https://app.dropwave.io/episode/f370cd7e-d6ed-4a98-bb8b-2405a62f579c/invocavit-lent-1-ad-2025.mp3

++ JESU JUVA ++

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the beginning, by His Word, God built order into the world. This order is not the Gospel, but when your family and church and city function properly — when you aren’t surrounded by crime and disorder — it makes it easier to preach the Gospel. And this is a gracious gift of Jesus.

Some think this order is oppressive. They don’t like the order that God instituted. Maybe they think it’s too restrictive or it stifles their ideas of freedom. So they seek to throw off God’s order. The only way to do that is to throw of God’s Word. But when we let go of God’s Word or reject it, the result is not freedom but chaos.

This is what we see in the account of Adam and his wife in today’s Old Testament. When God spoke the Word concerning eating the fruit of the tree, the woman was not there. She was therefore dependent upon her husband to teach her the Word of God. The primary duty of a husband is to teach his wife the Word of God.

But now, as they stand by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the serpent is speaking to the woman. And she is talking to the serpent. He is engaging her in a conversation about what she and Adam may eat. This serpent, we know, is satan, a fallen angel who desires the destruction of all humanity. Even before we know what they are talking about, we should know that something is wrong.

Already, Satan is seeking to subvert the order that God had given by His Word. Adam was formed first; Adam has the greater responsibility. As Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 11: “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” But satan wants them to think that any hierarchy is immoral — that God is forcing them to be subject to Him. — that He is holding them down and restraining them from being all they could be. — that escaping from hierarchy is a good work.

So he demonstrates this by bypassing Adam’s God-given authority and addressing the woman instead. St. Paul writes: And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Adam fails his wife by permitting her to be deceived. While the serpent engages his wife in conversation, Adam stands idly by. Adam failed to act according to the order God had given. He broke the Fourth Commandment.

Instead of ending the conversation immediately, he permits her to listen to the temptation. He thereby authorizes her to listen to false doctrine, and to sin against the Second Commandment. When she had heard the temptation, she meditated upon it. As she examined the temptation in her mind, she began to believe something new: the tree is good for food! it is a delight to the eyes. She desired what she meditated upon: the tree is to be desired to make one wise. Therefore, she took from the tree and ate.

Her sin came as a direct result of what she listened to and what she thought about. This is what we read in James: Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God, ” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Do you notice how temptation is beaten by NOT focusing on the temptation, not granting it an occupancy in your mind, not permitting it to settle in your heart? That can be helpful for you in fighting against temptation. When you are tempted by something evil, set your mind on what is good, lovely, admirable (Phil 4: 8) — do not set your mind on your temptations.

Yet this, also, is the very reason that we fail. For even without temptation coming externally, we already have the corruption of our flesh. We don’t need to teach anyone to sin. She set her mind to listen to the temptation. As she listened, she began to treasure what she heard, and where her treasure was, there her heart was also. She was deceived. Adam had permitted it.

As Adam idly watched, she coveted the fruit that God had not authorized. The tenth commandment was broken. She took from the tree and ate. The seventh commandment was broken. Adam participated in her sin. For when she had communed on the fruit, she then acted as a priestess — the first woman pastor. She administered this sacrament of evil to her husband also. Adam and his wife were now communicants in this new religion.

Adam had received God’s Word. From God’s Word, he received life. The Word about the tree was clear: You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. Adam was called to fear, love, and trust in God above all things. This is the first commandment.

He was to love his neighbor as himself. The way that Adam was to love God was by believing God’s Word and doing what God said. The way that Adam was to love his wife was by believing God’s Word and doing what God said. But Adam’s love became disordered. He thought that he could love his wife by submitting himself to her desires.

Adam failed to trust the Word of God. He considered the opinion of his wife to be more important than God’s Word. He loved what she said more than what God said. Adam did what so many do today. He thought he could be more loving than God. He thought he could be more kind, more equitable, more merciful than God.

God had said: ‘in the day you eat of it, you will surely die,’ but Adam heard from his wife: ‘this is what I want; it looks good; it tastes good; it makes me happy.’ He wanted to be pleasing to his wife. Yet it was this very thing that made things go so wrong. He set his wife’s word and approval above God’s Word and approval.

Adam despised preaching and God’s Word. He broke the third commandment. In this way, he made his wife into an idol. She became his false god. But it was ok, wasn’t it? Adam’s behavior had preserved peace in the home. Happy wife, happy life — right? But even though Adam acted apart from and against God’s Word, what God said was still true. Eating that fruit would mean death.

In Adam’s desire to listen to his wife above God, it was not her word which endured, but God’s Word. In this way, Adam put his wife under the subjection of death. And he murdered her. He broke the fifth commandment.