From the Start - Part 8 (A Genesis Sermon Series Part 9)

On the occasion of Cornell University's second annual

Darwin Day, which I might add, it sounds like the kind of thing

where you ever hear of like the Darwin Awards.

These are these are like joke awards that are meant to get at

people who who don't necessarily understand survival of the

fittest. So maybe, perhaps they do

something stupid or foolish. That's, that's what I think of

when it, when I, when I read this Darwin Day is like, like

that. But no, that's not what they're

doing. They're actually celebrating

Darwin at Cornell University on their second annual Darwin Day.

William Provine opened his speech saying naturalistic

evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood

perfectly. No ultimate foundation for

ethics exists. That is, if there's no God, then

there's no foundation on which the evolutionist can claim

anything is morally right or wrong.

The atheist actually needs God in order to be able to make such

a claim. I know, it's funny.

This morning we'll examine where right and wrong actually come

from. The origins of sin in this

world. So if you're able, would you

stand as we read from Genesis chapter 3, We'll read verses one

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

through 7. Now the serpent's was more

crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had

made. He said to the woman, Did God

actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit

of the trees in the garden. But God said, You shall not eat

of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden,

neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die,

for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open,

and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that

it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be

desired to make one wise, she took of its fruits and ate, and

she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he

ate. Then the eyes of both were open,

and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves

together and made themselves loincloths.

You may be seated as we begin our time in this passage.

It's it's important to say that this is not a fable or a myth.

There are streams of Christianity that that treat

passages like this as a simply myth.

Their goal is to ascertain any principles that can be derived

from the passage. These sects aren't concerned

with the historicity of accounts like this.

However, I think it's important to understand this moment as

history since the New Testament presents it and treats it as

history. So the first thing we will look

into here is the solicitor, which I know is a weird word but

you know alliteration. So have to go with what we can

do. The solicitor chapter 2 left us

in an idyllic world of perfection.

Right? The water is flowing down from

the mountain of God. There is an abundance of rich

natural resources. The the man now has a wife to

help him rule and subdue the world's.

Then suddenly the serpent shows up on the scene.

So what are we to to make of this serpent?

Well, let's start with some basics first.

The serpent is is new to the woman.

She's not seen him before, perhaps because he was he was

from the field is what's what the text says.

And she wasn't close to the animals that that lived out in

the field. He's crafty, but I think it's

best we probably understand this craftiness, this cunning to to

apply specifically to this one serpent.

Those who want to mythologize the text will point to what they

call a talking snake. I might add, by the way, that

the serpent has legs at this point, It seems we'll we'll talk

about that next week. But but those who want to

mythologize the text point to a talking snake.

Serpents were part of God's good creation in the world of these

two humans was actually marvelous and wonderful, filled

with all manner of creatures to discover and learn about.

And a talking serpent may well have just been another

intriguing creature that the woman had yet to meet.

Now I'd like to remind you that the relationship between animals

and humans was not yet one of fear, as life in the garden was

good and and the woman didn't have any reason to be suspicious

of of this serpent that that shows up.

She'd yet to experience what Ephesians 6 calls the Wiles of

the devil because everything was innocent there in that moment.

Still, the serpent apparently knows God in some sense at

least, as he's able to call God's words into question.

He knows what God said, he speaks with great intelligence

and and he's shrewd with his choice of words.

He's opposed to God and he's deceptive and and he's hostile

to the moral innocence of this first couple.

There are a number of perspectives on what's happening

in this passage, but my belief is that Satan is Co opting the

form of the serpents. He masquerades as whatever he

would like and his economy is deceit and that's likely what's

happening here. In Revelation 12 we see a

spiritual battle with Michael and his angels fighting against

the dragon. Verse 9 says the great dragon

was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called the devil,

and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.

Clearly John is identifying Satan with the serpent who had

deceived the woman back in Genesis 3.

Now when it comes to Satan's back story, we have to piece

some things together. There's there's no passage in

Scripture that specifically says this is where Satan came from.

The name Satan is actually a transliteration, a spelling into

English of the Hebrew word Satan and it means adversary or

opponent. His sole job is to stand against

followers of God, to oppose them and to accuse them.

In the first couple chapters of Job we see a bit of this and and

how he tries to work against humans.

To ascertain Satan's origins we look at a couple Old Testament

passages as well as a couple New Testament references.

Back to the Old Testament. First we look at Ezekiel 28.

Now Ezekiel 28 is a prophetic judgement against the king of

Tyre. The king of Tyre was wealthy and

he saw himself as as a God. The 1st 10 verses talk about

this and and verse 11 changes in You realize it's talking about

something beyond an earthly king when you read it.

Ezekiel 2812 says you were the signet of perfection, full of

wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden.

Obviously the king of Tyre was not in Eden, right?

You were in Eden, the garden of God.

Every precious stone was your covering.

Verse 14 says you are an anointed guardian cherub.

I placed you. You were on the holy mountain of

God. You were blameless in your ways

from the day you were created till unrighteousness was found

in you. Then jumping to verse 16, you

sinned. So I cast you as a profane thing

from the mountain of God. Your heart was proud Because of

your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom.

For the sake of your splendor, I cast you to the ground.

The spiritual being being written about here is Satan.

He was a a cherub. The cherub being actually,

technically speaking, are to be differentiated from angels.

People will sit what people will call cherubs.

Oh, there's such a cherub. They're an Angel cherubs are a

different category of spiritual being than angels are angels

actually is more is more about a role being a messenger is really

what angels are about South. A cherub is a is a higher

spiritual being than some of the others in Their primary purpose

is to serve and to protect God's holy spaces.

This particular cherub was beautiful, wise and and was in

the garden on the holy mountain of God there.

But then pride overtook him and he corrupted his wisdom.

He started to redefine rights and wrong on his own terms.

Then Isaiah 14 is the other passage we examined to learn

about Satan's back story. Isaiah 1412 reads how you are

fallen from heaven, O Day star, Son of David.

I'll pause here as an aside. If you are reading the King

James Version of the OR the New King James Version, you will

instead read the word Lucifer instead of O Daystar or

Morningstar is the other words that are used.

The Latin word Lucifer actually is not a translation.

It doesn't appear in the Hebrew text.

The text says hello, Ben Shakar, which is son of the morning.

And the translators of the KJV decided they wanted to honor

this tradition. That was in place of using the

word Lucifer to refer to Venus, which is a star in their eyes,

right? They didn't know that Venus

wasn't wasn't a star, that it's a planet.

They refer to Venus as the Morning Star or the Evening

star, and Lucifer is actually a reference to that.

So that's what's happening in the KJV.

However, our modern translations have chosen to actually

translate Son of the Morning Star instead, rather than say

Lucifer. So it says how you were falling

from heaven, O Daystar, Son of Dawn, how you are cut down to

the ground. You who laid the nations low,

you said in your hearts, I will ascend to heaven above the stars

of God. I will set my throne on high.

I will sit on the mounts of assembly in the far reaches of

the north. Then it says in verse 14, I will

send above the heights of the clouds.

I will make myself like the Most High, but you are brought down

to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.

So when you read that, you can see that there's something,

something else in view here. And then in Luke 1018, Jesus

says, I saw, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

And when he says that, that's a clear reference back to this

passage of Isaiah 14. And it also is saying Jesus is

saying I was there, I was there before that moment I was there,

which means he was already pre existent as God.

Now I believe there's a lot of discussion as to what happened.

My belief is Satan rebelled shortly after day 7 of creation.

Why do I believe this? Because all of God's creation

was good, some people will say, oh, maybe it happened.

Maybe the rebellion was before creation, maybe it was sometime

during creation. I believe God's creation was

good, His spiritual beings were good.

So that's why I believe that it happens.

After day 7 when he rebelled, he deceived 1/3 of the other

heavenly beings and they fell with him.

We arrive at this conclusion again by jumping to Revelation

12. Verses 3 and 4 tell us the

dragon swept 1/3 of the stars out of the sky and the stars

being the other angelic like beings, swept 1/3 of the stars

out of the sky and threw them to the earth.

And then a few verses later we learned that the dragon is of

course Satan. So that's the solicitor, the

person who's going to make the proposal to the woman.

Next, we examine his strategy. How does Satan work?

Well, the way Satan works is through deception.

Deception is the name of the game for Satan.

He takes the truth and he distorts it.

That's his. That's his MO in John 844 Jesus

was talking to the Pharisees and and he has some strong words for

them. I love this.

Can you imagine talking to the your religious leaders and

telling them these things? Here you are of your father the

devil and your will is to do your father's desires.

He's basically saying your little devils is what he's

saying. He was a murderer from the

beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no

truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of

his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Satan is a liar. In Second Corinthians 11/14,

Paul wrote about false apostles who who make themselves out to

be on the same side as Paul. They tried to look like genuine

apostles, but they aren't. Why?

Paul says even Satan disguises himself as an Angel of light.

Satan disguises himself as an Angel of light.

He can make himself look good. So if he can make himself look

like an Angel of light, then he can make his servants, these

false apostles, look like the real thing.

Satan loves to deceive Christ followers.

As we look at his strategy, let's briefly review what God

said in Genesis 2 verses 15 through 17.

Genesis 2:15–17

You see it there on the screen. The Lord God took the man and

put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat

of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of

good and evil, you shall not eat, for the day that you eat of

it, you shall surely die. God gave the humans permission

to eat of nearly every tree in the garden.

He'd given abundant provision and freedom.

They even had the freedom to eat of the tree of life, But God put

a limit on that freedom and prohibited them from eating the

fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

They could eat of every tree in the garden except for one.

This is this is a pretty good deal.

They had everything they needed. Now, Satan's strategy here is to

distort God's provision. He likes to distort God's

provision is what he's doing here.

He approached the woman, He said, did God actually say you

shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

No, that is not what God said. They could eat a basically the

entire garden and Eve's responses we may eat of the

fruit of the trees in the garden.

But God said this is this is her, her remembrance, if you

will, she's saying, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit

of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.

Neither shall you touch it lest you die.

Satan had portrayed God as narrow and restricting, focusing

her attention on the limitations that were in place rather than

on the abundant provision and freedom that was to be enjoyed

there in the garden. And Satan, part of distorting

God's provision is he also loves to manipulate the truth.

He manipulates the truth. He gave the woman a distorted

view of what God had supplied. And now he has the opportunity

to give her a distorted view of what God actually said.

He's misleading her, causing her to question God's words and and

actually trying to paint himself in a favorable light.

I think in a sense trying to prove that, oh look, I care more

about you than God does, he retorts.

You won't die. God knows that if you eat of the

fruit from that tree, your eyes will be opened and and you'll be

like him. You'll know good and evil, and

in a single interaction, Satan had called God's goodness and

his forthrightness into question.

He planted seeds of doubt in the woman's mind, speaking half

truths and essentially convincing the woman that God

was just being selfish and and preventing her from being like

him. Satan is a master manipulator.

Sure, her eyes would be open to the existence of right and

wrong, but actually she would become less like God rather than

more like him. Satan still uses this tactic

today. He manipulates the truth through

false religions and and cults. False religions and cults take.

Bits of truth, things that, oh, that sounds right or that sounds

interesting, and then they distort it.

They manipulate the truth to suit their own purposes.

I love when in our connect group, as we've been talking

about heretics, this phrase was, was brought up that said, you

know, some false religions or, or cults, they may use the same

language, but they're using a different dictionary, same

words, but they're using entirely different meanings.

We can see this in the new age. We can see this in the LDS

church, the Latter Day Saints, Mormons.

We can see this in a number of places.

Same words, different dictionaries.

So we've met the person, we've examined his strategy, but how

would he actually pull it off? So now we look at the seduction

of sin. First.

John 215 through 16 reads, Do not love the world or the things

in the world. If anyone loves the world, the

love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the

desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the

Father, but is from the world. This is John writing, like

thousands of years later. He's writing this.

The desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the

pride of life are the very same sins.

These are the very same sins the woman gave into in the garden.

That's what John is has in mind when he's writing these things.

He's recalling what happened there in the garden.

Genesis 36 tells us the tree was good for food.

That's the lust of the flesh. The desires of the flesh we we

need to eat, right? The tree also looked good.

That is the desires of the eyes. The lust of the eyes and the

tree would make her wise. That's the pride of life rearing

its head. The issues she dealt with are

the very same issues that we deal with today.

Nothing new is happening now. A couple weeks ago, when talking

about gender and sexuality, I made a comment that desires in

and of themselves aren't bad. I should have clarified that a

little more. So I'm doing that now because

it's entirely appropriate to what we're what we're examining

this morning. The point I was actually trying

to make was that temptation in and of itself isn't a sin.

You can be tempted, but not sin when you choose to not act or

entertain that temptation. However, entertaining sinful

thoughts, sinful desires is a sin because sin is a matter of

the heart. It's a matter of the heart.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says everyone who looks at

a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with

her in his heart. So the law dealt with the

externals and the Pharisees would focus on that as well.

The externals of of how we maintain our relationship with

God. That was that was the primary

focus of the law, I would say. But in the Sermon on the Mount,

Jesus double s down on what righteous living really is.

It's not just the externals. It's a matter of the heart what

happens in here. If we have a desire for

something outside of God's design, then that's is lust, and

that desire is considered sinful.

Once the woman started to entertain Satan's thoughts and

to be moved by the seduction of the tree's fruits, she'd already

sinned. She'd lusted after the fruits

and her pride brought a hunger that she'd not experienced

before. Prior to this moment, you see,

she was content with all God's provision, but now suddenly she

needs this one piece of fruit in a way that she'd not ever known

before. Did sin come from Satan?

No, He loves to tempt us and to pull us off course.

But sin comes from inside us, our own desires.

Sin comes from inside us, our own desires.

Where do we see this? James 1 verses 13 through 15

James 1:13–15

tells us how this works. Let no one say when he is

tempted. I am being tempted by God, For

God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

But each person is tempted when he was lured and enticed by his

own desire. Then desire, when it has

conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown,

brings forth death. We'll talk about death more next

week, but God is not the author of temptation.

He doesn't tempt anyone, James said.

Each person is tempted when he's lured and enticed.

By what? By his own desires.

The Greek word exelco pictures a fish.

Actually, in this passage, the the fish is naturally lured.

That word lure, the net, it's naturally lured in by the worm

or whatever it is that's being used as bait.

The fish doesn't ponder that worm and think, is this a good

worm? Is this a safe worm?

Can I have this worm or, or is this one of those bad worms that

that took one of my friends away?

The fish doesn't think about this, right?

The fish is simply one of God's creations, one of God's

creatures. It acts on what we call

instinct. It sees, it likes, it bites.

This is a primal desire importing the metaphor into the

human realm. We're tempted when we are lured

by our very own desires. This is where sin comes from

inside of us. In Matthew 1519, Jesus says out

of the heart come evil thoughts. Murder, adultery, sexual

immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

The heart is the foundation of who we are.

It's the root of our emotions, our desires and our will.

All these evil acts Jesus mentioned start in the heart as

it is the seat of our desires. The now late pastor and

theologian John MacArthur wrote. When sin penetrates the mind,

emotions and will, it will always be manifest in sinful

actions. Let me repeat that when sin

penetrates the mind, emotions and will, it will always be

manifest in sinful actions. The woman's first sin was in her

heart. Before she'd taken any steps,

before she'd done anything and rebelled against God physically,

the rebellion started internally in her heart.

Once that happened, she didn't have any defenses up to keep her

from taking that next step. She took the fruit and ate,

completely unaware that this simple act could have such a

massive impact. And she gave the fruit to the

man and he ate. But interestingly, though

scriptures clear, the man is at fault and all the women said the

man is at fault for bringing sin into the world.

Sure, the woman took that first bite, but the words of the text

basically let her off the hook. It says she was deceived by the

serpent, so it kind of casts her in a little bit of a different

space than it does the man. Romans 5 tells us sin came into

the world through one man, and death is now part of the human

experience because of that one man.

Then First Corinthians 1522 For as an Adam all die, so also in

Christ shall shall all be made alive.

First Timothy 214 Adam was not deceived, but the woman was

deceived and became a transgressor.

So Adam knew what he was doing. He wasn't deceived is what that

verse just told us. The onus of responsibility in

Scripture is clearly placed on the man.

The woman was deceived, but man engaged in a willful act of

disobedience. His actions then caused sin and

death to be passed on to the entire human race.

Satan had entered the scene set on plying his trade, which was

deception, by enticing the woman with the fruit of the tree.

She took it, she bit into it, gave it to the man, and he bit,

and the result was shame. The result was shame in a

metaphorical sense. Their their eyes were open to

see that they'd violated God's command.

Their eyes were now open to see they'd violated God's command.

In the aftermath of sin. They realized that there was a

right and there was a wrong. The innocence in their minds and

their and their bodies nakedness was now replaced by shame.

Shame for what they had done and shame at the realization that

they were naked. They quickly sought to cover

things up by making the first Speedo and bikini out of leaves

and hid from God. When they took a bite of the

fruit. They they probably expected to

have a greater understanding of life and how to live well in the

garden. Instead, they got more than they

had bargained for when they chose to redefine right and

wrong on their own terms. What happens when a child does

something wrong that they know they're not supposed to do?

They hide right. They make themselves scarce.

They they don't want you to see them.

And we'll see in the next verse that the man and woman in the

next week, that the man woman's response was to hide.

They'd already hidden the parts of their body over which they

felt shame and and now they would hide themselves completely

from God. The first game of hide and seek

ensues and God wins. Now, when people argue that

nudity is a return back to humanity's innocence, they're

dreaming. The page has been turned, and we

can't go back. To do so now is to be in denial

of the realities that set in on that fateful day, that day shame

enter the world, and to not experience shame today, which

there are people like this. To not experience shame is a

sign that someone has cast off all restraints that God had

previously put in place for our own good.

There are people who have cast off all restraints.

Everything is within the realm of possibility in their world

because they've lost shame. So how do we defend ourselves

against sin? Satan prowls around like a lion,

is what it says in First Peter, seeking whom he may devour.

He wants to chew you up. So what are our defenses?

In the last few minutes I want to share 4 defenses that we

have. First of all, the Holy Spirit is

a defense. Galatians 516 tells us to walk

by the Holy Spirit. That means that the Holy Spirit

controls us and all our actions and decisions, that even even

our thoughts are under His control.

I know this is hard, but the result of a life completely

surrendered to the Spirit's power and authority is growing

in Christ's likeness. We grow in Christ's likeness by

walking in the Spirit and daily being filled with Him.

So the Holy Spirit is is the first thing in our our arsenal

of defense. Next is the word Scripture.

That is, the word Second Timothy 316 and 17 says all Scripture is

breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for

reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness, that

the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Then Hebrews 412 For the Word of God is living and active,

sharper than any 2 edged sword, piercing to the division of soul

and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, discerning the thoughts

and intentions of the heart. God's inspired Word is

profitable for our daily lives and to bring us to maturity.

It tells us how to live, what to do, what not to do, what to

believe, what not to believe. It pierces the intentions of our

hearts, and it exposes our true motives.

That's the power of the Word. And God's Word longs to be

mulled over, read, studied, meditated on, memorized.

And when we do, the Word becomes a weapon in our battle against

Satan, just as Jesus himself modeled in his temptation that

he endured with Satan. 3rd is prayer.

Ephesians 618 encourages us to pray at all times, keeping alert

while also offering our request for others up to God.

When we're tempted, we should pray for the Holy Spirit to work

in us to overcome that temptation.

Prayer says I need God and I can't do this on my own.

Prayer is my declaration of dependence on him.

And our last weapon is the church, not the building I love.

The other night in Awana, Mike Meyer was up here teaching a

lesson. He's, he's asking what are some

good things about the church? You know what he's talking about

people. There's air conditioning.

I was like, that's great. Yes, yes, the building does have

air conditioning, but that is not what we're talking about.

The church is the people. Ephesians or Ecclesiastes 4/9

through 10 2 are better than one because they have a good reward

for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift

up his fellow, but woe to him who was alone when he falls and

has not another to lift him up. We weren't meant to live the

Christian life alone. God gave us a gift when he gave

us the church. The body of Christ makes us

better. It provides ample resources for

us to be encouraged in the faith.

That provides an opportunity for us to be real and authentic with

others about sin in our lives. And when we live in community,

we are stronger and better able to resist Satan's attacks.

Sin doesn't exist in a morally neutral world.

Sin is a self coronation. Choosing to say what I say

matters most. When the man and the woman

seated themselves on that throne, the throne of selfish

desires, everything collapsed and LED to chaos, brokenness,

and alienation. Humanity's relationship with God

had been severed and everything changed.

We'll talk about that next week. Let's bow our heads and close

our eyes. God, I pray that you would use

the words that's. I've just delivered that we

would each look into our hearts and lives to examine ourselves.

What is a specific area that I need to bring into conformity to

be like Christ? God, I pray that we would all

take that sin, offer it to you, confess it to you, Say, God,

will you forgive me for this sin?

Holy Spirit, I need you to fill me up so that I'm walking by the

power of the Holy Spirit and not walking in the flesh.

And may we not live in a place of shame, but understand that

our shame was crucified with Jesus on that cross.

We thank you for your forgiveness that you pour into

our lives and that you have made a way for a broken people to be

made right with the Holy God. We're broken, sinful people, but

we have a relationship with you through the blood of Jesus

Christ. So we thank you for that.

It's in Jesus name we pray, Amen.