2. How a Happy Home Was Lost

(Genesis 3)

Adam and Eve were very happy in their beautiful garden-home in Eden. In the cool of the day, when the sun went down, and the garden was quiet, they knew that God was very, very near them, walking and talking with them. All the animals and plants, all the beautiful trees were for their use. But there was one tree with fruit that God, to teach them to obey, told them not to eat. For a long time they thought of nothing else but doing exactly what God told them. But one day Eve stopped in front of the tree and looked at the fruit. How good it looked! She wondered how it tasted. Then she turned to go away, for she knew that God had said that whoever tasted it would die. Just then she heard a voice. She looked, and the voice came from a bright, shining snake, coiled close in front of the tree. The snake said, “Did God say you shall not eat of any tree of this garden?” Eve said, “God said we shall not eat of this tree, nor touch it, lest we die.” “You will be like God if you eat it; you will know good and evil.” She listened to this voice tempting her to do what was wrong. Then she looked at the tree again. It looked so good to eat and so pretty, and as if it would make one know a great deal, that she picked some of the fruit and ate it. Then she ran and gave some to Adam, and he ate it too. That evening, when the sun was going down, making long shadows upon the grass, and a cool breeze was rustling the leaves, and the garden was all lonely and still, Adam heard the sound of God in the garden. Instead of gladly running to meet their heavenly Father and Friend, as they had always done before when he came to talk with them, they were afraid, and ran and hid themselves among the trees. God called to Adam, “Where art thou?” Guilty and ashamed, Adam said, “I heard thy voice, and I was afraid.” God said, “Hast thou eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee not to eat?” Adam said, “Eve gave it to me and I ate.” Eve said, “The snake tempted me, and I ate.” God told the snake he must crawl always flat on the ground, and every animal and man would hate him more than any other creature. He told Adam and Eve, because they had disobeyed him, they must be driven out of the beautiful garden and must dig and work hard in getting their food in desert lands among thistles and thorns, stones and timber, and at last, he said, they must die. But God still loved them, and gave them a beautiful promise of a loving Saviour who would be so obedient and pure and strong that he would prepare for them a beautiful city in the place of their garden-home, which they had lost through disobedience.