Genesis 3:1-24
Fall from Grace, the Fall of Man
1 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’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 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.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 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. 7 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.
8 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. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 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.”
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 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.”
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 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.”23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 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.
As one reads the Bible, we might agree that the worst evil ever to happen was when Eve and Adam ate the forbidden fruit...It changed the history of mankind...We could no longer be in Paradise with God...This evil presented itself to Eve as the evil one said did God really 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 certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman...“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”...As one reads this, we might believe that there was only good in the Garden of Eden, up to that specific point...But now Adam and Eve had found evil, with their disobedience to God...And God drove man out of Paradise and placed cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the tree of life...So we were blocked into ever returning to the Garden of Eden and eating from the tree of life...And the LORD God would say, “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 and created...
This evil that presented itself to Eve was a crafty-subtle type evil...It was an evil temptation that got her curiosity up...And this temptation became one that she could not and did not resist...And so she ate the forbidden fruit, and then talked Adam to do the same...And their lives and mankind was changed forever...And we have never made it back to Paradise yet, after all these many years...
Let us be aware of those crafty-subtle curious type evils in our own lives...