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Many people in the past had to learn to respect authority,
and if they were not obedient, they had to suffer and sometimes even
die young. We will see some examples of that in our STORY TIME today.
After the Lord God created perfect
heavens and a perfect earth. He took some soil and fashioned a man and
named him Adam. The Lord breathed both physical and spiritual life
into Adam's nostrils, and Adam became a living soul.
The Lord God placed Adam in a beautiful
garden, which He named THE GARDEN OF EDEN. Adam enjoyed wonderful
fellowship with the-Lord every day, and he had many animals to enjoy
in the garden.
 However, he did not have a companion like himself, so
the Lord put Adam to sleep and took one of his ribs and fashioned a
woman whom He named Eve.
To test the obedience of the man and
the woman, the Lord told them that they could eat of all of the trees
in the garden EXCEPT one. That forbidden tree was in the middle of the
Garden of Eden, and it was the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and
Evil" You see, Adam and Eve did not understand the meaning of evil ...
everything the Lord had provided for them was good.
Of course, they looked at the forbidden
tree many times, but they respected God's authority when He said "NO",
so they did not eat the fruit of it. One day when Eve was alone, an
enemy came into the garden and convinced her that if she ate of the
tree, she would be as smart as God!
The enemy who deceived Eve was Satan.
He is God's enemy as well as ours. Satan took possession of a
beautiful serpent that was Eve's pet, and he said to the woman, "Is it
true that God will not let you eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of
Good and Evil? God is not fair!"
Eve replied, "Yes, God has said that we
must not eat of the fruit of that tree, and neither must we touch it,
or we will die.". (The Lord had not said they couldn't touch it)
Satan denied the truth of God's Word
and he replied, "You will not surely die! God knows that if you eat of
this tree, you will be as wise as He is."
Eve looked longingly at the tree and
saw that the fruit was beautiful, and she was hungry. The idea that
she might be as wise as God also appealed to her, and she picked and
ate the fruit!
The Lord God had clothed the man and
woman with light, and when Adam came to speak to his wife, he was
amazed to see that her light had gone out! Adam knew what she had
done, and when she offered some fruit to him, he deliberately
disobeyed the Lord's command and ate some, because he didn't want to
be separated from Eve.
Now they both were guilty of disobeying
the Lord. Their human spirits died, they lost their fellowship with
the Lord and they received a Sin Nature.
They made clothing out of fig leaves
and then tried to hide themselves. When the Lord God came into the
garden, He said, "Adam, why are you trying to hide from me? Have you
eaten of the forbidden tree in the middle of the garden?"
Adam answered, "The woman you gave me
offered the fruit to me, and I ate it"!
The Lord said to Eve, "Why did you
disobey Me and eat from the tree?"
 Eve replied, "The serpent deceived me
and I ate it!"
The Lord spoke to the serpent and said,
"Because you have done this thing, you will crawl on your belly and
eat dust all the days of your life."
The Lord drove the man and woman out of
the garden, because they could no longer remain in that perfect place
as sinners. Adam would now have to work hard to make things grow to
provide food for them, and Eve would have to respect Adam's authority
over her.
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