"WHEN IS IT OKAY TO SIN?" (1)
When is it okay to sin?  If this question were on a religion test, I trust that 99% of you would get it right.  You would probably answer, "Never." So, we do know -- up here in our brains -- we do know the answer. However, in our daily lives, we frequently give the wrong answer.  The question does not arise in this specific, verbal form.  It arises in a more abstract form.  It arises with every temptation.
Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3"4-6)
When Eve was tempted to eat the forbidden fruit, she had to deal with the question, "Is it okay for me to sin?"  Satan was telling her, "Yes, it's okay. Nothing bad will happen.  Only good will come." Suddenly, in Eve's mind everything about the fruit was good: good for food; pleasant to the eyes; desirable to make one wise.  So she thought, "Yup.  It's okay for me to do this."
Then, as if in slow motion, we see her hand reaching out toward the pretty fruit, closing slowly around it . . . And all this time, we are saying, "No! Don't do it!  It's not okay!  You are going to kill us all!"  She plucks it off the tree, brings it to her mouth, and takes a bite.  Then, she holds it out to Adam and he takes a bite. 
What was in her head?  Why, on that day, did she think that it was all right for her to sin?  In her mind, eating the fruit served her purpose.  She wanted to be wise, to be like God, knowing good and evil.  Why did Adam eat?  What made it okay in his mind?  We don't know.  God didn't tell us.  But obviously Adam thought it would be okay.  It served his purpose, whatever that was.
So it was that death came to the world.  Not only death, but all that accompanies death: sorrow, pain, difficulties of every kind, sickness, and a multitude of sufferings.  All this, because Adam and Eve thought, "It's okay to sin today."
 (Prof. John Pfeiffer - Chapel 5/13/2009)