Eden was a banquet for the senses, a vast array of flowers and fruits, fragrance and flavors, all for Adam's enjoyment. Yet, in the midst of the garden stood an opportunity to exercise free will, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord sternly forewarned Adam saying, “ In the day that you eat of the fruit you shall surely die”. Adam squandered all the Lord's benefits, doubting all the Lord's good intentions toward him. He chose to believe the lies of the serpent, rather than trust the living God he walked and talked with daily. Having eaten the fruit he did not die physically, nor did his soul cease to exist, yet his spirit was separated from God. The knowledge of the Holy One was obscured from Adam's understanding, his mind was now shrouded in the darkness of doubt. The kind affection the Father had shown Adam was overshadowed by an unnatural fear. The voice he had once laughed with, now caused him to hide in the bushes and his childlike innocence was replaced with guilt and shame. This of necessity caused his priorities to shift. He was master of the world distributing the grace of God, tending to its needs, benevolent himself, without a care or thought for himself. But now he took from creation, taking life for food and clothes. He became self-conscious, self-serving, self-preserving and self-promoting to the detriment of all around him. Whereas his needs were naturally taken care of by the graciousness of God surrounding him, now he would need to self actuate, toil and scrap for his very next meal, as his sustenance would now come only by the labor of his hands and the sweat of his brow. Perhaps most tragic, great fear and uncertainty resounded through the hollow of his soul, reducing the life he had known with God to a seemingly purposeless existence. This spiritual death is now the inheritance of all Adam's descendants, for the darkness of sin yet blinds mankind from the knowledge of the living God.
Rom 5:12 ~ ~ James 1:15
by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, ~ when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
So here we are today, 6000 plus years post-Adam, with every human child born into this spiritual death; created with an identity crisis. In a sense, we are all born agnostic, that is to say, without knowing God; uncertain of His purpose for us and completely unaware of our value in His heart, or whether there even be a Creator? Asking ourselves; who am I, what is my purpose and does my life have any significance? The God-shaped hole within us stirs up our deep seated insecurities, uncertainty and strong feelings of inadequacy, therefore we lust; longing, taking, building, striving, and groping like blind men searching for vision, seeking to satisfy the insatiable. What is this lust within us and where did it come? Is not this craving inherited as we are naturally born lacking; that is to say, without spirit life? Our spiritual void longs to be filled, draws us toward sin, whose end is deeper death and further separation from the knowledge of God. Blaise Pascal, says it this way. Pensees #425“What else does this craving and this helplessness proclaim, but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there, the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object;in other words by God himself.”
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