Now Adam could have responded one or two ways. He could have thought through, and been creative in solving the problem; or he could have said: well that's not fair, you haven't given me a list of names to choose from! How do expect - this is unreasonable, to expect me to do all of this! He could have done that. He didn't do that though, but we do that. Well that's not fair, how can you expect me to do all this? Well God's given you a free will, and an ability to be creative, He expects you to kind of generate a few ideas on the way you know; to think through what you can do, instead of blaming the culture, blaming the people, blaming the government, blaming white people, blaming black people, blaming this person, that person, age. I mean people blame, and blaming leaves you powerless. So God expects us then, to be creative in finding solutions, and He will help us be creative in finding solutions. He expects us to take action, to do some things, so faith always has got action to it. Now where did the blame game start? Well over here unfortunately it tells us how it started.
Adam and Eve were given a great opportunity, and God said: eat all of this; don't eat that one. You eat all of this, you live; you eat that one there, you die - really quite simple. Here is a way that you train children: you show them what they can do, you show them what they can't do. If they do this, these are all the benefits; if they do that, that's the consequences. That's how you train them. Now here's the issue. When they break the laws, you've got to have consequences, because that's how people learn, it's God's way of doing it. In the pre-school, they have this thing: was that a good choice, or was that a bad choice? The little ones will say: I don't want you to ask me that, [laughter] because they're forced to decide whether their choices were good or bad, and if they were bad, then consequences will follow. Most people in the blame game want to make bad choices, but not have the consequences; so I'll make bad decisions about money, but you've got to help me out! No, no, no, you need the pain of the consequences, so you learn about managing money. When we bail everyone out all the time, what happens is, they never learn the lessons. Isn't that true?
How many of you have helped someone out, you help them, help them, help them; but they never change, because they're in a victim mode. The responsibility for their getting the release is put in someone else's hands, and you'll just keep helping them, and helping them, and helping them, until you get sick of helping them, because you saw no change. What you're better to do is actually initially give the help to lift the burden, but then begin to talk about being responsible. So if we have people in trouble financially, we're quite happy to help; however, it requires they submit to budget advice. Why? Because that's part of the consequences of goofing it up. You've got to then manage it better, and someone's got to help you manage it better. Does that make sense? Now this is really good stuff isn't it, because this really hits at the core of what's going on in our society.
Now notice what happened here. Adam and Eve both ate the fruit of the tree, and then this is what happened. The Lord God called to Adam and said: where are you? He said: I heard Your voice in the garden, I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself - so they both ran away. He said: who told you you were naked? Did you eat the fruit of the tree I commanded you not to eat from? Now here it is, classic, here's where the blame game started, Verse 12: And the man said: well, speak to the hand! [Laughter] Listen, whose idea was it about women anyway? And who was the one talking to the snake? Hey, it's not my problem. The woman - notice he said: the woman You gave me; so basically he's now not wanting to be responsible for his failure, and of course men have an acute vulnerability to do this. Is that right women? [Laughter] Oh they're not saying that, because I'll get into trouble if I say that one, but it's true. So Adam blamed Eve, and then Eve said: well don't look at me, it's that blimmin' snake. If You hadn't made snakes, I mean whose idea was it to make - I don't like snakes. Why did You make snakes? You understand that here's what the problem is. They have actually made a bad choice, and now they're blaming someone else for their actions, transferring responsibility.