Day 2: The Fall of Adam and Eve — The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)

hi i'm father mike schmitz and you're listening to the bible in the ear podcast where we encounter god's voice and live life through the lens of scripture the bible into your podcast is brought to you by ascension using the great adventure bible timeline we'll read all the way from genesis to revelation discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today this is day two so let's get started today we'll be reading genesis chapter three and genesis chapter four so after the great news of creation or the good news of

creation what happened then why did how did things get so terribly messed up we'll also be reading from the book of psalms psalm 104 the bible that i'm reading from today and all this year is the rsv ce the revised standard version catholic edition and i'm using the great adventure bible from ascension if you are interested in following along not just listening along but reading along you can download your catholic bible and your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com bible in a year again ascensionpress.com bible in a year to get the reading plan or to get

or and to get those these daily updates just subscribe in your podcast app and we will keep popping up every single day for the next 365 days so you do not miss a day you can also sign up for our email list by texting the word catholic bible two three three seven seven seven that's all one word catholic bible to three three seven seven seven let's get started genesis 3 and 4 now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the lord god had made he said to the woman did god 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 of the garden but god said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which 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 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 and he ate and the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons and 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 but the lord god called to the man and said to him where are you and he said i heard the sound of you in the garden and i was afraid because i was naked and i hid myself he said who told you that you are naked have you eaten of the tree which i commanded you not to eat the man said the woman whom you gave to be with me she gave me the fruit of the tree and i ate then the lord god said to the woman

what is this that you've done the woman said the serpent beguiled me and i ate the lord god said to the serpent because you have done this cursed are you above all cattle and above all wild animals upon your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life i will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel to the woman he said i will greatly multiply your pain and child bearing in pain you

shall bring forth children yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you and to adam he said because you have listened to the voice of your wife and eaten of the tree of which i commanded you you shall not eat of it cursed is the ground because of you in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you and you shall eat the plants of the field in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return

to the ground for out of it you were taken you are dust into dust you shall return the man called his wife's name eve because she was the mother of all the living and the lord god made for adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them and the lord god said behold the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever therefore the lord god sent him forth from the garden

of eden to till the ground from which he was taken he drove out the man and at the east of the garden of eden he placed the cheer of him and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life now adam knew his wife eve and she conceived in boar kane saying i have gotten a man with the help of the lord and again she bore his brother abel now abel was a keeper of the sheep and cain a tiller of the ground in the course of time cain

brought to the lord an offering of the fruit of the ground and abel brought some of the first links of his flock and of their fat portions and the lord had regard for abel in his offering but for cain and his offering he had no regard so cain was very angry and his countenance fell the lord said to cain why are you angry and why is your countenance fallen if you do well will you not be accepted and if you do not do well sin is lurking at the door its desire is for you but

you must master it cain said to abel his brother let us go out to the field and when they were in the field cain rose up against his brother abel and killed him then the lord said to cain where is abel your brother he said i do not know am i my brother's keeper and the lord said what have you done the voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground and now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand when you

till the ground it shall no longer yield to you its strength you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth cain said to the lord my punishment is greater than i can bear behold you have driven me this day away from the ground and from your face i shall be hidden i shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth and whoever finds me will slay me then the lord said to him not so if anyone slays cain vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold and the lord put a mark on cain

lest anyone who came upon him should kill him then cain went away from the presence of the lord and dwelt in the land of nod east of eden kane knew his wife and she conceived and bore enoch and he built a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son enoch to enoch was born irad and airad was the father of mahujael and mahujael the father of mathusahel and mathusa el the father of lamech and lamac took two wives the name of one was ada and the name of the other

zila ada for jabal he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have cattle his brother's name was jubal and he was the father of all who play the liar in pipe zillah bore tubal kane he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron sister of tubal kane was not amma lamech said to his wives ada and zilla hear my voice you wives of lamech hearken to what i say i have slain a man for wounding me a young man for striking me if cain is avenged sevenfold truly lamech 77-fold and

adam knew his wife again and she bore a son and called his name seth for she said god has appointed for me another child instead of abel for cain slew him to seth also a son was born and he called his name enosh at that time men began to call upon the name of the lord psalm 104 god the creator and provider bless the lord o my soul o lord my god you are very great you are clothed with honor and majesty who cover yourself with light as with a garment who have stretched out the

heavens like a tent who have laid the beams of your chambers on the waters who make the clouds your chariot who ride on the wings of the wind who make the winds your messengers fire and flame your ministers you set the earth on its foundations so that it should never be shaken you covered it with the deep as with a garment the waters stood above the mountains at your rebuke they fled at the sound of your thunder they took to flight the mountains rose the valleys sank down to the place which you appointed for them

you set a bound which they should not pass so that they might not again cover the earth you make springs gush forth in the valleys they flow between the hills they give drink to every beast of the field the wild donkeys quench their thirst by them the birds of the air have their habitation they sing among the branches from your lofty abode you water the mountains the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work you cause the grass to grow for the cattle and plants for man to cultivate that he may bring forth fruit

from the earth and whine to gladden the heart of men oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart the trees of the lord are watered abundantly the cedars of lebanon which he planted in them the birds build their nests the stork has her home in the fur trees the high mountains are for the wild goats the rocks are a refuge for the badgers you have made the moon to mark the seasons the sun knows it's time for setting you make darkness and it is night when all the beasts of the forest

creep forth the young lions roar for their prey seeking their food from god when the sun rises they get them away and lie down in their dens man goes forth to his work and to his labor until the evening oh lord how manifold are your works in wisdom you have made them all the earth is full of your creatures yonder is the sea great and wide which teems with things innumerable living things both great and small there go the ships and leviathan which you formed to sport in it these all look to you to give

them their food in due season when you give it to them they gather it up when you open your hand they are filled with good things when you hide your face they are dismayed when you take away their spirit they die and return to the dust when you send forth your spirit they are created and you renew the face of the earth may the glory of the lord endure forever may the lord rejoice in his works who look upon the earth and it trembles who touches the mountains and they smoke i will sing to the

lord as long as i live i will sing praise to my god while i have being may my meditation be pleasing to him for i rejoice in the lord but sinners be consumed from the earth and let the wicked be no more bless the lord o my soul praise the lord a father in heaven we give you thanks and praise we give you glory and we love you thank you for sharing your word with us and thank you for giving us this clear vision of how you had created this world and how we had allowed

sin to enter into it thank you for not abandoning us in the midst of our woundedness but always following us into the wilderness following us into the darkness so that you can be our light thank you father and we give you praise in jesus name amen gosh things things kind of messed up pretty quickly we went from yesterday where we had this incredible two stories of creation and the way in which god had not just made this macro universe right but also the way in which god had made even the smallest detail of care for

the man and for the woman of um not only calling them to be with each other and calling them to enter into leisure and labor and love but also his divine intimacy with them and it's remarkable so um what do we got here we have um in genesis 3 we have this incredible story when i say incredible i don't mean good incredible i mean um terrible horrible but powerful um and the temptation of eve and i'm sure you maybe have heard some of this because there's so much to say about genesis chapter 3 and chapter

4. but the first thing we can note is that term that word that's used to describe satan it's the term that in other parts of the bible it means leviathan or sea monster or dragon so it's a it's a fearsome creature right so it's not just a simple garter snake remember jeff cavins who had you know created the great of intro bible timeline pointed this out um and part of that is because it reveals the fact that this serpent is powerful this serpent is dangerous and eve would know that the serpent would be dangerous in

that moment as well um and yet and yet he doesn't overtly challenge what we say this which he doesn't overtly challenge god's existence he doesn't even overtly challenge god's authority to declare uh the tree to be off limits but he does challenge god's trustworthiness when he says did god really say and she says yeah he said we couldn't eat of any of the trees or even touch uh the fruit of the tree we can't we can eat of any of the fruit of any of the trees for this one a tree of good and evil

and if we can't even touch it which is actually kind of you think that's not true he never said you could not touch it although that would be a near occasion of sin unless we die and then here is satan this leviathan sea monster who says you'll certainly not die god knows full well that if you eat of this you'll be like him and the implication is and he doesn't want you to be like him and so again it's not a challenge of god's authority it's not a challenge of god's existence it's a challenge of

god's trustworthiness it's a challenge of will you belong to him or will you have to take out take your your life into your own hands and this is the contest this is the test for every one of us you know so often we can ask the question god why don't you reveal yourself more why don't you just show yourself to us and we would believe in you and the truth of the matter is god doesn't simply want us to believe in him that's not the point the point is not to believe in him the point

is to belong to him and god could he could reveal his his goodness and his beauty and his power he could he could reveal his existence and we would still have to have the same exact decision the same exact challenge or i guess essentially test we might say it that eve and i guess subsequently adam had gone through which is not do you believe in god the the question is do you belong to him will you obey him because you know that he loves you and this is the thing up to this point all adam

and eve have ever known is that god loved them and the first challenge here of the serpent is he doesn't actually love you because if he loved you he would give you he would allow you to eat this fruit and think about how scripture describes this the the woman saw that the tree was good for food delight to the guys and the tree was to be desired to make one wise i mean those are all good things and so that's often what we do isn't it we we look at sin and we think well that's

silly that's ridiculous that the church says that's not um allowed or that the bible says that we ought not to do this or that kind of thing because look it actually works it seems like it would be a good idea and yet when any decision any option any choice goes against god's will we know that that is we're making the decision like i don't belong to him anymore so the scripture says that their eyes of both of them were open and they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons another translation

said made lane loincloths for themselves and then what happens is then god comes along remember this is the god who is so intimate with them in the cool of the evening they used to walk with him and he calls out where are you um and adam adam responds i was afraid because i was naked so i hid myself now the very next line i've heard it said uh and i'll say it again the way in which we hear the very next line tells us everything that we need to know about our vision of god the

very next line god's next line how we hear it the words are simple the words are who told you that you are naked have you eaten of the tree of which i commanded you not to eat if we hear that sometimes we can hear that as god's anger we hear god's anger his wrath in in a voice that's like who told you that you were naked you know kind of a thing he's just so mad or we could hear the true heart of the father who would say who told you that you were naked have

you eaten of the tree of which i've commanded you not to eat what we hear is the heartbreak of the father in his voice because he knows the plan he had for his children and that planned for his children was that he would belong to them and they would belong to him and they would be able to actually live their lives in peace and in joy and in the love of his presence and in this moment the story reveals that they don't get to they they have to a different path they have to follow and

that different path is then spelled out where we hear the curses now actually that's singular these are not curses this is one curse only the serpent gets cursed right the next two things what god says to adam and what god says to eve are not strictly speaking curses they're more remedies yeah they're painful absolutely painful here is a pain in child bearing and and broken relationships here is adam who who you know basically has to go to work at his horrible job every day and commute back and forth living by the sweat of his brow

but that is not meant to be a curse in fact the scripture does not call it a curse it's the remedy because why because adam and eve failed to choose love they're made for love remember they make for labor leisure and love they failed to choose love and love always involves sacrifice and so now for eve to love for the woman to love she will bring forth life in pain and learn that love involves sacrifice and for adam to care for his wife and to care for his family he will have to bring forth you

know fruit of the earth in toil and sweat and and among amongst thorns and thistles and he will have to learn that to love requires sacrifice and yet here is this key thing how do we know that this is true how do we know this is not god just bringing the smackdown on adam and eve is because at the end after god drives out the man and the woman out of the garden of eden he places the cherubim the flaming sword to guard the wave to the tree of life well hey why does he guard

the tree of life my gosh there's so much to say about this why does god guard the tree of life because if they eat of the tree of life they'll never die and say well god doesn't want them to never die no not like this god god doesn't want them to live in this brokenness forever like yeah maybe that their their destiny originally was to be created and live in wholeness and holiness and to live forever in that wholeness and holiness but since they're broken god's saying no stay away from the tree of life because

i don't want you to live in this brokenness for eternity i will now allow you to live in this world in such a way that you will end up dying so that you can be raised up that's ultimately the the key for this but here's how do we know this how do we know that that god's still caring for his people because it says in chapter 3 verse 21 and the lord god made for adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them and one of the things that is is here's god continuing

to provide continuing to care for the man and the woman yes they have rebelled against him yes they cannot any longer live in the garden of eden but here is god still caring for them and what is how does he clothe them garments of skins leather garments which means something had to die for god to be able to love adam and eve and again this profound reality the connection between love and sacrifice love and caring for another of course we have then genesis chapter four and i know there's been so much said already about genesis

chapter three but things escalate quickly um humanity goes from eating a piece of fruit to brother killing brother and we wonder like what what is this why why does uh we have this story of cain and abel and we have cain offering a sacrifice and abel offering a sacrifice and it says that the lord god accepted the offering of abel but for cain in his offering he had no regard so cain was very ignorant angry and his countenance fell and we asked the question well why why why did god accept abel's offering and didn't accept

cain's offering ultimately we don't know but one of the thoughts would be this is that the nature of abel's offering was he had brought out the first fruits of the flock and the nature of cain's offering is that he just gave god whatever so abel says he brought some of the first links of his flock but for cain he an offering of fruit from the ground not necessarily first fruits because of that we can look at ourselves and say how am i offering god what am i offering god do i give god the best or

do i just give god whatever's left because one offering is acceptable and gives glory to god and the other offering might in some ways be meaningless not because it's meaningless to god per se but because it was meaningless to us we just kind of gave god whatever was left we can do this when it comes to our prayer right is do i give god the first fruit so i give god the first moment of my day and that doesn't even have to be the first chronological moment of the day it can be do i first

put that rock of i will pray at this time in my calendar and and that it doesn't get moved that's the first you know pebble first rock that goes into my daily calendar that's giving god our first fruits there's a challenge here because cain was so angry with his brother but god is saying he says this powerful word he says if you do well will you not be accepted and if you do not do well sin is lurking at the door its desire is for you but you must master it that even when we are

broken even when we are angry even when we are tempted we do not have to sin god is declaring that we do not have to sin you can be the master of the evil that is within us is that you can be the master of the evil that's within you and so one of the things that we recognize right now is okay gosh lord you created this world very good and humanity has sinned and turned against you we've not trusted you we might believe in you but so often we don't belong to you but you

continue to care for us and so now as an act of love love always involves sacrifice and so i will now in order to love you i have to sacrifice something and each day what that means is i have to sacrifice some of my time to spend with you to be in prayer and i want to let that time that i sacrifice to you be not whatever's left i want that time to be the best my first fruits anyways um it's so so good to be starting this journey with you it's so good to be

underway and cracking open the bible i cannot wait to be with you again tomorrow as we continue moving forward in this early world period of genesis and just kind of continue to follow um this this incredible story that is part of your story and my story my name is father mike god bless you