The Fall of man. (Gn3)

Last week we found out that God had placed Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden called the Garden of Eden. When God first made Adam and put him in the garden, He was walking around with Adam giving him a tour of the whole place. When God and Adam got to the center of the garden, God pointed out a certain tree. He told Adam that he could eat the fruit from all the other trees in the garden, but not this one. The tree even had a name. It was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

"If you eat the fruit from this tree." God said. " You will die." (Gn 2:11)

One day Adam and Eve were strolling through the Garden of Eden. Eve heard a voice and she looked down and realized that a snake was talking to her. "Did God say that you can eat any fruit from any tree in the garden?" the snake asked.

"Any tree except for that one that is in the very middle of the garden," Eve answered.

The snake then said,"God just doesn't want you to be smart like him, if you eat the fruit from that tree, you'll be as smart as God." The snake must have been leading Adam and Eve to the center of the garden as they were talking, because as they got closer to the tree, Eve saw that the fruit looked delicious. She thought for a moment about how cool it would be to be as smart as God. (She didn't know that the snake was lying to her in order to trick her) Then she plucked a piece of fruit from it's branch and took a bite. Adam, who was standing right beside her took a bite too!

Right away, they felt strange. They never noticed before that they were naked. So they grabbed the first fig leaf they could find and covered themselves. Just then Adam heard God walking through the garden and calling out to him. "Adam , where are you?"

Adam and his wife, Eve hid behind some trees because they knew that they had disobeyed God.

What do you think they were feeling? Maybe guilty... or scared....or sad? Did you ever do something that you knew you were not supposed to?

How were you feeling afterwards? God wants us to feel bad when we do something wrong. That's how he made us. That is called our conscience. But God doesn't want us walking around feeling bad all the time. So what can we do? We can say that we are sorry to whoever we disobeyed and to God. Then we can decide to obey next time.

The snake was really the devil disguised as a snake! He is very tricky. We don't have talking snakes trying to trick us every day, but we do have the devil whispering in our ear. God didn't tell us not to eat certain fruit, but he does talk to us through the Bible. The more we learn about what God is telling us through the Bible, the more we will know what to do when the devil whispers in our ear.

So, back to Adam and Eve. God knew where they were and He knew what they had done. God asked Adam what he had done. Adam blamed it on Eve and Eve blamed it on the snake. God doesn't like when we blame others. That means that we are not sorry.

God had to make Adam and Eve leave the amazing garden that he had made just for them. In the garden, Adam and Eve would have lived forever. But now they were going to die someday, just as God had told them. This was called the fall of man. But God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit had a plan to bring Adam and Eve and all of us back to the garden someday. In two weeks we will talk about that plan. Next week I will tell you a story about a good snake named Stanley that lived in the Garden of Eden. I think you'll like it.