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The Great Deception
The Great Deception Genesis 3:1-24 Key Verse: 3:22 “And the LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’” Studying Dr. Samuel Lee’s and Mother Barry’s Genesis chapter 3 messages, you will see that they chose verse 15 as the key verse and a slightly more optimistic title “When God’s Love is Doubted.” I chose a different title and a different key verse because I want to emphasize a different point. That is I want to think about were suffering originated. The desire to study this topic came from my preparation for my high school third grade class. This class will be about the existence of God and morality (where did our sense of right and wrong come from?). In the course of preparing this class I came across an argument that atheists use again and again to deny the existence of God – at least any God that cares about us. That is, they can’t accept a God that would allow so much suffering to exist in the world. So, I began to think and pray about this issue and, specifically about where suffering originated. As I thought and prayed about this I was drawn to the book of Job, which we will begin studying next week. However, Job can tell us a lot about how to deal with suffering and what not to blame it on, it does very little to expose the origin of suffering itself (as we will see, it does address this issue, but in an indirect way). Genesis chapter three addresses this subject directly, so this is where we will begin our study of the book of Job. Originally, the Bible tells us that God made a good world – a perfect world in fact. He made man to be happy and provided everything necessary for his happiness. But the world in which we now live doesn't seem to be good. It is full of sorrow, tragedy and violence. Happiness is like a rainbow which we can never seem to catch. How could the good world created by a loving God get this way? And is there any hope for men in a world like this? In Genesis 3 we study the first great turning point in human history--the fall of man. It wasn’t God who changed the perfect paradise that he created for man, it was man's own sin that transformed God's good, beautiful and happy world into a cursed world, where suffering and hardships exists. Instead of living as God intended us to live, as the rulers and stewards of God's perfect world, men gave into the great deception of the devil and wanted to be like God themselves. Man is not God and this is the root cause of all the suffering, violence and turmoil that we see in the world today. First, the fall of man (1-13) In this chapter Satan, personified in the form of the serpent (Rev 12:9), makes his appearance. The writer of Genesis does not tell us about his origin, but he does tell us that he was more crafty than any of the other creatures that God created. This also implies that the devil himself is a created being. The implication of other scripture (Rev 12:7-9; Jude 6; 2 Pet 2:4) is that Satan was a beautiful and powerful angel who forgot his position, rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven. The devil was not satisfied with being the most beautiful and powerful angel, he wanted to be God himself. Pride destroyed even angels of God. John 8:44 tells us that he was a liar and a murderer from the beginning. His purpose in tempting the woman is clear. He wanted her to listen to and follow his words instead of obeying God's word. In short, the devil wanted to be her God. This is not just some small thing. Romans 6:16 tells us that we are slaves of the one whom we obey. Until this time, mankind had obeyed God and walked with him in beautiful fellowship in the garden. By disobeying God and obeying Satan, mankind would come under Satan's authority. They would be transferred from God's kingdom to the kingdom of Satan. Creation order in the garden was kept by man's obedience to God, but by listening to Satan this order was broken and suffering came into the perfect world. How did Satan lead the woman to disobey God? First, he asked a simple question about God's command: "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden.'" He tried to confuse her about God's word. His question suggested that God's command was not reasonable because he twisted the command to make it sound like God had forbidden them not to eat from any tree in the garden. This simply wasn’t true. Furthermore, the devil subtly made it seem like God was taking away some right that she had on her rights – that is the right to eat. It seemed like a harmless question, but it began to eat into the woman’s mind. She began to doubt God’s love and this can be seen in her answer. Look at verse 2 & 3. “The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” God didn’t say anything about touching that fruit, but the woman claimed that He did. Why did she say this? It was because the devil’s clever question was making her doubt the love of God. The devil listened to her answer, then said, "You will not surely die; God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." There is enough truth in his words to make it the most effective kind of lie. If you look at our key verse, verse 22, you see that the second part of the devil’s statement is absolutely true, however, the first part was a complete lie. When he said, "You will not surely die," he was removing the absoluteness from God's word. He was saying that obeying God's word is not really a life and death matter. Then he suggested that God's motive in forbidding them to eat of one tree was not love but tyranny, and that God was withholding from them something very good. He led her to doubt the goodness of God. When doubt of God's love took root in her heart, and when the fear and respect of God and his word was shaken, she could entertain the possibility of disobedience. She became vulnerable to temptation. What was it in her attitude toward God's word and blessings that weakened her? In the first place, she was not thankful to God for his gracious and abundant provision for her needs and happiness. The good and delightful trees of the garden were all prepared by God and He had commanded man to eat freely from all of them except one of the two trees in the middle of the garden. The woman took this unbelievably generous gift and blessing for granted. (vs.2) At the same time, she put unnecessary emphasis on the negative part of God's command. (God did not say "Don't touch it"; he said, "Don't eat it.") She did not pay careful attention to God's word, or hide God's word in her heart. Instead, she accepted Satan's words. He had told her that eating the fruit would make her as wise as God, and she believed him. He didn't tell her the tragic consequences of disobedience. Her physical desires, which were intended to enrich her life became unrestrained. The fruit was beautiful and looked delicious. In this very subtle and clever way, Satan made this fruit the object of the woman’s desire. So, without any further thought, she took it and ate. Her act was an act of obedience to Satan and an act of disobedience to God. She moved from the kingdom of God to the kingdom of this world, the kingdom of Satan. A guilty conscious needs someone to understand them and a person with a guilty conscious longs to have someone with them, so she gave some of the forbidden fruit to Adam; he ate and joined her in the kingdom of Satan. Immediately, the Bible says that their eyes were open and their innocence was gone. Look at verses 7-12. They saw each other’s nakedness and felt shame, so they tried to cover themselves to hide from each other. They even tried to hide from God when they heard Him walking in the garden. The beautiful relationship they enjoyed with God was gone. Even the relationship that they had with one another was completely broken. When God asked Adam if he had eaten from the tree about which God had commanded him not to eat, Adam immediately blamed the woman for giving him the forbidden fruit, and he even blamed God for giving him the woman. It is very interesting to note that nothing outside of Adam and Eve had changed in the least when they ate the fruit, but something had changed inside each of them. Fear, guilt and broken relationships are the gifts of Satan. Lost innocence can never be recovered. When God called, "Adam, where are you?" Adam couldn't answer. He was lost. Second, a world under curse (14-19) God cursed the serpent first. However, embedded in his curse is a precious promise that plants hope in the hearts of all men. God said, "I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." In God's right time Jesus, the seed of the woman, would come to crush the head of Satan. He would be painfully wounded by Satan, but he would win the victory. This is good news. Satan will be defeated; he will not always rule the world. This is the promise of God that plants hope in men's hearts. This promise is fulfilled in Jesus' death and resurrection. (Heb 2:14,15; Ro 16:20) This one act of disobedience seems very small, but it was an act of rebellion against God. Through this one act of disobedience mankind joined the rebellion of Satan, and God put the world under curse. In Romans 8:20-21, Paul says that God subjected creation to frustration (or futility) in hope that it would be liberated some day. So we are living in a world under curse where suffering is bound to take place. The specific punishment given the woman was directed toward the special blessing God had given her. God had blessed mankind and told them to be fruitful and increase in number. But in a world under curse, childbearing became the woman's cross of pain. Joyful friendship with her husband, and the joy of sharing with him in doing God's work was replaced with selfish desire for him just as she had desired the fruit. The order of love in the family was replaced by man's tyrannical rule over woman, rule enforced by her fear and desire. This curse can only be removed by Jesus. Jesus came to set mankind free from the curse. He died so that we might be set free from slavery to sinful desires and the guilt of sin. He came to restore our relationship with God and to make it possible for men and women to have a healthy and right relationship with one another. He came to restore love and friendship in the home. Man's punishment was also directed toward his blessing. God made the man fully responsible for listening to his wife instead of obeying God's word. Man was created to be the steward of God's world. He had tilled the ground to fulfill his mission and serve God, and he had named the animals to joyfully co-work with God. His work was joyful and full of meaning. But now, because of his sin, the ground and all creation were under curse. He lost his mission; he must work, not for God but for his own survival. Work became toil; the final enemy, death, awaited them both. Only Jesus can remove the curse and restore man's mission. He died and rose to give life and meaning and mission back to mankind. Third, man is banished from Eden (20-24). God still loves fallen man. Look at verse 21. He covered their shame and guilt with durable clothes made from animal skins. Animals were killed for the sake of man – this is the first mention of animal sacrifice mentioned in the Bible and it also foreshadows Jesus, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Look at verse 22. “And the LORD God said, ‘man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.’" This was not a blessing, as the devil had suggested; it was a curse, because the knowledge of good and evil came through doing evil, and brought tragic consequences, which the devil had not bothered to mention. Now this same knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil, can also come through resisting evil and doing what is good. This takes a little longer, but this knowledge builds man's character. God expelled them from the garden. To allow mankind to eat of the fruit of life and live forever in his sinful state would be to sentence them to hell immediately. Although God expelled them from the garden, he did not destroy the tree of life. The tree of life is still there, waiting for redeemed mankind to come and eat, but we are here in a cursed world, cursed by our own sin. Our own desire to be our own God is what caused suffering to come into the world. It wasn’t anything God did, it was a result of us doing what He told us not to do. The consequences of sin is death. Man cut off from God by sin is like a cut flower. He is already dead. He is dead spiritually. (Eph 2:1) Only physical death and hell waits for him. So man's life becomes a pilgrimage back to the tree of life. He can eat the fruit from the tree of life when his sins are washed in the blood of Jesus (Rev 22:14); the tree of life is in heaven--in the New Jerusalem. Although we live in a cursed world, by God's grace we can live with a glorious hope. God's unchanging love and his wonderful promises give us hope. |
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