The Fallen Flesh

Read Genesis 3:5. What did Satan tell Adam and Eve?

Compare this to Genesis 2:15-17. Was what Satan said true?

Throughout history Satan=s followers have looked at the Fall as a positive thing:

Hegel: The state of innocence, this paradisaic state, is the brutish state. Paradise is a park where only beasts, and not men, can abide. The fall into sin is therefore the eternal myth telling how man becomes a man. (Hegel=s Philosophy of History: 233)

Augustus Strong: The Fall was a fall up and not down. (Systematic Theology: 563)

Mormon view of the Fall: Some people believe Adam and Eve committed a serious sin when they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. However, latter-day scriptures help us understand that their fall was a necessary step in the plan of life and a great blessing to all of us. Because of the Fall, we are blessed with physical bodies, the right to choose between good and evil, and the opportunity to gain eternal life. None of these privileges would have been ours had Adam and Eve remained in the garden.

Compare this view with Genesis 3:8.

The Result of the Original Sin -

Genesis 5:1‑3 This is the written account of Adam`s line. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them `man`. When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image, and he named him Seth.

NOTICE THE DIFFERENTIATION.

Genesis 9:6 Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.

James 3:9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God=s likeness.

Does natural man still have the Aimage of God ? @

Genesis 8:21 The LORD . . . said in his heart: ANever again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.

Psalm 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

Ephesians 2:3 Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. (Not just an incidental sin in us that God doesn=t care about)

Romans 8:7 The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God=s law, nor can it do so.

Romans 3:11‑12 There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.@

2 Peter 2:12 But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish.

A or D: If we never sinned in thought, word, or deed - we would still be deserving of hell. (Ephesians 2:3 - by nature we are children of wrath.)

How limited is the fallen flesh?

How is this different than the philosophy and religion of man today?

As a result of this sin - you can see the result of it in the world -

Isaiah 40:7‑8 AThe grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.@

Psalm 90:7‑10 We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan. The length of our days is seventy yearsC or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

Ecclesiastes 1:8‑11 All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, ALook! This is something new@? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.

Ecclesiastes 2:17‑19 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless.

2 Timothy 3:1‑4 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self‑control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

The results of living in a sinful world -

1. Wither and fall

2. Terror before God / guilt

3. No legacy

4. Coarse sins

5. Can=t keep anything - chasing after wind - all you work for.

Yet this doesn=t mean that life on earth is all full of misery for sinners -

Genesis 11:5‑6 The LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, AIf as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

Ecclesiastes 2:24‑25 A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?

Psalm 104:14‑15 He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivateC bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart.

Isaiah 5:11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine.

Psalm 73:3‑5 I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills.

What does this show us about life - even under sin?

Think of some examples from today`s world that would make man believe in himself or his potential.

The Bible has extraordinary examples of fallen men doing amazing things apart from being attributed to any specific miracles of God -

2 Samuel 23:8 These are the names of David=s mighty men: Josheb‑Basshebeth, a Tahkemonite, was chief of the Three; he raised his spear against eight hundred men, whom he killed in one encounter.

Number 13:33 AThe land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.@

Deuteronomy 3:11 (Only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaites. His bed was made of iron and was more than thirteen feet long and six feet wide. It is still in Rabbah of the Ammonites.)

1 Chronicles 20:6 In still another battle, which took place at Gath, there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each footCtwenty‑four in all. He also was descended from Rapha.

This is where the flesh can be the most deceptive -

Luke 18:11‑12 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: >God, I thank you that I am not like other menCrobbers, evildoers, adulterersCor even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.=

Luke 18:18‑21 A certain ruler asked him, AGood teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?@ AWhy do you call me good?@ Jesus answered. ANo one is goodCexcept God alone. You know the commandments: >Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.=@ AAll these I have kept since I was a boy,@ he said. (Thought he was good.)

Proverbs 16:25 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, ADo not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.@

How is the flesh deceptive?

See what the flesh - especially the successful fallen flesh - ends up doing to men -

Psalm 5:5 The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong.

Isaiah 5:12 They have harps and lyres at their banquets, tambourines and flutes and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the LORD, no respect for the work of his hands.

Nehemiah 9:25‑26 They captured fortified cities and fertile land; they took possession of houses filled with all kinds of good things, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves and fruit trees in abundance. They ate to the full and were well‑nourished; they reveled in your great goodness. ABut they were disobedient and rebelled against you; they put your law behind their backs. They killed your prophets, who had admonished them in order to turn them back to you; they committed awful blasphemies.

Even under sin - the flesh still seeks something more than the things of this earth -

Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God=s invisible qualitiesChis eternal power and divine natureChave been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Acts 17:24‑27 AThe God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

What does God enable men to do while living in spiritually dead flesh?