Andrew Fountain - The "Fall" and the Big Story

Goal:

To understand the big story of the Bible,
see how you fit in,
and be motivated to live accordingly!

The “Fall” and The Big Story

1. The Original Design
2. What went wrong?
3. The Big Story
4. How we Respond

The Original Design

• Adam & Eve, the first humans, were put in a perfect reality
• They were made “in God’s image” which means in some ways humans are like God
• A place of order, harmony, beauty and perfect love, but surrounded by chaos
• Their task was to spread this harmony over the whole earth
• The stability of this reality depended on them maintaining their allegiance to God
• This enabled his life to be constantly flowing into them
• They were given a very simple thing to mark their allegiance—don’t eat from a particular tree

Summary: The Original Design

• that humanity would live in close dependence on God
  • in a loving relationship with him,
• and continue the creative work as God’s children,
  • through his power flowing through them.

Genesis 3

1. Now the serpent… said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
2. And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
3. but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
4. But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
5. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Where we are now

So when humans first disobeyed God, it was more than a small mistake, it was an act of
defiant rebellion that severed this relationship.

This perfect universe became spoiled and broken, sickness and death entered the world, and every child born
inherited this brokenness.

What was most broken was the human spirit, now that it was separated from God. Instead we became centred on ourselves and often
see God’s laws as restrictions, keeping us from happiness.

Common Grace

• But every human carries the “image of God”
• Beauty, creativity, love, self-sacrifice, sometimes in extraordinary ways.
• Yet tainted by unwillingness to give allegiance to the God who gave these gifts
  • Huge cask of the best and most expensive wine in the world, but take a teaspoon of sewage and stir it in
  • That is the human tragedy

The Golden Thread

There is one, central theme which, like a golden thread, runs through all the stories of the Old Testament.
That theme is The Coming Christ.
As long as one does not see this, the Old Testament remains a closed book.

William Hendriksen, Survey of the Bible, p.83

Genesis 3 – Promise to Eve that one of her descendents would ultimately destroy evil

15. “And I will put enmity
    between you [Satan] and the woman,
    and between your descendents and hers,
    He will crush your head,
    and you will strike his heel.”

Two Problems:

1. The rot that we carry in us due to our sin and that of others
2. Our tendency to keep on making the wrong choices

• God’s solution

1. Jesus’s death cleanses us and makes us spotless
2. His Resurrection is the New Creation—new hearts with allegiance to God because of his Spirit in us

Our Choice

• You can live out of the Old Creation life in you, or the New Creation
• Choose to trust God, don’t listen to the lies of Satan

Answering temptation

• There is more joy in Jesus than in anything this world has to offer. (Which is the answer to Satan’s lie).
• Whom will you follow?