Bryan Clements - Cinderella and the Fall
Cinderella Gospel – The Fall – Part 2 OT Sermon Series
While there are many different human authors to the books of the Bible, there is only one ultimate author, God. He writes the story from beginning.
Last week we looked at the opening of the Bible, where God sets everything up. The foundation for the story is laid here and there are three basic lessons that we need to take away.
God is the sole decider of what is good.
We are made in God’s image. Our job is to know what God considers good and then do it.
And God established a certain order to His creation. God rules over man and man rules over beast, or God’s creation.
As we look at how the OT fits together we need to know a little bit of how a story works. I am probably going to ruin some of you for any of the shows or movies that you watch from now on. They all fit this pattern.
This morning we will use the gospel of Cinderella as an example.
The first thing that we find in a story is the Stability. This is the part of the story that establishes the setting; where everything takes place. Things are happy, stable; anything can happen in the story.
In the beginning of the story you see Cinderella, a young girl, who even though she is not in an ideal situation, she is happy and she just goes about work and play as normal.
Then tension is introduced into the story, some problem that must be solved. The story then follows the main character’s attempts to fix the problem and return to stability.
Cinderella’s situation quickly worsens as she is dominated by her ugly stepsisters. They belittle her, taking advantage of her kind nature. It seems that her hopes and dreams will never come to pass. And it just gets worse when the invitation to the ball comes. Everyone is excited at the possibility of going to the prince’s ball, but then the ugly stepsisters not only exclude Cinderella, they humiliate her.
This is where we see the plot of the story form. What is the main character’s response to the tension? We usually see a contrast between the main character and the supporting characters.
One important thing that we need to know is that the main character is the only person who can truly solve the problem in the story.
So we look to see what is Cinderella’s response to the tension, (the struggle) the way she is treated by her wicked stepsisters? We see that she responds by continuing to be true to herself. She even helps the stepsisters prepare for the very ball from which she is being excluded. This shows us something about her character.
At some point in the story the tension is overcome and balance is once again maintained and the story ends on the same plane that it started on or even better (Resolution). Cinderella’s relief from the tension comes by way of the appearance of her fairy godmother, who comes in and rewards her conscientious behavior by preparing a gown, and turning a pumpkin into a coach to take her to the ball. Cinderella is rewarded for staying true to herself and winds up marrying the prince and living happily ever after. Balance is achieved once again.
So the moral of the story is: Get yourself a magic pumpkin and a fairy godmother and life will be good. No! The moral of the story is: Stay true to yourself. Be a Cinderella not an ugly stepsister.
Every story works this way. Happy Days. Life is good. Richie wrecks his dad’s car. What is he going to do? Hide it? Lie about it? Try to fix it without him knowing? We see the character of all his friends around him in their suggestions, but in the end we see his character in telling his dad what happened. And the story ends with everyone being happy.
Not all stories have a happy ending. Sometimes when things are resolved the main character is not better off than when they started. That is the difference between comedy and tragedy.
So now that I have ruined you for watching movies and television, let’s look at how the story of the Bible fits into this framework.
While we tend to focus on the stories of the men and women in the Bible, we find that God is the main character.
It is during the struggle of the story that the traits and philosophies of the main character are revealed in the story-line. The Bible does this through its many stories; each one showing a bit of the character of God. As I have already stated, the main character is the only person who can solve the problem in a story. This is significant because God lays out the problem in Genesis and then uses the rest of the Bible to show how He will solve the problem. The other characters that we see show God working through them to highlight His philosophy and character. God uses these image bearers to do His work.
Genesis 1 and 2 provide the setting, the stability, and establish the main character of the story. In the setting we see that God has provided food, a place to live, everything that man needs.
Genesis 2:9 (NASB95)
9 Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2:15 (NASB95)
15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
The Hebrew word here that is translated as put is actually a word that means rested. God rested him in the Garden to cultivate it and keep it. I don’t know about you but cultivating and keeping a garden would not be rest for me. There is nothing about working in my yard, the flower bed or a garden that I consider restful.
But I have a good friend who has one of the best looking yards that I have ever seen. He spends about an hour a day out in the yard cultivating it and keeping it. When I asked him about he told me that working in the yard is how he relaxes after being at work all day. He doesn’t see it as work. He can come to my house and relax anytime that he likes.
But we see here that God rested man in the garden with a purpose. Then:
Genesis 2:16-17 (NASB95)
16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
This isn’t about eating a piece of fruit or not. This isn’t even about apples. It is about choices. There are two clear cut choices here. Eat from the tree or don’t. The choice is to obey or not to obey. To put it more bluntly the alternatives are: Choose life or choose death.
These are the same choices that Moses lays out for the Israelites. Life and death. Deuteronomy 30:19 (NASB95)
19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,
That is always the choice.
In Romans Chapter 6 Paul writes
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Adam had access to anything in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is not the fruit that is poison, it is the disobedience that leads to death.
Knowledge of good and evil is not just head knowledge. It is man wanting to make the judgment of what is good and evil. This takes us back to rule 1. It is God’s job to determine what is good.
Genesis 3 introduces the problem of the story.
Genesis 3:1-16 (NASB95)
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” 4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! 5 “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 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 desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
Here we see Adam’s Disobedience.
Satan starts by casting doubt on what God had said. Did God really say you must not eat of any of the trees in the garden? He twists Scripture, sometimes only changing a word.
Eve doesn’t get it right when she answers either does she? “God has said, you shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die. That’s not what God said. He simply said do not eat it. Now Adam may have built a fence around it. We do that. Nobody sit in this chair. Don’t take God’s name in vain. In trying to protect it we go over board and forget what was originally said.
Then in vs 4 we see Satan move from misquoting God’s word to boldly denying God’s word. “Surely you won’t die. You will become just like God.”
And they ate of the fruit.
Adams Disobedience now let’s look at Adam’s Deception:
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. 8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Can you imagine that instant when they looked at each other and went, “Uh Oh!”? Our first reaction as man is, “I can fix this! He’ll never know.” We tried this as kids didn’t we? I can glue the vase back together, mom won’t notice a hundred little cracks. I can slide the couch over the stain in the carpet. It seems like a good idea when we start.
Vs 8 brings us to one of my favorite word pictures in the Bible. “they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord. That is like playing hide and seek with Superman. Where are you going to hide?
And then we see Adam’s Despair:
9 Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” 11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
This is what I call a parent question. It is one of those questions that you already know the answer to, but you want to see what your kids are going to say. I don’t know why we do this but we do. Maybe it is because we are made in God’s image and God does this. Really I think we do this to get a gauge on where our kids are ethically and maturity wise. How are they going to answer it.
Adam’s despair shows when he answers from his hiding place. His answer elicits two more parent questions.
In his answer we see Adam’s Defense ( as poor as it is we still see his defense)
12 The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
You would expect Adam to fess up. He’s been caught, but Adam has figured this out. He knows whose fault this is.
How do you respond to the promise of imminent death?
You look for any way out that you can find. Adam doesn’t just drop Eve in the grease, he goes for the best excuse that he can think of, “God, it’s all your fault! The woman that you gave to me caused all of this.” You’re the one who thought I needed a helpmate. It’s all your fault!
So God turns to Eve and she says, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” At least she fessed up to what she did. I can see Adam standing over there pointing and saying, “See, I told you!” Let her have it.
The woman listened to Satan and became subject to him. The man listened to the woman and in turn rejected God, they were disobedient. Here we see the tension in the story develop. Adam realizes what God had promised to do if he ate of the restricted fruit. “Man would surely die.” God wanted obedience.
We have a problem taking responsibility for our own actions. We want to blame everyone else. It’s easier. We are seeing this in our courts every day. Stupid lawsuits. We can point fingers all we want, but at the end of the day it comes down to the fact that we are responsible for our decisions and actions. Not our parents, not our environments, not our social status. We alone will answer for what we do.
So, we have seen Adam’s disobedience, his deceit, his despair and his really poor defense. Now we see Adam’s discipline:
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” 16 To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.” 17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life.
God had set them up in a wonderful place. The man and the woman had life, they now had death; where they had pleasure, now pain; where they had abundance, now a meager subsistence by toil; and where they had perfect fellowship, now alienation and conflict.
There are a couple of important things in these last few verses that you need to see. In vs 16
3.16 your labor pains – etsovon – not just physical, but emotional as well.
3.17 in painful toil you will eat – etsovon – pain and sorrow.
This word is only used three times in the OT. The other is in Gen 5.29 with Noah.
Genesis 5:29 (NASB95)
29 Now he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.”
We will go into this deeper when we talk about Noah, but I want you to see that Noah’s father thought Noah would be the one to deliver them from their pain and sorrow which came from Adam.
The most important thing that I want you to see today is vs 15.
In the midst of God’s pronouncing his judgment, He gives a promise. Underline vs 15 in your Bible. It establishes the plot for the rest of the biblical story. It is what will drive every story in the OT.
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
We need to see that in the middle of God’s discipline He promises Deliverance.
God promises that there will be one to come who will bruise, or crush, the serpent’s head. This is the promise of the one to come. Genesis doesn’t tell us much else about him. It doesn’t just say “Jesus will come and defeat Satan.” The OT searches for him and over time more and more is learned about him. Like any good story we see bits and pieces revealed about him as the story goes on. We later learn that He will come from the Lion’s tribe of Judah and that He will be from the line of David. The stories of the OT look for Him. They look for one who will be obedient, even to the point of death.
The serpent attempts to reverse God’s created order of God-man-beast and man falls from God’s grace. God, who is the main character, has to address the tension. The solution is to send a redeemer that will restore the relationship between man and God. Genesis 3:15 provides the promise of the seed of the woman in order to solve the tension. The rest of the Bible is founded on this promise and its expected fulfillment.
The bible already has a happy ending. We already know how the story ends and see the resolution to the story. The Star Wars effect. The next step for us is to follow the plot and see how this all fits together.
The choice that Adam and Eve had is the same choice that Moses laid out for the Israelites and it is the same choice that Jesus gave to the people who heard his message.
Jesus said John 14:6 (NASB95)
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
We look back at Adam and Eve and think, “How could they be that stupid?” We look at the Israelites and think, “After everything that they have seen how could they not choose life?” and we even look at the people in Jesus’ time thinking, “They have seen his miracles and heard his teachings how could they not believe and choose life?”
Today I imagine them looking at us saying, “they have the Word of God that has been preserved for thousands of years. They know what God has done. They can see the evidence of God and His creation all around them. How can they not choose life?”
Moses sums this up in Deut 30 in words that are so plain it is unbelievable. Deuteronomy 30:2-3 (NASB95)
2 and you return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons,
3 then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.
And he goes on to say:
Deuteronomy 30:11-14 (NASB95)
11 “For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.
12 “It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’
13 “Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’
14 “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.
As we talk about getting back to the basics, it doesn’t get any more basic than this.
Pray. Are you choosing life? Are you living like you have chosen life? We can talk after the service.
Reference to Dr. Charles Bayliss and to Dr. David Klingler