In the beginning, when the Lord first formed man in His own image, His own creation betrayed Him. Eve, being deceived by the serpent in the garden, ate of the fruit and also gave some to Adam. The Lord was quite disappointed in His creation and removed them from the garden cutting them off from their intimate connection with God and the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is how sin entered into the world that we see today.

In the thousands of years after this incident, mankind has not made much progress toward reconciling with God. Sin runs rampant in the world, and no one seems to care. However, there are people in the world (Christians), who strive to live in line with God’s will because they have learned of the failures committed by those such as Adam (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:11).

The first step to learning from Adam and Eve’s errors is to be able to discern between good and evil counsel. In the movie Prince of Persia, Tus, the oldest brother of the king of Persia, was deceived by his uncle Nizam to attack the holy city of Alamut when the king himself had commanded that the city not be touched. Because of Tus’s decision, his father was murdered, his youngest brother (Dastan) was framed for his murder, the middle brother (Garsiv) attempted to kill Dastan, and the world was nearly destroyed by a giant sandstorm. This may be a corny example, but the principle still stands that one must be wary of evil counsel that may lead one astray from the commandments one has been given. Adam and Eve gave in to the serpents counsel instead of recognizing it was contrary to God’s commandments.

Secondly, one cannot hide from God. Adam and Eve attempted to hide themselves after they had eaten the fruit and realized they were naked. However God knew exactly where they were, “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 coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:7-10). We cannot hide our sins from God no matter how much we try and conceal them from everyone else around us. David attempted to cover up his sin of adultery with Bathsheba in 1 Samuel 11 by murdering her husband Uriah. Nathan the prophet finally confronted him and told David that God would punish him by the death of the child Bathsheba would conceive.

Lastly, don’t shift the blame on others for your own incompetence. When the Lord confronted Adam about what had happened, he was extremely quick to blame Eve for everything. I saw this a lot growing up with two brothers and friends coming over to the house all the time. Whenever something broke or ended up missing, we were swift in blaming the person next to us (even if it was the dog).

They say hindsight is 20/20. Well, we see what Adam and Eve did and that it was wrong, now it is on us to recognize such and learn from their mistakes. It is needful that we obey God’s commandments and strive to fulfill the expectations that He has set for us. Mankind may have left the garden, but we can still learn from Adam’s errors and move forward!

In one of our recent issues there was an article referring to the song, "Be careful little ears what you hear." The additional stanzas of this song include what we do with other parts of our body and how we use them- with the ultimate goal of focusing the mind's of children and adults alike on the need to use them for God (cf. 2 Cor 5:10).  One of those stanzas states: "Be careful little eyes what you see." 

Men are inundated with temptations to break the essentiality of holy living (1 Pet 1:15) and pupils are in need of constant restraint so that purity may prevail. Jesus stated the following: "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness" (Matt 6:22-23); furthermore , He states, "A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things" (Matt 12:35). If we have bought into Satan's lie that somehow we can allow our eyes to wander and fill our minds and hearts with lustful, filthy, wicked darkness and yet somehow still remain lights, then we are deceiving ourselves (cf. Gal 6:7). Let us seek to be godly gentleman leading transformed lives where our eyes are controlled and our hearts abundantly produce good things, full of light and purity. 

The race to define who a man is and what his focus ought to be is being won by carnally minded culture warriors. However, God's word is powerful (cf. Heb 4:12) and will do good if it goes out in defense against this raging effort (cf. Is 55:11). Although there was a time when most men had been taught concerning their proper roles in God's creation, that time has speedily passed. The great demand for a stronger defense is clear and must be sought in hopes that future families, congregations, and generations will have the male leadership that the Lord has put in place (cf. 1 Cor 11:3). May the Lord be glorified and His word carried forth as men seek instruction concerning their place in this life and may this work and many others like it be fruitfully beneficial for His kingdom.