Once the couple sinned, they had to face God. This devotional reading looks at how God came to them to address their disobedience.
Nuggets
- God addresses our sin when His timing is right.
- When the couple heard God coming, they hid because they knew they had disobeyed Him.
- When God came to the couple, He called them as He was walking.
We see early on in Genesis that God spent time with Adam and Eve. He didn’t just dump them in the Garden and take off. God was a hands-on Father with Adam and Eve.
This is what God is wanting back. He wants that close relationship with us restored.
Let's Put It into Context
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Devotions in the Celebrating Creation’s Story series
The Cool of the Day
“When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the LORD God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the LORD God among the trees” (Gen. 3: 8 NLT)
God addresses our sin when His timing is right.
The cool of the day is the time sliding into evening. The labor of the day has been completed. It is time for the family to gather.
What happens then? The family members evaluate their day. Was it a good day or bad day? Where did we sin?
Spurgeon described the cool of the day in those terms. He wrote, “When earth was silent that man might meditate, and when heaven was lighting her evening lamps, that man might have hope in darkness; then, and not till then, forth came the offended Father.”
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But connect this to what we’ve learned earlier. Darkness is equated with sin. “The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters …” (Gen. 1: 2 NLT).
Yes, the sin would have been committed before the darkness showed up, but we don’t know how long. Did it happen around supper time, when they were hungry anyway?
Bonar thought that God appeared in the wind, not really face to face, either on the cool evening breeze or in the breeze. There is some evidence in God’s Word to back that up.
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- “As I looked, I saw a great storm coming from the north, driving before it a huge cloud that flashed with lightning and shone with brilliant light. There was fire inside the cloud, and in the middle of the fire glowed something like gleaming amber” (Ezek. 1: 4 NLT).
- “Mounted on a mighty angelic being, he flew, soaring on the wings of the wind” (Ps. 18: 10 NLT; also in II Sam. 2: 11 NLT).
- “You are dressed in a robe of light. You stretch out the starry curtain of the heavens; you lay out the rafters of your home in the rain clouds. You make the clouds your chariot; you ride upon the wings of the wind” (Ps. 104:2-3 NLT).
That seems logical. God uses the wind as a type of chariot. But some of the verses, if you put them back into context, break down a bit.
- To me, Ezekiel 1: 4 is describing the Living Creatures found in Revelation more than he is describing Jehovah Himself.
- David was crying out to the Lord in Psalms 18: 10 and in II Samuel 2: 11 after God saved Him from Saul. While is said “He opened the heavens and came down …” in Psalms 18: 9 and in II Samuel 2: 10 (NLT), it said later that “The LORD thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded” (Ps. 18: 13 NLT; II Sam. 2: 14 NLT). How could God thunder from Heaven if He came down to earth on the wings of the wind?
- A possible explanation is Psalms 104: 4. “The winds are your messengers; flames of fire are your servants” (Ps. 104: 4 NLT).
I think there is a good explanation of why God came in the cool of the day. God can shut us down when we are in the act of sin.
Look at Ananias and Sapphira. The same thing happened to them three hours apart.
“Then Peter said, ‘Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself. The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished. And after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren’t lying to us but to God!’ As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. Everyone who heard about it was terrified” (Ac. 5: 2-5 NLT).
God’s punishment in this instant was immediate. But He doesn’t always work that way.
There are times when our sins are punished hours, even months or years later. There are some sins that only be punished on Judgment Day.
God gives us time to recognize our sin and – hopefully – become remorseful for it.
Parkhurst talked about that in a roundabout way. He wrote,
“The garden of the Lord concealed from Adam and Eve the Lord of the garden. God did not turn Adam out of paradise till Adam had turned God out. It is a long lesson to learn to be able to keep the garden of the Lord, and the Lord of the garden both.”
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God gives us time to make sure our repentance is genuine. He doesn’t want lip service.
- “And so the Lord says, ‘These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote’” (Isa. 29: 13 NLT).
- “Jesus replied, ‘You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.” For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition’” (Mk. 7: 6-8 NLT).
- “But despite all this, her faithless sister Judah has never sincerely returned to me. She has only pretended to be sorry. I, the Lord, have spoken!” (Jer. 3: 10 NLT).
- “Such people claim they know God, but they deny him by the way they live. They are detestable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good” (Ti. 1: 16 NLT).
In other words, our faith has to be genuine.
Look at the imagery, though. God could have been coming at sunset. Just as it was the end of the day, so too was it the end all for which the Garden stood.
That must have made God very sad.
Heard and Hid
When the couple heard God coming, they hid because they knew they had disobeyed Him.
Think of God coming to the couple in the Garden after the original sin. He is a loving Father, coming to see His disobedient children. That really shows His tenderness.
No, God didn’t have to ask the couple why they were hiding or who had told them they were naked. He already knew they had sinned.
Just think how heartbroken God was stepping foot into that Garden. Where before He had always looked forward to being with them, I wonder if this time He would have rather skipped it.
I mean, that is what we tend to want to do. We want to ignore what we know will be bad.
But God came to the couple anyway. He gave them a chance to admit they had disobeyed Him.
Make no mistake. God came to the couple as He always did. Yes, they had changed because now they were disobedient. His way of approaching them as He always did.
God was going to find the couple. He was going to have them acknowledge and face their sin.
But God would much rather we come to Him than make Him come to us. He would rather we choose to submit to Him.
The main thing is God wants us back. As many times as the Hebrews/Wilderness Wanderers/Israelites/Jews walked away from Him, He wanted them back. D rinses us mercy.
“But then I will win her back once again. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there. I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble [Achor] into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt” (Hos. 2: 14-15 NLT).
God knew they were in hiding, where they weren’t supposed to be. He wanted them to tell Him why.
The man and the woman had reason to fear God. They had disobeyed His direct order – His only law.
But we know it was more than just fear. “At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves” (Gen. 3: 7 NLT). We also talked about the guilt they felt.
Candlish believed that this was what God had been talking about when He set up the covenant. He wrote, ‘This was the fulfilment of the threatening — “Thou shalt surely die — dying, thou shalt die.’ There was present death felt, and future death feared.”
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The couple knew they had become separated from God. The shame and fear drove them away from Him. It is logical that they felt the same when they came back into His presence.
They could have run. They could have made the decision to leave the Garden, but they didn’t. They stayed and hid.
Look at it this way. The couple didn’t go to God to repent and ask for forgiveness. “Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you Maybe they didn’t know they need to do so” (Ac. 8: 22 ESV).
Maybe they didn’t know they had to do so.
Instead of going to God, they hid. That didn’t do them any good.
It didn’t matter where the couple went to hide. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable” (Heb. 4: 13 NLT).
So, in other words, God went to them.
God Called
“Then the LORD God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’” (Gen. 3: 9 NLT)
When God came to the couple, He called them as He was walking.
Oh, to have had face-to-face contact with God! That is one thing mankind lost because of the original sin.
No, God doesn’t have a face. He doesn’t walk. He is a spirit.
But who is to say God didn’t come to them in human form? We know He did at times.
- “So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered'” (Gen. 32: 30 ESV).
- “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple” (Is. 6: 1 ESV).
- “As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat …” (Dan. 7: 9 ESV).
- “I saw the Lord standing beside the altar …” (Amos 9: 1 ESV).
We don’t want to limit God because of our minuscule understanding. We certainly don’t want to box Him up because of our beliefs.
One sin leads to another. Disobedience led to lying.
What was the man thinking when he placed himself above God? I love what Brown said. He wrote, “The sin of Adam is substantially the history of every attempt of self-will to counterwork the will of God.”
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Brown nailed that. Sometimes, it seems like everything humankind does is to go against God’s Will because we want to make ourselves gods.
Look at it this way, though. God came walking through the Garden – just as He always did – calling out to the couple. Where are you?
Did God have a brain freeze, and He didn’t know where they were? No.
Think about it. The first question in God’s Word is, “Where are you?”
From the very get to, God has been wanting to restore our relationship with Him.
I think it is very safe for us to assume this was an audible voice. Yes, it is a voice of love. Yes, it is a voice of judgment.
We can be assured that whenever we hear God’s voice – be it in love or judgment – it will be one of a just and faithful God.
Evens noted that we can hear God’s voice in peace when where we are at is in Christ. White reminded us that we can only be at peace when we hear the word of God.
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The couple should have been running through the Garden, crying to God, “Where are You? Forgive us.”
But they didn’t.
The couple knew fear, but did they feel remorse? They knew guilt, but did they feel repentance?
God didn’t come running for the couple. He walked as He called them.
- God wasn’t coming quickly to punish them, though He was coming to judge them.
- He didn’t wait until the dead of the night to come when it might have been more terrifying, especially after more time for the couple to worry over what they had done.
- He didn’t come immediately with a passionate response. “The Lord is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. But he does not excuse the guilty. He lays the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations” (Num. 14: 18 NLT).
Making the Connections
I need to check out some of the verses that White used in his Observations sermon.
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- “As they listen, their secret thoughts will be exposed, and they will fall to their knees and worship God, declaring, ‘God is truly here among you’” (I Cor. 14: 25 NLT).
- “Then Joshua said to Achan, ‘My son, give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, by telling the truth. Make your confession and tell me what you have done. Don’t hide it from me’” (Josh. 17: 19 NLT).
- “My anger will be gone. If I find briers and thorns growing, I will attack them; I will burn them up — unless they turn to me for help. Let them make peace with me; yes, let them make peace with me” (Isa. 27: 4-5 NLT).
- “You will find no place to hide; there will be no way to escape” (Jer. 25: 35 NLT).
- “If someone sins against another person, God can mediate for the guilty party. But if someone sins against the LORD, who can intercede?” But Eli’s sons wouldn’t listen to their father, for the LORD was already planning to put them to death” (I Sam. 2: 25 NLT).
- “The sinners in Jerusalem shake with fear. Terror seizes the godless. ‘Who can live with this devouring fire?’ they cry. ‘Who can survive this all-consuming fire?’” (Isa. 33: 14 NLT).
- “Just see what this godly sorrow produced in you! Such earnestness, such concern to clear yourselves, such indignation, such alarm, such longing to see me, such zeal, and such a readiness to punish wrong. You showed that you have done everything necessary to make things right” (II Cor. 7: 11 NLT).
- “For no one is abandoned by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion because of the greatness of his unfailing love. For he does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow” (Lam. 3: 31-33 NLT).
God’s purpose for creating humankind was so that we could worship Him. He shows His power by knowing our secret thoughts. He knows because He never leaves us.
When we sin, our relationship with Him is patched with a confession. We have no need to hide.
Once we repent of our sins, God forgets them. “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103: 12 NLT).
That means all of our sin is gone after repentance – the stain of sin, the guilt, the shame. God totally forgets it once we have asked His forgiveness.
There is no getting away from God. He is everywhere. He never leaves us.
The greatest commandments say that we are to love God above anything. “Jesus replied, ‘The most important commandment is this: “Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” The second is equally important: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” No other commandment is greater than these’” (Mk. 12: 29-31 NLT).
If we sin against another person, there more than likely are others that know we did. They can help guide us back to God.
Our sins against God may be known only to Him and ourself. There is no one but ourselves to guide us back.
If we are true children of God, we have no need to fear Him. If we aren’t, there should be a whole lot of shaking going on. Anyone who isn’t God’s child – who is godless – will not survive the fire (Rev. 20: 15).
God does come to restore us when we sin. He sends the Holy Spirit to convict us so that we may repent and restore our relationships with God.
It is only through a genuine repentance that we can be blessed with this forgiveness. We have to be truly sorry for the sin and vow to turn away from it. We, too have to do “… everything necessary to make things right” (II Cor. 7: 11 NLT).
How Do We Apply This?
- Determine if we are in God’s family or not.
- Determine – if we are children of God – whether we are obedient or disobedient to Him.
- Determine if we are on the path of duty and how we need to do to get there if we aren’t.
- Make sure we are navigating the Sanctification Road as we should.
- Always be doing what we are supposed to be doing – God’s Will.
- Humbly be in our proper place.
- Always seek God.
- Submit to God’s judgment without fear.
- Remember Judgment Day is coming – even if it doesn’t look like it.
- Recognize that it is guilt, not fear, that drives us from God.
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Father God. Thank You for not shutting the door on us when we disobey You. You come and want our relationships restored. Forgive us when we disobey You. Amen.
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