The Curse of Sin

Textual Idea: Adam and Eve fell from God’s presence and were cursed with sin and death because they distrusted God’s goodness and disobeyed His command.

Thesis: Every person is cursed by sin and death because we are sinners by nature and choice.

Interrogative: Why are we sinners?

The text suggests 3 reasons why we are sinners.

We Are Sinners because We Distrust God’s Goodness

A. Exegesis, vv. 3:1-6

1. The Liar
2. The Lies
   • a. “Did God really say that?”
   • b. “You will surely not die.”
3. The Lure–>”You will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

B. Illustration

Several members of a family in Chicago were poisoned by an insecticide. It seems that the families had gathered at one of their homes to share some coffee and cake. While looking for sugar for the coffee, someone accidentally got an unlabeled container of insecticide. It looked like sugar and tasted like sugar. The problem was, it was not sugar. It was a deadly poison, and a number of the people died from it.

Sin is so much like that. It may look innocent enough; it may taste sweet; but it is deadly. Satan may sing his siren song: “Did God really say that?” but the wages of sin is still death!

C. Application

1. The curse of sin makes us believe that God is withholding good or fun things from us because He is mean.
2. The curse of sin keeps us from trusting God fully.
3. The curse of sin makes us believe that we can become God.

We Are Sinners because We Disobey God’s Commands

A. Exegesis, 3:6-7

1. The Command: “Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
2. The Choice: “I will disobey.”
3. The Consequence: “their eyes were opened; they were naked.”

B. Illustration

A young man took his German shepherd and yellow Labrador with him to town to get farm supplies. He parked his pickup truck a block from the store and told his dogs to stay in the truck until he got back.

He was in the store longer than he expected. As he left, a woman asked him if the two dogs that had been running in and out of the next building were his. He rushed back to his pickup, and there sat his dogs, tails wagging, the picture of perfect innocence–except they were sitting in the wrong truck!

We look so foolish pretending innocence. We really have no cover-up for sin.

C. Application

1. We are sinners by choice.
2. Our sin will find us out, Numbers 32:23.

We Are Sinners because We Have Fallen from God’s Presence

A. Exegesis, 3:7-8

1. Imagery of the “Fall”–like peering over a cliff and losing one’s footing.
2. Fall from Innocence, not a blind stupidity, but a knowledge of the goodness of God.
3. Fall from Fellowship with God, v. 8, resulting in Expulsion from God’s Presence.

B. Illustration

After reveille, each trooper in Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry shucked a number of ears of corn for his horse. The troops piled the unshucked ears of corn in one place and let the men take out as much as they needed.

One morning, Forrest found that a horse had slipped his halter and was having a fine time crunching away in one of the piles of corn. The boy who owned him was dressed down for his carelessness. He protested that no halter could hold his horse and his horse was smarter than any other horse in the troop. The boy was given strict directions on how to tie a correct halter. The following day, the boy was again dressed down for disobeying orders by letting his horse get loose again.

“I done like you said, Colonel; but they ain’t no halter that can hold that critter of mine.” Forrest tied the horse up himself that night, forcing the boy to watch him tie the proper knot.

The next morning that halter Forrest had fixed hung empty from its pole, and the horse was found crunching away in the pile of corn.

Our human nature is like the incorrigible horse. The only “halter” that will hold is the “yoke of Christ.”

C. Application

1. We are sinners by nature, falling hell-bent toward death and destruction.
2. As sinners, we are banished into exile from God’s presence.

Conclusion

We are sinners in need of a Savior. Hear the Gospel of verse 15. The Apostle Paul says it another way in Romans 5:17:

“For if, by the trespass of the one man [Adam], [the curse of] death [passes to every person through Adam], how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!”

The Christ of Calvary can transform us from sinners condemned to saints triumphant. How? By crushing sin’s power over us when we surrender to Jesus Christ.

Are you a sinner? You need a Savior; you need the halter of His yoke on your nature.

Are you a saint, saved by Christ’s blood? Rejoice, for your names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and you live in the presence of God.

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