Genesis 3:2-5

Genesis 3:2-5: “And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, “You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.”’ Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” You might be familiar with this history. Your many-times-great-grandmother Eve was tempted by the Devil to reject God’s Word and to turn to something else. Adam, your many-times-great-grandfather, wasn’t innocent either. He stood by and let his wife be tempted, and joined her in her sin. As a result, you have inherited this broken nature, sin, which is hostile to God. You might not think you’re hostile. I doubt Eve thought she was hostile, at first anyway. She thought she was going higher. The reasoning went like this: “God saidthis, but really, there’s something more! There’s something behind what he has said that he’s left me to figure out!” That’s where all damnable teaching comes from. When we think there is something morethan what God’s Word has told us, something beyond it, which ultimately deniesthat Word, we are rejecting the way God saves us. The Holy Spirit comes only by God’s Word. Don’t look anywhere else. But it’s in that Word that you receive the life of your Savior who died for you. He took the death of the forbidden fruit, and by his death on a tree, he gives you eternal life. How do you get it? It comes to you through his Word, where God has said and promisedit would be. Amen. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.