On Wednesday Night, Jan 13^th , we will be discussing “Human Free Will.” The Sovereignty of God and the Free Will of Man have been controversial subjects throughout history. Churches have split and denominations have been built over this subject – so I doubt that we will solve it Wednesday Night. We will look at the earliest mention of this in the Bible – Genesis 2:15-17. The Lord God put the man (Adam) in the Garden of Eden and then gave him Human Free Will – a Real Choice. Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 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 left with a decision, a choice, an exercise of his Free Will – “to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” or NOT to eat. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve chose to Eat of the Forbidden Fruit – and brought the curse of Sin on all mankind.

This is where the fun begins. Generally, we human beings love to boast of our free will and look at God’s sovereignty as “fatalistic.” We want to believe that we are independent, in charge of our future, and that God is sitting in the Heavens wondering what we will do next. But when we study Genesis 2-3, the first question we ask is: “If God is all knowing and all powerful – and knew about the Original Sin before it happened – and knew that sin would release sorrow and death into the world – Why did God put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden?

That is our Question for the Evening. Why did God give us free will? Why did God give us choices? Why do we brag about free will when we make good choices and blame God when we make bad choices? As you prepare for our study of Genesis 2 & 3, please answer the following question:

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