For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God's knowing good and evil Genesis three five.

Dear God, as I focus on today, I come against any lie of the serpent the devil that would cause me to believe that you are withholding something from me.

Today, I will make the conscious decision to live in critical obedience to you and to your word.

Lord.

I will not allow pride to fracture my relationship with you.

I will not allow myself to go along with the lies that I can be my own God and make decisions apart from you.

I decree and declare that even though I've made mistakes, I will be quick to run to you.

God, then ask for forgiveness, because I know, like how you covered Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter two and three in their lowest moment, you sent your son Jesus to cover me in my lowest moments.

Glory to God that even when I feel the weight of my bad decisions, your presence is always with me and will always provide a way of comfort for my heart.

In Jesus's name, Amen, thank you for making prayer a priority in your day to learn more about the Bible.

Stay tuned for today's story, brought to you by Bible in a Year dot com.

The Tree that gives the Knowledge of good and Evil.

Before this story, we learned about the creation of Adam and Eve.

They lived together with God, cared for the land, and experienced great joy.

Yet there was still a choice God gave them.

Now we will learn more about that choice, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil, and Adam and Eve's temptation to choose against God inspired by the Book of Genesis.

We're so glad you've joined us on the Bible and of your podcast today.

The Bible and of Your Podcast is an outreach of PowerPoint Ministries and can only come to you each week through the support of listeners just like you.

Your support today is so important that we want to thank you for your gift by giving you a copy of my book called The Jesus Book.

It is a powerful guide that shows how every book in the Bible points to Jesus and how his living word, the truth of God's Word, will transform your life.

So to get a copy of The Jesus Book, simply go to Jack Graham dot org slash Jesus.

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Today we are once again in the garden of Eden.

God's work of creation has culminated in the very first wedding.

Adam and Eve are together, naked and without shame, before each other and before God.

I think, because of the effects of sin, you and I can't fully comprehend just how amazing life was in the garden for Adam and Eve.

God walked with them, and after all, it was his world that he made to enjoy with his creation.

Adam and Eve and God in the garden together, that was all about to change.

Though today's story is about deception, bad choices, broken relationships, it all starts when a fourth character enters the scene, a serpent bent on ruining what God had made.

God spoke life in truth.

The serpent spoke lies and death.

His target was none of other than God's greatest creation, mankind.

You remember the choice Adam was given by God two trees.

One gave everything good eternal life, the other death.

Adam and Eve knew the rules.

They were free to eat of any tree except for that one.

But the serpent, the enemy the devil wedged himself into their minds, casting doubt on God.

Listen today to how the devil used doubt and pride to tempt Adam and Eve to sin.

The choice was ultimately theirs, but he nudged them in that direction.

The results were nothing short of catastrophic, and they reverberate through your own life to this very day.

Let's hear now from Genesis three.

Adam and Eve lived naked with one another in the garden.

There was no need to feel ashamed of anything, since their hearts had not been exposed to evil.

They lived together in sp spiritual, emotional, and physical bliss, and they were close to God.

Yet in the garden there was a lurking evil in the form of a serpent.

He was crafty and a deceitful messenger, determined to lure man away from God's loving presence.

While God spoke life into existence, the serpent spoke death.

His words directed towards Eve, trying to twist and deceive.

He approached her saying, did God really say you could not eat from any tree in the garden?

Eve replied, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden.

However, God instructed us not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of good and evil, nor shall we touch it lest we die.

The serpent, knowing that pride was the path away from God, said, you will not surely die.

God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened.

You will be like him, knowing all good and evil.

This enticed Eve, and has enticed humanity for all generations after her.

The possibility of being our own gods has directed the path of evil for thousands of years, Eve, filled with a deep curiosity and desire to be like God herself, ate the fruit.

She did this with Adam beside her.

She looked to Adam, the man supposed to care for her heart, and gave him the fruit.

Also, Adam saw the fruit and saw that it was good to eat, so he ate it too.

By eating the fruit, they sacrificed eternal intimacy with the one who had breathed life into them.

At this moment, the relationship humanity had with God was fractured.

Their eyes were opened to the existence of evil, and their hearts were exposed to sin and the shame at cost no longer cloaked with God's righteousness.

Adam and Eve saw their nakedness for the first time and were a shape.

Their physical nakedness represented a deep spiritual nakedness.

They desperately looked to cover themselves up with leaves, although no clothes would ever cover their true shame.

God was walking through the quiet of the garden.

Adam and Eve heard him and immediately hid themselves.

God, knowing full well what had happened, called out Adam, where are you?

Adam replied here I am.

I am naked and afraid for you to see me.

Adam's fear of being seen naked revealed a much deeper separation between him and God.

God, with both intense anger and loving compassion, said, who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten of the tree?

I commanded you not to eat.

Adam fell deeper and deeper into his own shame and tragedy.

He pointed towards Eve, his companion and the woman he was meant to love and protect, and threw blame towards her.

The woman you gave me, she gave me the fruit.

Eve was falling into the same self loathing and pride, and now left alone by her husband.

She pointed to the serpent and said the serpent deceived me and I ate.

God looked to the serpent and said, because of this, you are cursed to crawl and eat dust for the rest of your days.

One day I will make things right, and a son of Eve will come, and you will bruise his heel, but he will crush your head.

This would be the foreshadowing of Jesus coming to put an end to evil on the Cross.

Then God turned to Adam and Eve, lamenting their choice to live as their own gods.

Their choice would not come without consequences.

God said to Eve, the blessing life will not come without struggle, and childbirth will come with great pain.

You will also struggle continually with your husband and resent his leadership over you.

He then turned to Adam.

Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree, I commanded you not to curse.

It is the ground that you work on.

You will have to work every day for the rest of your life to earn your food by the sweat of your face.

You shall eat bread until you die, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Adam and Eve's unity with God was fractured.

Their knowledge of evil caused their hearts and their bodies to feel pain.

Yet even in their disobedience, God's love for them remained and would always remain.

He killed an animal and made clothes for them.

An innocent life was taken so they could be worn and feel safe again.

This would be an image used for the rest of history.

God cast Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden and put an angel with a fiery sword to keep them away from the Tree.

Of Life forever.

But God's story to love people is not over.

He would remain with them, and the story of redemption would begin to unfold before their eyes.

Doubt and pride those are the most powerful weapons the crafty serpent used to fracture the perfect relationship God had with his creation.

In one fell swoop, he got humanity to question God's word and to desire to be equal to God.

Listen to what Genesis three four and five says.

The serpent said to the woman, you certainly will not die, for God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be open and you will become like God, knowing good and evil.

He's saying, there's no way God told you the truth right.

You won't die from eating that fruit.

There's the doubt.

Satan still uses that tactic today.

How many problems are we facing because we don't take God at his word?

Too many to count.

But then he takes in another step further.

He entices them with a lie that he himself believed and that got him removed from paradise from heaven, you will be like God.

So now the serpent is tempting Adam and Eve the Creation to want equality with the Creator.

He knows this won't work.

He knows what will happen, and it does happen.

But there's one more thing I want you to notice here.

Remember that up until now, Adam and Eve have only known good and very good.

They already had that in heart and in hand.

So when the devil offers them the opportunity to know good and evil, what he was really offering is evil.

That's what they don't know yet.

This is an important lesson for you and me.

God already gives us every good and perfect thing.

Sin and Satan tries to tell us that there is more good to be had, But all we are really getting is evil.

Adam and Eve take the bait, eat the fruit, and sever the relationship with God.

Now they have knowledge of evil, the freedom from shame.

It is no more.

They are naked and ashamed and afraid and aware that they've really messed up, and so they hide from God.

But it's all feudal.

God knows what they've done, and now it's time to pay the price.

He confronts them, and we see two relationships broken, between God and mankind, and within mankind itself.

Adam and Eve, two parts of one flesh, blame each other and blame God.

They simply cannot remain in the guard and eating from the tree of life.

For you see, death, though tragic, is ultimately a gift because it is how they will once again be fully restored to fellowship with God.

Were they to stay in the garden, they would suffer eternal separation.

As the story ends, Adam and Eve are going to face the harsh reality of life outside the garden, of toil and trouble, of sweat and tears.

This was never God's heart for them, but he does not abandon them in the consequences of their sin.

Ever, the loving Father God first clothes them, and this requires a blood sacrifice, the death of an animal.

It's only a temporary covering, but it foreshadows the ultimate sacrifice Christ would one day make.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you that despite our sin and rejection of you, you have provided a sacrifice to cover us the blood of your son Jesus.

Thank you for this passage to and how it shows us the tactics of the enemy, those that he would use to cause us to sin and to stumble.

Help us always to trust in you and your word in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for listening to today's Bible into Your podcast, And before we go, I wanted to let you know that the Bible into Your Podcast is an outreach of PowerPoint Ministries and can only come to you each week through the support of listeners like you.

Your support today is so important that we want to thank you for your gift by giving you a copy of my book called The Jesus Book.

This book is a powerful guide that shows how every book in the Bible points to Christ and how you can better read and understand the Bible and how God's word transforms our lives.

So to get your copy of the Jesus Book, simply go to Jaggraham dot org slash Jesus.

That's Jaggraham dot org slash Jesus and thank you for your support.