Sermons
God's Questions for Adam and Eve
God’s Questions for Adam and Eve
Gen. 3:9-13
Introduction: Read Gen. 3:1-8. Sometimes the questions we ask our children are not intended to be taken at face value. For example, your daughter, a senior in High School, trying to make the grades to get into college with an academic scholarship, comes home one day with a report card, and there is an “F” in math. And the mother says to her, “What is this??” The daughter knows that she is not to take that question at face value. She does not say, “Mom, this is a report card, and these are the grades I made evaluating my performance in each class during this past grade period.” This is not the response the mother is wanting.
OR a son comes in one night with a speeding ticket – 95 in a 55 speed limit area. And the dad looks at his son and says, “What were you thinking??” The son knows he is not to take this question at face value. He does not say, “Dad, there was this open stretch of freeway in front of me, and there was no one around, and I thought I would open her up and see what she would do.” This is not the answer the father is wanting.
Sometimes questions are asked, not to be taken at face value, but to draw out something far deeper.
It seems to me that this is what happens in Genesis 3 when God asked Adam and Eve some questions. The questions are not asked to be taken at face value, but to get Adam and Even to think about and evaluate what they have done. Adam and Eve have sinned against God. They need to come to grips with what they have done, and the questions God asked them helps them to do that.
These questions that God asked Adam and Eve can also help us to evaluate why we do what we do, why we make the decisions we make in life. This is the purpose of this lesson today.
I. “WHERE ARE YOU?” (3:9)
A. Remember, after Adam and Eve sinned, they hid themselves from the presence of God among the
trees of the garden. “Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’”
1. Do you see that this is like the questions we ask our children? God is not asking this question
because He does not know where Adam is. God already knows everything that has transpired.
2. Don’t you think God wanted Adam to think about where he was.
a. Adam is cowering behind trees. He is hiding from God who had only been good to him.
God is wanting Adam to look at himself. “Look at where you are, Adam.”
b. Adam, I think understands to some extent, because he admits that when he heard the voice
of God in the garden, he was afraid because he was naked. He is honest about his fear.
3. If Adam was going to fix this terrible mess that he has made for himself, it begins with the
answer to this question with honesty. He needed to know where he was.
B. And so do we. We need to know where we are. If we are ever to be the kind of people God wants
us to be, we must first know exactly where we are. We will not be able to get where we should be
if we are refusing to see where we presently are.
1. ILL. Businesses (department stores, restaurants, etc.) take inventory. We take career
inventories; financial inventories.
2. Do we also take inventory of our spiritual lives? Do we think about where we are with God?
Have I grown in the past year? Do I have a better knowledge of the Bible then I did a year
ago? Has my zeal in service to God grown or waned in the past year?
3. You may be thinking, “I don’t go there,” because I don’t like the answers that I get from asking
those kinds of questions. But that is how we grow to be what God wants us to be.
a. If I don’t ask these questions then I may never know where I am. I may think I am growing
and pleasing to God when I am not. Rev. 3:17
b. We are commanded to examine ourselves. 2 Cor. 13:5
c. The word of God is the standard by which we administer the examination. God’s word is
able to expose the true intents and motives of our hearts. Heb. 4:12-13
II. “WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU WERE NAKED?” (3:11)
A. Adam’s response to God in verse 10 provokes a second question from God, “Who told you that
you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not
eat?”
1. “Who told you…?” Again, I don’t think God is looking for information. God already knows
who Adam has been listening to. The question is, did Adam know?
2. Adam had certainly NOT been listening to God.
a. What had God said? “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of
the garden you may freely eat; 17 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.’” (Gen. 2:16-17)
b. If Adam had listened to God and done what He said, he would not have been in this mess,
hiding from God in the trees, with fear.
c. But Adam listened to his wife, who had listened to Satan.
Satan had said, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your
eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen. 3:4-5)
d. They believed Satan, that they would become like God, they would become wise. They
listened to Satan and made a mess of things.
B. When we don’t listen to God, we end up making a mess of our lives.
1. In our study of “The Divided Kingdom” we have learned this principle. The LORD was with
those kings who walked in His ways, but forsook those who disobeyed Him. 2 Chron. 15:1-2
2. Jeroboam: God had told Jeroboam, “if you heed all that I command you, walk in My ways, and
do what is right in My sight, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as My servant
David did, then I will be with you and build for you an enduring house, as I built for David,
and will give Israel to you.” 1 Kings 11:38
a. But Jeroboam did not listen to nor obey God. He listened to someone else, and made a mess
out of things. 1 Kings 13-14 (read 14:7-10)
C. When we get into messes, a good question to ask ourselves is, “Who are we listening to?”
1. Many of our kids flunk out of college because they listen to their friends who say,” You can
study later, let’s play video games.”
2. Many people do not submit to the Lord because they are not listening to Him, but they are
listening to their favorite podcaster, or their favorite preacher, or reading their favorite author.
If all I do is hear what other people say the Lord is saying, then I am mistaken if I think I am
listening to the Lord. I am not listening to the Lord. I am listening to some man or woman.
The only way I can know I am listening to the Lord is by reading His word, the Bible.
To listen to the Lord, we must have our heads in the Book.
D. As we contemplate the question, “Who are we listening to?” there are two points to keep in mind.
1. While we are hearing a lot of different voices in the world, we are really ONLY going to hear
ONE of TWO voices. Ultimately, we are hearing the voice of God, trying to pull us closer to
Him, OR we are hearing the voice of Satan.
We are hearing the same two voices that Adam and Eve heard in the garden of Eden.
2. To be able to distinguish between those two voices, we have to become very familiar with what
God has said in His Book. (Heb. 5:13-14) Our ability to distinguish between good and evil
is directly related to our skill in the word of righteousness.
E. If I am having difficulty knowing where I am, then I need to ask myself, “who told you?” or “who
am I listening to?”
III. “WHAT IS THIS YOU HAVE DONE?” (3:13)
A. In verse 11 God asked Adam, “Who told you that you were naked?” and Adam gives his answer in
verse 12. He said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I
ate.” This answer prompts a third question from God, this time directed specifically to Eve.
“And the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’” (v. 13)
1. Again, God is not asking for information. He does not expect her to go back and rehearse the
story because He already knows the story. He wants Eve to think about what she has done.
B. Notice how both Adam and Eve had a hard time with this question.
1. When God confronted Adam with the question of whether or not he had eaten from the tree of
which God commanded him not to eat, he said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me,
she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” (v. 12)
a. Adam does not take responsibility for himself, but he points the finger at the woman, and
also at God who gave him the woman. The woman You gave me, she gave the fruit to me
to eat.
2. Eve’s reply to God was “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” She points the finger at the
serpent.
3. Neither of them step up and take personal responsibility for what they did. Neither of them say,
“I have sinned. I disobeyed You, and now what will You have me to do.”
C. Putting the blame on others for one’s own disobedience is so prevalent in our culture. So many
people shift responsibility of their own failures on others.
1. “You make me so mad.” Or “If you hadn’t have done that, I would not have done this.”
2. When marriages are in a mess, both the husband and the wife are pointing their fingers at the
other.
3. If a person passes the driving test it was because he studied hard and practiced well. If he fails
the test, it was because it was raining, or the examiner was too strict, or “I was not familiar
with the car.”
4. We have become highly skilled in finding ways to blame others for our own misbehavior.
And the tragedy is, as long as we continue to do that, the problems that are rooted in our
failures never get solved. We never get better.
D. The only way we can be forgiven of our sins is for us to take responsibility for our own actions.
1. 1 John 1:9 To confess our sins we have to first admit we have sinned. And this is a condition
necessary if we are to be forgiven.
2. Repentance requires acknowledging one’s sins and turning from them. Acts 8:22
That is what David did. 2 Sam. 12:13; Psalm 51:1-4
Conclusion: If I take spiritual inventory of my life and I don’t like where I am - I see the problems in my life - what I need to do is to own up to the fact that I am where I am because of what I have chosen to do. I need to say to myself that I am where I am because I have listened to the wrong voices, I have made bad choices. But I can choose to start listening to a better voice, the voice of God, and to start making better choices, always obeying whatever God has commanded.
