Joseph’s Alabaster Box

It is safe to say that every criminal and every abuser of mankind, such as Rockefeller and Carnegie, were evolutionists. The fact that Hitler was an evolutionist is well documented from his own writings, speeches, and behavior. Karl Marx, too, was a rabid evolutionist, and his economic theory, the basis of communism, was evolution in motion. All evolutionists are a threat to mankind because they teach a dogma that develops the worst behavior in man. When man considers other men animals, then he is more prone to treat him like an animal. Belief in evolution is a gross sin because it contradicts the LORD God, and makes His Word of no effect. It also robs Him of His glory as the Creator of all things.

Eve had an extraordinary mind, just as Adam did, but there must have been something in her that made her more naive than Adam because it was she that Satan went after. What she thought or did not think is not revealed to us in the Word, and so we cannot know, but we have evidence from her behavior to give us an idea of what she thought. Surely, if she had believed, or remembered, that God was her Creator, she would not have disobeyed Him so readily. Females are still more naive as we can detect in their propensity to believe commercials. A commercial can use the word “save” instead of the word “spend,” and the ladies don’t seem to know the difference.

If my idea is true, then Eve was the first evolutionist. Certainly, what she did indicates that she had rejected the LORD as Creator. The Lord at that time was not, in fact, her Redeemer, because she did not need a Redeemer, but God had certain rights to her life, body, soul, and spirit just the same. And so Mr. Darwin was not the first evolutionist, Eve was. Evolution sin goes all the way back to the garden of Eden.

Eve’s desire to be as God also indicates her evolutionary bent. The notion that man is as good as God, and just as deserving to be god as God, is the reason evolution theory survives all the scientific and common sense evidence that disproves it. Dr. Henry Morris writes: “…a professor of history at Calvin College … a witness for the evolution side at the 1981 Arkansas creation law trial, admits, ‘In any case, creation scientists are correct in perceiving that in modern culture evolution often involves far more than biology. The basic ideologies of the civilization, including its entire moral structure, are at issue. Evolution is sometimes the key mythological element in a philosophy that functions as a virtual religion’.”1

Let’s read our text, Genesis 3:6,7: “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”

Humans living under sin cannot restore themselves to their innocent state by going naked. The human body may be beautiful to innocent eyes, but the human body is not beautiful to eyes that can lust, for nothing sinful is beautiful, and lust for something unlawful is sin. Ham’s son Canaan was cursed because Ham looked on the nakedness of his daddy. God forbade his priests to go up to the altar by steps because of the possibility that their nakedness might be seen. In Leviticus 18:8 the Jews were commanded, “The nakedness of thy father’s wife shall thou not uncover: it is thy father’s nakedness.” Of all the changes that must have taken place in the total human when he sinned, this is the only thing that is recorded. Nakedness reduces a human being to the state of an animal more than anything else. The shame of modern civilization is nakedness.

A handful of cloth is not sufficient to clothe a person. Nakedness is not freedom, as some have mistaken it. The Supreme Court may not know what pornography is, but most people you meet in church know what it is.

Eve’s decision helps us to realize how dangerous it is for us to make decisions. I feel sorry for young people who must make a decision about whom to marry. Getting engaged is more dangerous than a bungy jump. It is very difficult today to decide what to believe about eternal matters. The devil has stirred up such a mass of religions that the average person on the street is completely confused. I spend much time thinking about how I can persuade people that I am telling the honest truth. The best way I know of to convince an unbeliever that I am telling him the truth is to convince him that my own salvation was perfected, completed, by Christ Jesus on the cross of Calvary. We don’t have to win souls to go to Heaven. As an individual member of the human race, it is none of my business whether a person gets saved or not. That is a matter strictly between the individual and God. I am going to Heaven whether anybody else goes or not. It’s not nice to say it, but if a sinner doesn’t get saved, it’s no skin off my nose. I must admit, it is some skin off my heart, though, because Jesus Christ died for that person, and the suffering of my Saviour is wasted on that sinner’s account if he goes to hell.

Eve made the wrong decision. Like all such decisions, her decision did not affect her alone, “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.” according to Paul in Romans 14:7. Eve was about to hurt her husband more than she could ever have imagined. The greatest harm she was about to do him was to put him in the position where he had to choose between her and the Lord. After Eve bit into the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the devil didn’t need the serpent anymore. If he faced Adam at all, which he probably did not, he probably stepped out of the serpent, and faced Adam with sneers and scorning when Eve revealed to Adam what she had done.

Can you imagine how Adam must have felt when Eve approached him with that fruit in her hand? I can just see the scene. There she is so happy and proud of what she had done, holding her half eaten fruit in one hand, and holding out a fresh fruit to Adam. Adam had no choice but to eat. The Apostle Paul said, “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:. . . .” What a shocking thing to think about. If Paul would be willing to go to Hell for his brethren, how much more would Adam be willing to go to Hell for his wife? There may have been no Hell at that moment, and certainly Adam would not have known about it, but he chose to give up his Creator for his wife, and that was the same thing. Adam had to make a choice. His wife had transgressed the law of God. He knew the penalty, and he knew God would carry it out. It was Eve or God. I have known people to choose the devil rather than their spouse. I know a man who was wealthy and popular, good looking and witty. He and his wife were socialites. They partied and lived according to the good times of the world. But he got saved. Suddenly, he was no longer a party-goer. He was a church-goer. No more pleasures of sin for him. His wife gave him an ultimatum. Give up this stupid religious fanaticism, or I go. This man did his best to win his wife, but she decided for the devil rather than the LORD Christ and her husband. She divorced him. To make his pain even worse, many Baptist preachers would not allow the man to speak in their churches because he was a divorced person. He had not divorced his wife, she had divorced him. He was not the criminal – she was. But prejudice is irrational, and this man was treated worse that a robber, even though it was he who had been robbed.

Adam’s rib, Satan’s fib, women’s lib. Adam’s sin, Satan’s win, women’s men. That combination can never equal anything but misery. Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together. We cannot know how many trees of knowledge there were in the Garden, but it is possible that the tree of knowledge was a fig tree. People are still sewing fig leaves. Baptism, good works, church membership. Anything but the blood. Deliver us from a bloody religion, they say. Fig leaves hide no shame, and works hide no shame.

Regret can be indescribable agony. How many poor souls on this earth suffer regret! Words that can never be recalled. Deeds that cannot be undone. Thoughts that linger to haunt and accuse. Regret is like the gloom of a damp cavern where nothing lives. Regret is such an awful word, it isn’t even found in the Bible. Regret can whittle down one’s will to live. Regret must have haunted Adam and Eve till their dying day. Their inability to forgive themselves may have been the worst curse of all. Remorse stands in dark corners like apparitions waiting to pounce on you if you have a happy thought. Remorse chilled poor David in his final hours. All the Abishags on Earth cannot warm a soul frozen by remorse.

1. Henry M. Morris The Long War Against God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1989 (quoting George M. Marsden, “Creation versus Evolution: No Middle Ground,” Nature 305, [Oct. 13, 1983]): 574.

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