What Had Adam Done?

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Genesis 2:15-17 ESV)

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 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.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 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. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (Genesis 3:1-7 ESV)

Adam sinned and sin and death entered the world because of him. But what did Adam do? Did he break any of the ten commandments? He cannot. They did not exist then. So, what did Adam do that caused sin and death to enter the world?

He ate something.

Dietary issues are so important that it cause sin and death to enter the world?

No. Action and performance do not count. It is his belief, or unbelief, that caused sin and death to enter the world.

Adam did not believe. Adam did not believe the Truth, the Word of God. He chose to believe in the lie, the word of the serpent. Because of his unbelief, sin and death entered the world. So, God made provision for the salvation of men by making His Son Jesus the propitiation for our sins that whosoever believe in Him shall have everlasting life.

For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:19 ESV)

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2 ESV)

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26 ESV)

Blessing And Curse

Thus says the Lord:
"Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." (Jeremiah 17:5-8 ESV)

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish. (Psalm 1:1-6 KJV)

Different King Different Response

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord when King Zedekiah sent Pashhur son of Malchijah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah, asking, "Inquire of the Lord on our behalf, since King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is making war against us. Perhaps the Lord will perform for us something like all his past wondrous works so that Nebuchadnezzar will withdraw from us." (Jeremiah 21:1-2 CSB)

King Zedekiah was hoping that God would perform a miracle and forced Nebuchadnezzar to withdraw, just as He had done in the days of King Hezekiah when God struck the Assyrian king Sennacherib.

King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz prayed about this and cried out to heaven, and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated every valiant warrior, leader, and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria returned in disgrace to his land. He went to the temple of his god, and there some of his own children struck him down with the sword. (2 Chronicles 32:20-21 CSB)

But King Zedekiah got a very different response from God.

Jeremiah answered them: This is what you should tell Zedekiah: The Lord, the God of Israel, says: I'm going to turn your own weapons against you, yes, the weapons you are using to fight the king of Babylon and the Babylonians who have surrounded you! I will round them up in the center of the city. Then I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and strong arm in fierce anger and rage. I will strike down those within this city - both people and animals - and they will die of a terrible plague. Afterward, declares the Lord, I will deliver Judah's King Zedekiah, his servants, and those in this city who have survived plague, war, and famine to Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar and to their enemies who seek to do them harm. He will put them to the sword without pity, mercy, or compassion. (Jeremiah 21:3-7 CEB)

And the people were given a very clear choice.

This is what you should tell this people: The Lord says: I'm setting before you the way of life and the way of death. Whoever stays in the city will die by the sword, famine, and disease. But whoever leaves the city and surrenders to the Babylonians will live; yes, their lives will be spared. (Jeremiah 21:8-9 CEB)

Setting KPI For God

For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans - that ruthless and impetuous nation which marches through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. (Habakkuk 1:6 BSB)

Men love to set KPI. They even set KPI for God on how a perfect God should be like. Did God accept the KPI?

Crime and Punishment
When Israel sinned, God ought to use a more righteous nation to punish Israel or punish Israel Himself. But God raised the cruel Babylonians to punish Israel (Habakkuk 1:6). And then God later punished the Babylonians for punishing Israel (Jeremiah 25:12).

Word Transmission
Until heaven and earth shall pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall pass away from the law (Matthew 5:18) but in the course of transmission of text of the Bible, there are some minor changes in the jot and tittle. It is less than 0.01%, but still, it is one missing jot or one additional tittle. But the KJV-only believers cannot believe that the almighty God could not preserve a perfect original text for us. God would fail our KPI for Him if He cannot do that. In fact, He did more than that. He even divinely inspired the KJV translation. God passed our KPI for Him with flying colours. Did God really care about our KPI for Him?

Word Accuracy
It is appointed for man to die once (Hebrews 9:27) but Lazarus died twice (John 11:43). Did the Bible contradict itself? Is the mustard seed the smallest of all seeds (Matthew 13:32, Mark 4:31)? If Jesus was to be in the grave three days and nights (Matthew 12:40), how do we fit those between Good Friday and Easter Sunday? Did Bible meant it to be 72 hours exactly because God is very precise? Three days and nights must be 72 hours because God is perfect to the jot and tittle. Are we celebrating Good Friday and Easter Sunday wrongly? Or are we interpreting the Bible more strictly than God Himself?

Christian Witness
The Bible recorded that God use holy men like the apostles to spread the gospel. But in our days, God chose to use the colonialist, the slave traders and drug traffickers to spread the gospel. Africans were enslaved, taken from their home and sold to Christian lands to be given the opportunity to hear the gospel. Opium traders humiliate China to bring the gospel to their land. Shouldn't a perfect and holy God do better than that? Maybe He should roll out the red carpet to welcome the Africans and Chinese into the Kingdom of God and today, there will be no Black Life Matter movement and there will be no Chinese Communist party harping on the century of humiliation by Western imperial powers. Looks like we have better ideas than God.

World Creation
Then the ultimate KPI, the favourite of unbelievers and atheists, why can't the perfectly good, almighty and all-knowing God create a world without sin? Then Jesus would not need to come to the world to die for sin. Atheists use God's failure in this KPI to prove His non-existence. If God exists, why are there evil and sufferings in the world? Why can't the One who knows the end from the beginning think ahead?

What are you going to do with a God that fail your KPI?

From that time on many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him. (John 6:66 BSB)

So Jesus asked the Twelve, "Do you want to leave too?" Simon Peter replied, "Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that You are the Holy One of God." (John 6:67-69 BSB)

Israel's Choice

"Look, today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse! You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. But you will be cursed if you reject the commands of the Lord your God and turn away from him and worship gods you have not known before. (Deuteronomy 11:26-28 NLT)

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. (Deuteronomy 30:15 NIV)

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Deuteronomy 30:19-20 NIV)

Israel was given a choice of life and death. Like Adam, Israel chose death.

Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods - gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. In the morning you will say, "If only it were evening!" and in the evening, "If only it were morning!" - because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see. The Lord will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you. (Deuteronomy 28:64-68 NIV)

But God is merciful and Israel will be saved from their bad choice. Israel will return back to the promised land.

In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the Mediterranean. (Isaiah 11:11 NIV)

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26 CSB)

Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar - the LORD of hosts is his name: "If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever." (Jeremiah 31:35-36 ESV)

For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. (Malachi 3:6 KJV)

Choice Chosen And Consequence

Choice
And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die." (Genesis 2:16-17 NIV)

So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, "Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?" (Matthew 27:17 ESV)

Chosen
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (Genesis 3:6 NIV)

They shouted back, "Not this man, but Barabbas!" Now Barabbas was a revolutionary. (John 18:40 CSB)

Consequence
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned. (Romans 5:12 CSB)

But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. (Acts 3:14-15 ESV)

Life And Death - 3

"For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.
"See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them." (Deuteronomy 30:11-20 ESV)

This the the summary of the Bible. The Bible talks about life and death. He who believes in God lives. He who does not believe in God dies. Life is not shaped by events, but by response to events. A Spirit-filled life will give a Spirit led response. What is your response? Would you choose life?

I have made my choice. I choose life.

He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. (1 John 5:12 NASB)

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3 ESV)

Adam's Choice

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned. In fact, sin was in the world before the law, but sin is not charged to a person's account when there is no law. (Romans 5:12-13 CSB)

Adam was the first man. Because Adam sinned, so sin entered the world. Because of sin, death entered the world.

But what did Adam do? Did he break any of the ten commandments? He could not dishonour his parents, because he had none. He did not kill, because the only other human was his wife. He could not commit adultery because there was only one woman. He could not steal because everything belonged to him. He did not have to tell lies since he had nothing to cover up. Anyway, the ten commandments were not given yet so he could not break any of them.

So what did Adam do that cause sin and death to enter the world?

Adam did not believe. Adam did not believe the Word of God. Instead, he believed the word of the serpent. Because of his unbelief, sin and death entered the world.

Today, life is more complicated. We have more than two voices to choose from. We have so many people telling us so many things. And we have so many people claiming to speak on behalf of God.

As it was in Adam's days, so it is today. If we believe the Word of God, we will choose life. If we do not believe the Word of God, we will choose death. Times have changed, but the options are still the same.

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:21-22 ESV)

God Offered Us A Choice

God offered us a choice of belief and unbelief, life and death.

It was like that from the beginning.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17 ESV)
In the beginning, creation was good and perfect and there was no death. Adam chose unbelief, and sin and death entered the world.

It is the same today.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 KJV)
Today, through the choice of Adam, the world is sinful and imperfect and there is death. But God has made us an offer through His word, the Bible. He offered us eternal life if we believe in Him. If we do not belief, we will die.

Life and Death - A Choice Of Jew

Jesus is a Jew. Karl Marx was a Jew. Jesus offers life. Karl offered death. Follow the right Jew and you live. Follow the wrong Jew and you die.

Life And Death - A Choice

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them." (Deuteronomy 30:19-20 ESV)

From the beginning, Moses offered the Israelites a choice of life and death.

God continue to make the same offer throughout the Bible, with increasing clarity.

Bad Choice

Read this in Daily Bread 31 May 2011.

An elderly TV star was asked by talk-show host Larry King about heaven. King prefaced his question by referring to Billy Graham, who had told King he “knew what would be ahead. It would be paradise. He was going to heaven.”

King then asked his guest, “What do you believe?” He replied, “I’d like a lot of activity. Heaven sounds too placid for me. There’s a lot to do in hell.”

Sadly, this man is not alone in thinking that an existence in Satan’s realm is a preferred destination. I’ve heard people say that they’d rather be in hell because all their friends will be there. One person wrote, “If hell was real, I don’t think it would be bad. There would be a lot of interesting people.”

How can we convince folks who are deceived in this way that hell and its horrors are to be avoided? Perhaps by telling them of the realities of hell that are presented in the Scripture. In Daniel 12:2, it is described as a place of “shame and everlasting contempt.” Luke 16:23 talks about “torments.” Matthew 8:12 describes “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And Revelation 14:11 says there will be “no rest.”

Biblical truth doesn’t allow anyone to think that hell might be a good place to be. Clearly, rejecting Jesus and facing an eternity in Satan’s kingdom is a bad choice.

Don’t choose to spend eternity
Where pain will never dim;
Instead decide to trust in Christ
And choose to follow Him. —Sper

The same Christ who talks about the glories of heaven also describes the horrors of hell.