about sin? v.7b

   

B. Think :

  

1. What does the fact that the two men brought offerings say about them?

2. What do you think was different about the offerings to get different       

    responses from the Lord?

3. How did Cain's response reveal his heart?

   

C. Comment :

 

      We are not told that Eve's two sons were instructed either by her or by God to bring offerings but that may be assumed. When they bring their offerings, Cain just brings "some of the fruit of the soil" which sounds a bit casual. Abel brings specific portions of the first born of his flock, the most important animals always in the flock, indicating the degree of importance he gives to giving to God.

  

      God, who knows all men's hearts, received Abel's love offering but rejected Cain's offering that had been given perhaps, simply because he had been told to give. There is a great deal of difference in giving to God out of love and giving "because we ought to"

  

      Cain's heart is truly revealed in the way he responds to God - with anger, not with humility. He could have asked the Lord meekly what he should do, but he didn't because he knew he had been casual and he was angry he had been reprimanded. His heart was not contrite and teachable. In there verses we thus see two different approaches to worship: an overflowing heart or "we ought to"!

 

D. Application?

 

1. Do we give our lives, our money, our worship to God out of our love for

    Him, or out of duty?

2. Is my heart willing to be reprimanded and taught by God?

  

   

Study No.12 : Consequences for Cain  : Genesis 4:8-26

A. Find Out:

         

1. What sort of curse did God put on Cain? v.12

2. What did Cain fear? v.14

3. How did the Lord counter that? v.15

4. What did Cain start building? v.17

5. What things did men start doing? v.20-22

6. Who was Seth? v.25

   

B. Think :

 

1. How is God's grace and mercy shown even with Cain?

2. How was creativity expressed by the men of the earth?

3. How was violence stopped?

   

C. Comment :

 

      Cain kills Abel but God doesn't take his life! Instead He protects him on one hand and places him under a curse on the other. God's aim seems to be to stop ongoing violence (e.g. vengeance), and this is reiterated when Lamech appears to have killed someone in self defence. Again the threat of multiple action seems to be brought as a deterrent to further violence. We also see in this chapter, as families grow, one expression of men being made in the image of God i.e. creativity. Cain builds, Jabal farms, Jubal creates music and Tubal-Cain works in metal.

  

      The fact that Adam & Eve having Seth is placed at the end of the chapter is merely a reverting back to their story and not an indication of chronological order. It is likely that Adam and Eve would have had other children and they in turn would have had children and so on. Within a few hundred years the population of the earth would have increased greatly but it tends to be only the first children who are mentioned. For Cain to have built a city indicates a growing population, just as God had commanded (Genesis 1:28 ). It also indicates the beginning of men starting to group together and create their own environment.

   

D. Application?

 

1. Thank the Lord for the creative abilities He has given you.

2. Ask for His grace to enable you not to retaliate when wronged.

Study No.13 : First Lives  : Genesis 5:1-32

A. Find Out:

        

1. How long did Adam live? v.5

2. Trace the length of life for each named man:

    Seth v.8 / Enosh v.11 / Kenan v.14 / Mahalalel v.16 / Jared v.20 / Enoch v.23 /

    Methuselah v.27 / Lamech v.31

3. What differentiated Enoch? v.22

4. Why did he only live to 365? v.24

   

B. Think :

  

1. What do you notice about life spans of the four generations after Adam?

2. What factor perhaps contributed to the change in trend in the next three      generations?

3. What did Noah's arrival tell us about how men felt about the earth?

    

C. Comment :

  

       At first sight an uninspiring chapter filled with ages, but remember, ALL Scripture is inspired and profitable for teaching etc. (2 Timothy 3:16) First we observe that men in these earliest days of the earth seemed to live to great ages. Second, we note that those ages seem to get shorter the further they get from Adam. That perhaps indicates something of the perfection of Adam (apart from his sin) as the man made by God's hands and not through childbirth, and the effect of increasing sin in men reducing their life spans.

  

      This thought is reinforced when we come to a period when one man, Enoch, has a real relationship with God (v.22), with the result that his father lived almost to Adam's age and his son exceeds Adam's age. Enoch himself doesn't appear to have died but God took him directly to heaven. The picture is of a close intimate walk with God which so blessed the Lord that He transferred Enoch to His home! What a nugget of truth in the midst of the ages. Here in these early generations was a man who really stood out. May we do so also!

   

D. Application?

 

1. Can I be said to be a person who "walks with God"?

2. Does my life affect the lives of others around me?

3. Pray and ask the Lord to lead you in a closer walk with Him.

   

RECAP No.2  "The Fall"  Genesis 3-5

SUMMARY :  

         

In this group of seven studies we have seen:

- Satan tempt Eve to eat the forbidden fruit

- Eve and then Adam fall to that temptation

- the consequences of the Fall

- Cain & Abel bringing offerings to the Lord

- Cain's crime and banishment

- the earth being populated

- the family from Adam to Noah living to very old age

- Enoch being a man who walked with God

 

 

COMMENT :

  

      Answers to many questions. Why is the world like it is today with so many problems, difficulties, hurts, & wars?  Answer: God has given man free will and man has used it to decide he will rule his own destiny; this is sin, and its consequences are obvious.

  

      These early chapters of the Bible are some of the most significant and important in understanding the state of man as he is today.

 

  

LESSONS?

  

1. We need to learn to stand against temptation with God's help.

2. All wrong actions have consequences.

3. Without God's presence and blessing life is often hard and difficult.

4. We should worship the Lord out of love, not legalistic duty.

5. We can be people who stand out and affect the world by God's grace.

 

  

PRAY :

  

      Ask the Lord to deliver you from the evil one (Matthew 6:13 ). Thank Him that He will always provide a way out for us from temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13 )

 

 

PART 3 : "The Flood"

 

      In this next Part we come to a part of history which archaeology attests to but man disputes. Look for the reasoning behind what happens and God's grace that provides salvation as well as judgement.