09/30/2023
BIBLE STUDY LESSON - 9/30/2023 By: Pastor Larry Moore
SPIRITUAL STRUGGLES IN LIFE !
Genesis 3-5
Everyone has a spiritual struggle in life. The solution is to find God and trust in Him.
We’ll be looking at how these four people dealt with the same spiritual struggles in life that we do.
The first spiritual struggle in life centers on the story of Adam & Eve.
Genesis 3:1-13
I.Unbelief
a.Genesis 3 is the account of how the entire human race (Adam & Eve) was __________________ from believers to unbelievers.
b.Satan’s goal was to turn their hearts away from believing God and give them a reason to follow Satan. His strategy was based on his belief that if God looked __________, sin would look ________________.
i.He began with ___________________
1.3:1, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”
ii.He moved to _________________
1.3:4, “You will not surely die…you will be like God, knowing good from evil.”
iii.He appealed to Eve’s _______________________
1.3:6, “When the woman saw that the fruit was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom…”
iv.Finally, Satan triumphed with their ______________________
1.3:6, “She took some and ate it…and he ate it.”
c.Now, Satan could step back and laugh as he watched Adam & Eve deal with the _____________________.
i.________________
1.3:10, “I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
ii.____________________
1.3:12, “The woman You put here with me; she gave me some fruit from the tree.”
2.3:13, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
iii.______________________
1.3:16, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbirth.
2.3:16, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.
3.3:17, “Through painful toil and the sweat of your brow you will eat your food.”
iv.Death (______________________)
1.3:19, “For dust you are and to dust you will return.
v.Death (_____________________)
1.3:23, “The Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden…and drove him out. (This is symbolic of the loss of God’s presence)
d.So, what do we learn from this part of this Bible study?
i.Genesis 5:1 describes man as God ______________________; “When God created man, he created him in the likeness of God.”
ii.Genesis 5:3 describes man as he is ____________________; “When Adam had lived 130 years he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image.”
e.The Bible teaches us the meaning of spiritual death and how that death happens.
i.Physical death happens when the human spirit _________________ the body.
1. James 2:26, “The body without the spirit is dead.”
ii.Spiritual death happens when the Holy Spirit leaves the _________________ spirit. (Genesis 2:17, “When you eat of it you will surely die.”)
iii.When God breathed His breath into Adam, Adam spiritually became _____________. Adam didn’t have to worry about finding God because God was there when he was created.
iv.When God withdrew His Holy spirit form Adam’s human spirit, Adam ______________.
v.Ephesians 4:18, “You must not live like the Gentiles; they are alienated from the life of God, uninhabited.”
f.And while in that spiritual condition, Adam had a son; and the human race began to reproduce __________________________ the indwelling Spirit of God.
g.So, now that man is _____________________ and sin has entered the world, how would you describe the human race?
i.Many still maintain that man is fundamentally ________________. Others say that man is fundamentally ________________; pointing to the sin of Genesis 3. But the best answer is that man is fundamentally _____________________ in trespasses and sin.
ii.Man is born with a ____________________ nature.
iii.Man is born _____________________ the spirit of God.
iv.That explains why the promise of the gospel centers not only on giving man God’s forgiveness, but also on ___________________ to man, God’s Spirit.
h.The Genesis Bible story not only teaches us about the origin of sin in the world, it also helps us to see the root cause of it all.
i.The Holy Spirit is __________________ in this Bible story and His indispensable role.
j.The thought at the core of every sin is the thought that we know better than God.
k.The fundamental nature of Adam & Eve’s thoughts could probably be summarized like this:
i.God; You’re holding out on us. We want to be like You. We want what You have. We thought you could be trusted. Satan’s our friend and you’re our enemy now We don’t believe You anymore, and You aren’t worthy of our trust.”
l.When Satan made God look bad, he didn’t have any trouble at all making sin look good. Adam & Eve doubted God and became ___________________________.
m.A sinful, uninhabited, doubting heart has been passed on to _______________ generation since that time. A heart that must be set towards finding God.
II.Survival: The 2nd Spiritual Struggle in Life.
a.Read Genesis 4:1-12 and 17-24
b.__________________ person since Adam & Eve has had to learn how to cope in a fallen world full of pain.
c.Cain was born into this kind of world with the same doubting, uninhabited, unbelieving heart of his parents. Cain represents the ___________________ of the human race, because instead of turning to and thereby finding God, Cain decided that he didn’t _________________ God to survive. Cain thought he could make life work on his own. He wasn’t interested in finding God.
i.One of the most painful days of Cain’s life was the day that God accepted _____________________ sacrifice, but not his. He was so angry that he felt __________________ in killing his brother Abel.
ii.That behavior sickened God so much, that He placed Cain under a _____________:
1.Genesis 4:12, “When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops to you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.
iii.But Cain wasn’t gonna let that happen. He tried to build a comfortable life for himself by starting a family and building a city.
1.Genesis 4:17, “Cain lay with his wife and she gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city and he named it after his son Enoch.”
2.Cain’s descendants ___________________ his self-centered determination to make life work in order to survive without God.
d.We all enjoy stories and movies about survival, from The Swiss Family Robinson” to the TV series “Survivor”. But what’s really necessary for survival? Doctors say that people can generally survive totally without food for 4-6 ________________, even though some have gone longer. But people can only survive without water for 7-10 __________________, under ideal circumstances.
i.However, there are physical ____________________ that come from the lack of food and water. But, what about surviving without God? Is finding God really ________________________ for survival?
ii.What’s this study taught us so far?
e.In Jude 11, the Bible says to watch out for godless men who have taken the way of _______________.
i.The way is Cain is to:
1.___________________ yourself into thinking you can survive this life without ever finding God.
2.Be more concerned about __________________ your problems than with finding God.
3.Have no higher priority than arranging for your own ________________ here and now.
4.Make a happy life for yourself; on your __________________.
ii.Today the world’s full of survivors like Cain.
1.Their whole focus is on making life work.
2.Their problem is that they’re trying to feel alive, in a world that has no life to ___________________.
3.The simply pretend that life’s not as bad as it really is.
iii.IF we don’t want to go through life simply surviving on our own, what other ______________________ do we have?
iv.The only viable option is to be about finding God. That requires ____________________, and today, everyone is born a “doubter.”
III.Faith: The third Spiritual Struggle in Life.
a.The world got so bad; human hearts were so sinful that people began to wonder what was _____________________.
i.Obviously what was missing was ________________.
b.Genesis 4:26, “At that time men began to call on the name of the Lord.”
i.But what they learned was that in finding God we have to come to Him on ________________ terms, not _________________.
1.Hebrews 11:6, “Anyone who comes to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”
2.Here’s the bottom line: Most people don’t __________________ set about finding God until they’re convinced that they can’t make it on their own.
c.Enoch was just that type of man.
i.After 65 years of living life on his own terms, he ________________ to find God. The good news is that he did ______________ Him, ______________ Him, and __________________ with Him for 300 years.
1.Genesis 5:21, “When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years.”
2.Genesis 5:24, “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.”
ii.When Enoch realized that he couldn’t make it on his own, he:
1.Sought God
2.Found God
3.Walked with God
4.Pleased God
5.Was taken home to God.
iii.The whole point here is that until he began to walk with God, he never really lived, he just __________________________.
iv.Genesis 5; 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 26, 30 underscore that each man just “lived” and then “died.” __________________ Enoch walked with God. The difference between simply existing and really living is finding God.
d.When you walk with God:
i.You find God’s _________________
ii.You find God’s _____________________
iii.You know that a _____________________ home is waiting for you.
e.How about your life today?
i.Are you simply existing?
ii.Are you serious about finding God?
iii.Are you walking with God?
iv.Are you building a city here; or trusting God for a better home later?
v.Are you focused on your plan for making life work; or focused on God’s plan for your life?
vi.Are you doubting, or finding God?