The Beginning of Sin

Tuesday:	The Beginning of Sin
Story Passage:	Genesis 3
Other Passages:	Romans 3:9-26, Hebrews 9:23-28, Revelation 12:9, Isaiah 64:6
Objective:	We are sinful and require salvation.
Memory Verse:	Romans 3:22, This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

Introduction: Rules

When you go to school, does your teacher have rules? What rules do you have? [Accept some examples from the children.] Can you follow all of those rules all the time every day? Do you ever talk without raising your hand? Have you ever forgotten your homework? When you miss one of the rules, and don't follow it, what happens? You're not perfect. You messed up. We all do it, sometimes. Now, your teacher doesn't always notice, and if your teacher does notice, you might not get into very much trouble, depending on what rule you broke, and whether the teacher thinks you did it on purpose. But the rule is there, and you still broke it.

Story: The Fall into Sin

When God placed the man and the woman in the Garden of Eden, how many rules did he give them? He just gave them one: don't eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. It was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and he told Adam, If you eat from that tree, you will die.

So what do you suppose Adam and Eve did? They had a little help. There was a serpent. The serpent was very crafty. (It wasn't a regular snake, like we have today. The Bible says that this serpent was really Satan.) Now he knew just what to do, to get Adam to misbehave. He went straight to Eve. Satan figured that if Eve gave Adam the fruit, he'd eat it. So he went to Eve, and he tricked her.

Did God really say, that if you eat from any of the trees in the garden, you'll die?, he asked her. Was that what God said? Eve knew the answer: We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say not to eat fruit from this tree, or we'll die. Then the serpent lied to Eve: You will not die.

So Eve looked at the fruit, and it looked good. The serpent told her, that if she ate the fruit, she would be like God, knowing good and evil. Was that true? Sort of. It's true that when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they knew good and evil. They already knew good; now, they knew evil as well, because they'd just done evil. Were they like God? Not really.

So the serpent lied, and Eve ate the fruit, and she gave it to Adam, and he ate it too. That was the first sin, and the Bible tells us that now all of us are sinful, because the sin comes down to us from Adam. There's a penalty for that sin. God threw Adam and Eve out of the garden, and took away the Tree of Life, so they could not live forever, because they disobeyed. So they died. Before they died, they had children, and that's why we're here.

The Point: We Need Salvation

How do you live forever? Do people today live forever, usually? No. We all die. We all die, because we all sin, because Adam and Eve sinned. To live forever, we'd have to pay for that sin, or someone would have to pay for us. Can you pay for your own sin, by being good? The Bible says that you could never be good enough, that all our righteous acts are like filthy rags to God, because we're sinful. If we can't be good enough to pay our own penalty for our own sin, how can it be paid? Someone else has to pay it for us. Who could do that? Can your mom and dad pay your penalty for you? No! They aren't good enough, either. They can't pay their own penalty, just like you can't. Only Jesus could pay your penalty.

Invitation: Salvation

Jesus died to pay for your sin. If you want Jesus to pay for your sin, all you have to do is ask. [Invite the children to stay after the lesson and discuss it further.]

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.