Dan Mohler Quotes on The Fall of Man

First Sin - Adam and Eve

Run and Hide

Adam and Eve are in a garden. They’ve sinned. They’re standing naked and ashamed. They hear God coming and they run and hide. That’s pretty weird. That’s what sin does. It makes you run from the very one that’s so lovely - that loves you so much - that wants to bring redemption - the answers - the promise. He wants to proclaim that your seed will crush his head. God is God. He’s a covenant God. That’s why He came down. He’s a Father. And what did they do when they heard the steps of their Father? They ran and hid. Why? Because God changed? Because sin consciousness was ruling their soul. And they ran from One that loves - that wants to restore - that wants to bring truth - that wants to show mercy. - Dan Mohler¹

What was lost?

The fall of man - “The day you eat the tree is the day you surely die Adam.” He didn’t fall over dead. He died spiritually. He lost his identity. He lost his connection and communion with God. His connection with love was cut off. And what was created in God’s image - which is love - God’s image is love, church. God is love. So He made man to love. So man eats the tree, gets cut off from love and becomes in desperate need of love. And every man was born into that place and we all grew up in desperate need of identity, of love, of acceptance. And we were all in the rat race of survival. And the truth underlying is we were all created for God’s image. - Dan Mohler²

Took on the Nature of God’s Enemy

“The day you eat the tree is the day you surely die.” We think Adam sinned, no; he took on the nature of God’s enemy. He became like the devil. Come on, man is not his own. He’s not driving the car. You might think you’re in control but whatever you really believe and you’re driven by is controlling you. Whatever you’re waking up for is what’s running your motor. There’s no man just driving the car. [Are] you following me? Because you are inspired by something. Because you weren’t created to be your own creature. You were created for His image. And Satan is a counterfeit and a perverter so what he did was he stepped in and manipulated. And when Eve was deceived and Adam followed her instead of God - bam - major manipulation - counterfeit. And all of the sudden he’s trying to reproduce himself after his own kind in as many as would yield and God was trying to reproduce Himself after His own kind in as many would believe. - Dan Mohler³

Blame Shifting

Let us make man in our image. And in His likeness God made man. And what’s God. God is love. The day you ate the tree is the day you surely die. What died? Love died. Man became a god unto himself - self-centered - self-concerned - self-defending - self-protecting. When God asked how he knew he was naked - did he eat the tree - he blamed it on God and the woman. “Did you eat the tree Adam?” … Come on that’s a simple yes or no question. And he qualified his answer and said, “Well, uh, it was the woman you gave me. She gave me to eat. I mean if you wouldn’t have given me her, I probably wouldn’t have eaten the tree. So, don’t look at me. It’s either You or her.” Are you guys alright? That’s the first effect of sin - self-protection - self-defense - self-justification. The first sign and effect of sin in Genesis 3 is man protecting himself. One minute ago she was flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. She was woman. And now she’s probably the reason he’s in trouble. “And if it ain’t her, I can trace it back to You because you’re the Creator.” And man lives that way to this day in the church and mad at God because of this, that or the other. - Dan Mohler⁴

Fallen Thinking and Feeling

Self-centeredness

So what’s sin and sin consciousness? Self, self-driven, me, myself and I, self-protecting, self-defending, self-justified. See every way you and I grew up and thought was normal is what we became when Adam ate the tree. That’s why we have to put off all these things and call the old things old and dead and put on the new man and put on Christ and be renewed in the spirit of our mind. That’s why the Bible talks so much about that. Because everything we were tutored in, like this school that Melinda is doing, we weren’t taught that stuff. We were taught that anger is normal - frustration is normal - to live for your rights - to stand for your rights. We were taught all that stuff. And we were taught, “If you do me wrong, I’ll get you back” or “I’ll be angry” or “I’ll cut you off.” Well that’s not the heart of God or He would have never sent His Son. He’d just have a bunch of throwaways. - Dan Mohler⁵

Reduced to Living by Senses

I never can find in the Bible any scripture that tells you to live by how you feel. I can’t find any strength of scripture that gives emotions and sentiments any kind of power. He doesn’t accommodate them. He doesn’t want you to. He doesn’t boast in them. He doesn’t elevate them. He tells you to live by faith - to live by truth. And the reason we have to live by faith is because we became sensually driven through the fall. We became sensual human beings instead of spirit human beings through the fall of man. Do you understand? We lived, everyone of us, before Christ, we lived by how we felt. “How are you doing today?” “Oh man, I don’t feel to good.” Right? - Dan Mohler⁶

Way that Seems Right to a Man

“The way that seems right to a man,” guys - natural knowledge, human reasoning, common logic - we believe God gave us those things and we were made us that way. We became that way. You were created to know God and know His word and to live by the Spirit. When man ate the tree all of that died and man became a self-centered, self-serving, self-justified, self-defending person that rationalized and reasoned. And all of the sudden we say stuff like this, “Well, if God loved me then why did I lose my loved one?” or “Why did I lose my job. I thought God loved me.” And all of the sudden we have this mind where we’re proving and testing God every day through life and God is always on the chopping block, if you will, to affirm His love through circumstances. He’s affirmed His love through the cross. - Dan Mohler⁷

First Impressions

First impressions - people live in the, I’m calling it the weakness, the weakness of first impressions because it’s actually a lot of judgment involved in first impressions. You’ve been trained to have first impressions. Your first impressions should be the person’s potential and destiny through the cross. Everybody has the value of the blood. So your first impression shouldn’t be, “Boy, I don’t know if I like their personality.” That’s judgmental. That’s the fall of man actually. Nobody really talks openly about that. We think it’s normal but it’s really not. It’s prideful. It’s actually judgmental. It’s presumptuous. You know, “Well, they just kind of bother me a little” or “They just get on my [nerves].” Well they don’t bother Jesus. He hung on a cross and shed His blood for them. There’s just some things in their life that need to maybe work out - get refined - fine-tuned - a sharpened edge, whatever. But it’s not that they’re repulsive. They’re not repulsive to God. Don’t let people become repulsive to you. - Dan Mohler⁸

Homeschooled in the Wrong Home

Don’t be conformed to the way the world flows and functions but be transformed. Isn’t that what the gospel is all about? Come on. We’re in the world and not of it but unfortunately we all grew up in it. We were all trained by the fall of man. We were all trained by fear and anger and frustration and wrath. We were all trained by self-centeredness and jealousy and pride. Every one of us goes through that school. And we all passed with flying colors. Serious - nobody failed that school. It’s called the fall of man. You were born into Adam and we must be born again. Born again is born again. So at some point the Christian, in his own heart, has to take the privilege of calling all that dead - of looking at his life and understanding what is and isn’t God and God’s will and what is and isn’t wisdom. You’re the steward of your heart. At some place you have to decide what’s still coming along with you from yesterday and what’s cut off. Come on. You have to decide. If your mindset and your patterns of your mind are still in agreement with the way it’s always been or is all things new. Come on. I’m talking passionately. I feel it in me. It’s a heart cry because God’s brought the truth through Jesus Christ and He wants us to continue in it because as we continue in it, we’ll know it, we’ll see it and we’ll become free. - Dan Mohler⁹

Language of the World

You grew up in a world that says, “Don’t get your hope up.” The Bible says, “Get your hope sky high.” You grew up in a world that says, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” And the Bible says, “What you don’t know is destroying you.” You grew up in a world that says, “What you see is what you get.” And the Bible says, “Don’t ever live by what you see. It’s subject to change. What you don’t see is eternal.” You live in a world and grew up hearing, “You made your bed, you sleep in it.” No, He made a brand new bed. Crawl in. It’s clean and you’ll sleep well. Come on. The language you grew up with is not heaven. We were tutored in the wrong school. We must be born again. - Dan Mohler¹⁰

Self-Centered Relationships

So what was created to be love and selfless became selfish and void of love. And man started living for himself. I say it all the time and it’s just true. A lot of our relationships that we’ve ever been in are “I love you. Do you love me?” relationships. They are “I love you for me” relationships. They are “I love you for what you do for me - how you make me feel - how you make me complete.” That’s why you can be broken just as quickly by the one you say you love. Because you’re loving them for you and you can be broken and shattered because you’re depending on them to fill something to cause you to become something that only Christ can complete. - Dan Mohler¹¹

Fallen Living

Rat Race

You’re created to love. God made man in His image and God is love. So God made man to love and in God, he was fulfilled. He was grafted in. He’s the vine we’re the branch. So we’ve become loved in our created value. When man ate the tree that died and man became self-centered - got cut off from love and became in desperate need of love. So that’s why you and I were insecure our whole lives. That’s why we live to find ourselves along the way. That’s why in elementary school when somebody made fun of you it devastated you and you felt embarrassed for the first time in a crowd and worried about what people thought about you and you were on your way to identity crisis - insecurity. So it’s a rat race - it’s every man for himself. You try to find yourself along the way of life. Some people have stronger dispositions and seem to be winning in that battle. Some people get crushed. The people that are winning are still in a rat race - their hearts are all messed up. They’re just living at the expense of others, lording their progress over others - full of pride. So you can win a rat race [but] you’re still a rat. - Dan Mohler¹²

When man died - ate the tree and died, what was love became cut off from love and became in desperate need of love. So he’s bankrupt now. So he died inside. So now this whole search when we’re born is this rat race - this search to find love and compatibility and compassion and attention and reputation and esteem and identity. And we want to fit in and not be out. And we want to be cool and not weird. It’s extremely self conscious from the time you’re born.¹³

Your whole life growing up - you’re trying to find esteem, honor, identity, value. You want to be accepted in the crowd. If people looked at you wrong… You can remember back in elementary school when they laughed at you in a wrong way and how it devastated you. And some more vulnerable, more susceptible than that - some learned to grow hard and tough. But either way, it’s all misconstrued. It’s all the wrong fashioning of our lives - but it was all through that competitiveness - trying to find value. Why? Because when man sinned he lost his value and we’ve been trying to find it ever since looking in all the wrong places. Come on, it’s a rat race. You can win a rat race [and] you’re still a rat.¹⁴

Notes:

1. Run & hide - self-centeredness - sin consciousness - self-justification - blame shifting - (1:15)

2. What died? - communion with God - desperate need of love - identity - (:41)

3. Took nature of enemy - man isn't driving the car - not in control - born into Adam - (1:51)

4. Blame shifting - first conversation after fall filled with self-protection - (1:27)

5. Self-centeredness - "normal" - rights - sin consciousness - anger - frustration - Dan Mohler (:48)

6. Reduced to living by senses - at the fall we became sensually driven beings - we lived by feelings - (:45)

7. Way that seems right - natural knowledge - reasoning - logic - (1:07)

8. Judging others - 1st impressions - judgments - arrogance - repulsive people - (:46)

9. Homeschooled in the wrong home - trained by the fall of man - everyone passed - (1:37)

10. Language of the world - homeschooled in the wrong home - (:37)

11. Self-centered relationships - I love you. Do you love me? - loving you for me - (:49)

12. Rat race - every man for himself - search for identity - insecurity - embarrassment - (1:06)

13. Rat race - search for identity, attention, affirmation, reputation - in not out - cool not weird - (:34)

14. Rat race - desperate search for esteem, honor, value - accepted in a crowd- Dan Mohler (:37)