Can you imagine living in the middle of a garden? A garden with no weeds or thorns or thistles? A garden with wonderful flowers and trees with big juicy fruit hanging from them. It seemed a very happy place and I'm sure Adam and Eve liked it there. Wouldn't you?
There were two very special trees in the garden and God had told Adam and Eve about them. One was the Tree of Life, the other the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God had given Adam and Eve permission to eat from any of the trees but the one in the middle of the garden. God said, "In the day that you eat from it, you will die." God wanted them to choose to obey Him. If Adam and Eve had no rules then they couldn't show obedience, could they? So God gave them that one little rule to keep.
All went well for a while, but one day Eve came to this tree. She looked up at it and saw the delicious looking fruit. As she stood there thinking and looking, she heard a voice. There was a snake curled up in the tree. Snakes don't talk now, but this one could then and Eve listened to it.
The snake asked her, "Shall you not eat of every tree of the garden?" Eve told him about the rule God had made. But the snake was crafty and he spoke against all that God had said and told her that if she ate from the tree she wouldn't die, but she would be like the angels knowing good from evil.
Eve was still looking at the tree. She should have walked away, but she didn't. She saw the fruit and she thought about what the snake had said. "Perhaps the snake is right" she thought, and she reached up and picked a lovely big fruit and took a bite. It was good to eat. Adam came looking for her and she held it out to him and told him all the snake had said. Adam also took a bite. And suddenly they knew they had done wrong. They were scared and ran to hide. They took fig leaves and tried to cover themselves. But you can't hide from God. God knows everything and He knew what Adam and Eve had done.
God was very sad that they had disobeyed Him, but they must be punished. God called Adam "Where are you?" and Adam trembling and afraid came and told God how Eve had given him the fruit to eat. God called Eve and she came and told him how the snake had tricked her. They both blamed somebody else. But they had done wrong and disobedience brings consequences.
Adam and Eve could no longer live in the beautiful garden. Their sin had brought a curse upon the earth and now they would have to work hard to live. Thorns and thistles would now grow. They would now get old and die.
But God didn't leave them without any hope. He promised them that one day, one of their descendants would be perfectly obedient to God and would give a death blow to the serpent who represented sin. Then all people could have their sins forgiven.
Things to remember
Discussion
Adam and Eve were wrong to disobey God. The result of their disobedience was that they had to leave the beautiful garden, they would grow old and die, and they would have to work hard in order to survive. Adam and Eve didn't only disobey God, they then made excuses for what they had done and tried to blame it on others. God wants us to obey Him and we learn to do this by first learning to obey our parents. But God also wants us to take responsibility for our own actions and when we find that we have done wrong to confess it and not try to hide it or blame our wrong on others.
What did God ask Adam and Eve not to do?
What should we do when we know we have done wrong?
What happened because Adam and Eve didn't obey God?
Activity Suggestions
Draw a picture of the tree with the delicious looking fruit in it. Maybe add the snake...
Make a curly snake. Draw a big circle on a piece of paper and using lots of different colours and patterns, fill the circle in. Cut out the circle and then starting from the edge, cut in a spiral around 2cm wide. Draw some eyes and glue a forked tongue on the middle.