Faithful Then, Faithful Now | Origin of Our Battle - Genesis 3:1-7 (Oct 16) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

And as we open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 3, verses 1 to 7, what I want us to see is the beginning of that battle that as human beings we find ourselves in still today.

Genesis 3:1–7

It's the battle between God and Satan.

It's a battle that we find ourselves in today.

Now, the problem for us is that many of us live our lives as though we're not in a battle at all.

And I can tell you, that's the worst way to be in a battle.

The worst kind of battle to be in is to be in a battle that you don't even know that you're in.

It's like the person who gets your credit card number and starts committing credit fraud, and before you even realize it, you wake up in the morning and thousands of thousands of dollars have been spent in Montreal at IKEA.

And you look over and you see your wife's still in the bed.

She didn't leave.

It's a possibility at IKEA.

You realize that you were in a battle and you didn't even know it.

And the battle that Satan has us in, I fear, is a battle that many of us are in and we don't even know it.

Let me ask you this question, Church.

When was the last time you thought about the reality of Satan, who is a personal being, and the reality that you are in his scope.

His target is on you.

He's looking to inflict serious harm in your life.

Maybe some of us are here and we know that we're in this battle and we fight our sin, fighting the desires of our flesh day in and day out.

But we just look at our lives and realize that in many ways we're losing the battle, aren't we?

Each of us, no matter how serious your walk in the Lord is, no matter how healthy your spiritual life is, each of us are losing the battle in some way, whether we know it or not.

And I don't specifically know you and how your various struggle is, and I don't know how specifically how you might be losing this battle, but I know that each of us walks in here this morning having experienced d defeat.

Maybe the defeat you've experienced is that you've refreshed the history on your web browser again after telling yourself that you wouldn't visit that site.

Maybe the defeat that you've experienced is the defeat of hiding a snack bag in your purse so you don't have to throw it in the trash so that your coworkers might see what kind of indulgence you partake in.

Maybe the defeat that you carry is the defeat of regret knowing the way that you spoke to your children and anger and your spouse, the person that you love most, in a way that you never even wanted to, you can never even imagine to speak to them like that.

Maybe your defeat is so great that it would be inappropriate for me even to mention it from the stage.

Or maybe the defeat that you experience is so small that if I were to mention it from the stage, you would you would be like, oh, I didn't even know that people even struggled with that small of a thing.

Whatever the case is, each of us walk in here having experienced defeat.

And as we look to Genesis 3 and see the origin of the battle that we find ourselves in today, thousands of years after Genesis 3, the true story of Genesis 3, what I want us to see is how to obtain victory in the battle.

How do we defeat our enemy, Satan?

And so let's read this text together, and then let's think about how we might obtain victory in this battle.

See, in Genesis chapter 3, Moses writes these words.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

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'll surely not die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you'll 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 its fruit and ate, and she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sowed fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths.

This is the origin of our battle, and I want you to know how you might obtain victory in this battle that we find ourselves in today.

And so the first thing, if you're taking notes that you can write down, is that if we want to find victory, first thing we need to do is know our enemy.

If you want victory in the battle, you need to know your enemy.

Now, as I was preparing for this, I was reminded of years ago at the previous church I was at, we took a staff retreat one day.

I don't know why we planned to do this, but it was one of the most childish things we could do.

As a staff, we went to Laser Tag.

And it was the middle of a workday.

There's not a better way to spend the middle of your workday.

We showed up, and as we were showing up, I saw the most glorious thing you can see at Laser Tag: a birthday party coming in.

And as an adult, that's one of the best things you can see because you are about to experience glory in its finest form, being able to annihilate all these seven and eight-year-olds who put on these laser tag packs and it's like dragging on the ground.

Now there is only one other thing that is equal to the joy of spending the middle of a work day annihilating little kids at laser tag, and that's the pain of being annihilated by little kids at laser tag.

I don't know if you ever played laser tag.

You probably haven't.

You're like, that's a really childish thing.

What are you, seven?

And uh maturity-wise, I'm like pretty close.

But when you play laser tag, you get this gun.

I don't know if you can even call it that.

It's like a laser pointer, and then you look at it, and if you get tagged, it makes all these sounds, you look at it, it tells you who hit you.

You look down, and at that seven-year-old birthday party, I would realize I got hit by fluffy buttons in 2011, and uh, it's a bad feeling.

But I like that because it tells you who's targeting you, tells you who's after you.

And I kind of wish I had the spiritual radar that showed me who's targeting me, but I don't really need it because the Bible tells us who our enemy is.

The Bible tells you that right now you have a target on your back.

Satan is looking to your demise.

He is your enemy.

And so in Genesis 3, it's another shocking turn in the text.

We read this: now the serpent.

Adam and Eve have been created at this point, and they've been commissioned to the mission that they're to live on, uh live in the garden, to work and keep the garden.

They're married together, now able to do it.

But now in verse 3, we read these words.

Now the serpent.

And you get this sense from the following dialogue that Eve doesn't know that the serpent is her enemy.

Eve is kind of lulled into this sense of peace.

She's okay with this talking serpent.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm going about my day, and a serpent shows up, I'm gonna be very freaked out.

And I'm gonna know immediately that that's my enemy.

In fact, this summer I was walking and I had no shoes on.

And then you ask why, and again, I go back to the whole seven-year-old maturity thing.

I had no shoes on in the grass, and I'm walking, and I take a step, and on my way down, I spot underneath where my foot is about to go.

This is one of those moments in life where everything goes slow motion.

You guys ever have that?

It's like this is probably what professional athletes have.

I don't have it, but at this moment I had it.

Everything's slow motion, and I see this snake underneath my foot, and I'm a 200-pound man, and it's really hard to get that momentum to stop going forward.

But I did the most beautiful lyrical dance move you could ever imagine and move my foot out of the way to get away from that snake.

Because I know that a snake is my enemy.

Now, Eve should have known that as well.

Because there is another pretty big indicator in the text.

The snake is talking to her.

This isn't Dr.

Doolittle.

In the garden, animals weren't created to talk.

In fact, them not talking was part of the dominion that Adam and Eve were to have over them.

And so we still realize this today.

As human beings, we can talk and we can communicate to each other.

It's something that your dogs can't do.

What do dogs do when they see each other?

They don't start having a conversation, they just stare at each other and they kind of do this wiggle dance thing because they just can't talk.

They can't really communicate.

And yet the serpent is in the garden, and the serpent is talking to Eve.

Who's the serpent?

Well, theologians have kind of debated this because in the text it doesn't say that Satan is the serpent.

And certainly, even in the Old Testament, there's not a fully fleshed-out theology of Satan even being a personal being.

But what we do know is that the serpent is God's enemy because the serpent is called crafty.

And it's ultimately the serpent that leads to the demise of God's paradise, of God's plan.

But we also know that the serpent is Satan because in Revelation 20 it very clearly says it.

Look what it says in Revelation 20, verse 2.

Revelation 20:2

This is speaking of Jesus.

He sees the dragon, which in scripture is really the same thing as a serpent, it's a flying serpent.

But then it John defines who that dragon is, that ancient serpent, and further defines who the serpent is, who is the devil and Satan.

And so we understand reading back in this text is that the serpent is Satan somehow filling this snake and speaking through it to Eve.

Now, what do we know about the serpent?

Look what the text says.

The text says that the serpent is crafty.

This word crafty is in its meaning is neutral.

It doesn't necessarily mean to be crafty in a good way or a bad way.

Proverbs will speak of it as crafty in a sense of prudence, like you know how to control your situation or your finances to eventually work out for your good.

That's what it means to be prudent.

But here it's more of kind of like this cunning attribute of Satan.

It's that he knows how to work out a situation to get his own desire.

Satan is crafty because he comes into the garden with a plan, and it's an evil plan.

And he comes into the garden to manipulate Eve and to manipulate Adam.

And the failure of the fall really happens in Genesis 3, verse 1, when Eve does not recognize her enemy, the serpent, who is crafty in the garden, the serpent that she was to have dominion over.

Genesis 3:1

Instead of keeping the garden and getting the serpent out, instead of protecting the garden, she lets the serpent in.

And Christian, as we think about the relevance to our life, I wonder in what ways Satan might be attacking you.

When was the last time that you thought about Satan's attack on you?

When was the last time that you thought about the ways that Satan might be specifically targeting you in your days in order to make you fall away from the Lord, in order to make you sin, in order and to entice your sinful desire.

See, this is what the scriptures say.

This is what Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 8.

1 Peter 5:8

He warns the church.

He says, Be sober-minded, be watchful.

The devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

This is the reality of the world that we live in.

Satan is a personal being.

Satan is real, and scripture says that he's prowling around like a lion, waiting to devour someone.

I thought about a really awesome sermon illustration, but I brought it up to Joel and he said we shouldn't do it.

I thought we should like put a lion out in the parking lot after the service so that when people go out, they remember what it should be like to live when Satan is around.

There's a lion out in the parking lot, you would walk out pretty freaked out, wouldn't you?

Where's that lion?

You bring in the kids.

Okay, run, run.

When there's a lion around, you walk around with care, you're sober-minded, you're watchful.

To be watchful and sober-minded in light of the fact that Satan is a prowling lion is to know exactly how Satan might have influence on your life.

In fact, one of the ways that I can illustrate this is in my marriage, my wife goes through seasons where she makes it her job.

You know, last week we talked about the wife being a helper, and every once in a while, I think she forgets that.

She makes it her job to help me soil my pants by scaring me.

And so she'll go through seasons where I feel like she lulls me in the sense of security, but then she starts to just scare me all the time.

And I'm a very scarable person, and so she'll jump out of the corner, blah! And I'll freak out.

And she seems to get a sense of pleasure out of that, and I can see the wives laughing that they do too.

Now, in those seasons, I do something.

When I walk into the house, and that strange, eerie quiet is over the house that should not be in a house with three small children in it.

I start looking in all the places that I know that she can be hiding.

I know she's around here somewhere.

I'm looking for feet under the curtains, I'm looking under the table, I'm looking around the corners, I'm walking around with care because I know where she might be hiding to scare me.

And it's the same thing we are to do because of the reality of Satan against us.

We are to walk in this world with care, and we are to know the ways that Satan might be specifically targeting us.

And so let me ask you, Christian, do you know how Satan is targeting you?

Do you know what foothold he might have in your life?

Do you know where that lion is prowling, seeking to devour you?

If you do, be watchful in that area.

And so some of us we have problems with anger.

And if we think about our anger, this is just an example of one way that you might be watchful.

If we think about that anger, it always happens at the end of the day, after a long day of work, you're coming home and you're hungry, and you come home, and at that very moment you can trust that Satan is going to have a juicy temptation for you, something that you need to get angry about, something that you feel justified to get angry about.

Someone has crossed your path.

And this is the way that Satan works.

He seeks our destruction.

He's a prowling lion seeking to devour, setting up scenarios for you to be tempted to sin.

And if that's the case, you need to do everything on your drive home from work, praying that God would give you power, asking your wife to keep you accountable, that you might not be angry.

Because Satan is a prowling lion seeking your destruction.

Church, know your enemy, know your enemy.

Second thing we need to do is know your enemy's tactics.

If you're gonna win the battle, you need to know your enemy's tactics.

And so what we see in verses two to five is Satan's strategy.

And it's an age-old strategy that he used on Eve, and it's the age-old strategy that he's using on us today.

And the strategy is threefold.

Satan's strategy in your life is to lie to you, to lure you, and to leave.

He lies, he lures, and he leaves.

And so look first at how Satan lies to the woman.

He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

I wonder if in the text, maybe this is somewhere hidden in the Hebrew, if Satan had kind of had like a valley girl accent to that when he said, Did God actually say?

Because what Satan is doing is trying to make Eve disbelieve God.

He's lying to Eve.

This is who Satan is.

The very identity of Satan is to be a liar.

This is why Jesus in John chapter 8, verse 44, said this about Satan.

John 8:44

He said he was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there's no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character.

For he is a liar and the father of lies.

This is who Satan is.

There is no truth in him, there is only lies.

If you prick Satan, he bleeds lies.

He is a liar.

At the very core of his being, he lies.

And so as he finds himself in the presence of eating, he lies to her.

And as he targets us, he targets us with lies.

And I want you to notice that the first lie that he targets us with is lies about God.

So that what he says to Eve is, did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

Now let's do some theology work here, okay?

Let's answer that question that Satan asked to Eve.

Did God really say that?

No, God did not say that.

And that should have been the end of the case right there.

Eve should have been able to stand up with the truth of God's word that he had already spoken to her and say, No, that's not what God said.

In fact, it's the very opposite of what God said, isn't it?

Look at what he says in chapter 2, verse 16.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree in the garden.

See, what Satan wants to do in our lives is convince us that God is not who he says he is.

And what Satan wants to do is convince us that instead of God being good to us, God is actually withholding good from us.

And so you need to understand that every time you sin, you fall into the same lie.

You know what I hear time and time again in the counseling room as I talk about sin?

Well, I sinned because of this circumstance and because this and that and all these excuses, this list of excuses of why we sinned.

You know what the very heart of your sin is?

It is the fact that you wanted to do it.

In that moment of your sin, you believed, because of Satan's lie to you, you believed that God was withholding something good from you.

You believed in that moment of your sin that walking the path of disobedience would bring you greater joy than walking the path of obedience that God promised that if you walk, it will bring blessing into your life.

It's the age-old lie that each of us fall into day in and day out that our sin will get us something that God is withholding from us.

And so the battle against Satan's battle with us really requires that we trust that God is for our good.

It requires that we trust that God is for our greatest joy.

I love what C.S.

Lewis says.

He has this amazing quote, and I'm sure you've seen this before, but it's so good.

He says, It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.

We're half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.

Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea.

We are far too easily pleased.

Church, you know this about your sin?

Every sin that you commit is a is you buying in, investing in this lie that Satan is whispering into your ear that you can find more joy outside of God than you can find in God.

And it just is not true.

God created Adam and Eve in a garden where they could partake of every tree created specifically for their joy.

And God created you in a world where He's given you every command.

He's given you His revealed will that you might follow it and understand true joy and true satisfaction.

And yet so many of us believe this lie.

So many of us believe the lie.

It's like putting sand into your car, into your gas tank, thinking that that's a performance tune up tune-up.

It's just not.

You're not created for disobedience.

You are created for obedience.

And so Satan lies about God, but then he changes the lie in verse 2.

Remember that Satan is crafty, and so he won't dwell on one subject long enough for Eve to understand what's going on.

So he moves his lie.

Now he's gonna lie about Eve.

And so Eve responds to him in verse 2, saying, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, and recognize that Eve doesn't respond properly with God's truth.

She doesn't quote it.

You remember we just read that what God actually said to her is that she may eat of every tree.

But look what the serpent says in verse 4.

He says, You will surely not die.

For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.

And now Satan's not so worried about lying about God.

Satan now wants to lie about Eve's identity.

And really, this whole encounter is a lie about Eve's identity.

See, Eve was put in the garden to have dominion over it.

Eve was put in the garden to have dominion over all the animals.

She was to work and keep the garden.

The animals were to report to her.

She was a king and queen with Adam on the garden.

And now this snake is coming and speaking to her as though she as though he has the same authority.

Questioning God's authority.

Was created to have her identity in the fact that she has dominion over the snake, and now the snake is having dominion over her.

Not only that, Eve was created to be in relationship with God.

And the very thing that the serpent is attacking is her identity.

That her greatest joy is not found in being a child of God, is not found in being obedient to God, but rather is found in something that God is withholding from her.

And the same battle is true for us.

The battle against our sin is really a battle against believing our identity is in Jesus Christ.

This is why so often in Scripture, when people talk about, when God talks about our battle against sin, it goes straight to the heart of where our identity is placed.

The reason why we do not sin is because we are children of God.

Let me give you an example.

Look what it says in Colossians chapter 3.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 and 2, Paul is calling the church to do something very specifically.

Colossians 3:1

He says, if you've been raised with Christ, you see that identity marker, you've been raised with Christ.

It's who you are.

Do you know that church?

If you place your faith in Jesus, you have been raised with him with new life.

You're living with resurrected power now.

And so Paul says, if this is your identity, if you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above.

Where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your mind on things above, not on things below.

Do you see this?

What you do for God comes from your understanding of your identity in God.

But Paul takes it a step further.

He explains why we need to do this, why we need to set our mind on things above.

Look what he says in Colossians 3, verse 3.

Colossians 3:3

He says, For this is why you do this, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

This is who you are.

Your life is in Christ.

Your life is not in your flesh.

Your joy is not found in pursuing the things of this world.

You are a Christian.

Having been raised to new life, having died to your old self, you are now living in Christ.

And so set your mind on the things above.

And the battle that we are to wage against Satan is really a battle of believing that we are who God says we are.

That we are not created to find joy in the things of this world, that we are not created to find pleasure on the path of disobedience, but we are created for God to live for him.

This is our identity, and this is what Satan is lying about, is who we are.

This is why Satan is crafty, because he's a liar, but he's also crafty because he lures.

And so I want you to understand how Satan tempts us.

Notice that Satan doesn't just come to Eve with the forbidden fruit in his mouth and say, hey, eat this.

Instead, Satan is a master lure.

And he lures Eve along the path of disobedience, slowly, step by step, leading her to her own destruction and to her own death.

See, if the serpent came with just an apple in his mouth and said, Hey, eat this, surely Eve would have been like, No way am I doing that.

I know what God said about that apple.

God promised one thing about that fruit, whatever kind of fruit it was, whether it was an apple or a pear, I don't know, whatever it was.

God said, If I eat that, I will die.

No way, serpent, get out of here.

Satan doesn't do that.

He's smarter than that.

He lures the woman.

And so we notice in verse 2 that he doesn't actually assert any lie at that point.

He just asks the question Did God say you shall not eat of any tree?

There's no truth or falsehood there.

It's just a simple question.

It's not until verse 4 that God asserts, that Satan asserts the lie.

For God knows that you will eat of it, that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God.

Satan is luring her along.

And it's the same thing that Satan does to us.

Satan doesn't come to us with this juicy sin on a platter for us to partake in, because he knows that in our strongest moments, we would just say, no way, I'm not partaking in that.

What Satan does is he lures us along with tiny little mistakes.

Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, until eventually he gets what he desires.

We partake in the evil that he wants us to partake in.

This is how Satan works.

And so I want to put up a quote on the screen, and this is a quote that Satan has never said, okay?

This is probably a pretty weird quote in the history of quotes that you've heard in the church, but we're gonna put it up there anyways, okay?

Now understand, this was never said by Satan.

It says this hey, so I've run a cost-benefit analysis, and if you view pornography again, the benefit is that you're gonna feel some immediate pleasure, a small buzz.

However, the cost is this: it may send you to hell, it does not glorify God with your body, it's poisonous, fleeting pleasure, it's foolishly wastes your life, it betrays your spouse and children, it ruins your mind and conscience, and it participates in sex slavery.

What's the wiser choice?

See, if Satan came to us with a temptation like that, we would be like, Well, okay, I I totally know the wiser choice here.

I'm not gonna do that.

Instead, what Satan does is he hides the cost and he shows you the benefit.

Satan is a master fisher.

He knows how to catch you, he knows how to lure you in.

This past summer, my wife and I were at a cottage, and I have this fond love of fishing.

I only do it pretty much once a week, and I and I go really hard for that one week.

I love fishing, but once a week I need to go to the fishing store and resupply.

And so we were in a small town and we went to this fishing store, and it was like the oldest man that I've ever seen that ran this fishing store.

And when you walk into a store like that, you get excited because this guy has fished.

His life has been fishing.

And so I started talking to him about this lure, about all these lures and the lake that I'm on and the kind of fish I want to buy, and I came to understand this man knows how to fish.

He could explain every kind of lure, when to use it, what it'll catch.

He talked to us about our lake, where to fish, how to catch the big fish on our lake.

He knew all the lakes around, he knew how to catch all the fish around.

I'm sure that he's caught every single fish that's been in every one of those lakes.

He's a master fisher.

The same reality is true about Satan.

He knows how to lure you into sin.

Think about this.

How long have you been a Christian?

Maybe some of you.

Ten years, twenty years, thirty years, forty years, fifty years, six years, just in case there's really any old people in here who want some comfort in this time.

You've been some Christian, a Christian for this long time.

And you've been trying to battle against Satan for this long time.

How long has Satan been fishing?

How long has he been luring?

For thousands of years.

He has perfected the art of luring people to sin.

What hope do you have?

Satan is master.

He knows how to present sin to you.

And he shows you the bait and he hides you the hook.

He knows how to catch you in sin.

He knows how to lure you to sin.

And this is his tactic.

First he'll lie, then he'll lure, but then I want you to notice that the last thing he does is leave.

After verse 4, when Satan speaks to Eve, notice that he doesn't come up again.

He's gone.

And like the snake he is, he has slithered off for Eve in verses six and seven to partake in the sin that he has been luring her along to.

And this is the reality of sin.

This is the reality of Satan's desire that all that he desires is that you sin.

He wants nothing beyond that.

He just wants your destruction.

This is why Satan doesn't have a following.

He doesn't want a following.

Satan is just a murderer.

All that he wants is death.

All that he wants is eternal death.

This is who Satan is.

This is his very identity.

And you need to know, Christian, that he is luring and lying to you so that he can achieve his end.

This is his tactic.

The next thing I want you to see is that if we're going to win the battle, we need to know our enemy's desire.

You need to know our enemy's desire.

And so in verses 6 and 7, as he accomplishes what he was seeking to do by his craftiness, we see exactly what Satan's desire is.

See, Satan's desire for your life is your corruption.

This is what Satan wanted.

He was a murderer from the beginning.

All he wants is Adam and Eve's death, and he desires that they be corrupt.

So look what happens in verse 6.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.

She took its fruit.

See, what Satan is aiming at is the corruption of Eve's heart.

He wants to turn the world upside down so that Eve and you love the things that you hate, should hate, and hate the things that you should love.

This is the corruption that Satan is after.

He wants our hearts to be stained with sin, with an oil that we cannot remove by any amount of vigorous scrubbing.

He desires our corruption.

And so he achieves that end.

So that the woman saw the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The very tree that God said, if you eat of this tree, you will die.

She saw that tree, and what did she believe about it in that moment?

She believed that it was good.

Last week we had a gasp moment in scripture, and we did that really well, so I want to do it again this week.

Because when something's going good, you should keep on running with it.

Because we've heard this word good a few times in Genesis 1 to 3, haven't we?

Remember in Genesis 1 when after each day God created the world and he stood back and he said, This is good.

And then he created Adam and Eve, and he stepped back and he said, This is very good.

And then in chapter 2, Adam was without Eve, and he said, This is not good.

And so he creates Adam, a wife.

And again, they step back and you see the goodness of what God has done.

But look at what has happened in Eve's heart now.

It's the very thing that happens in our heart every time we sin.

It is a corruption, it is a reversal.

Now God, now Eve is looking at what is not good, the very food that will lead to her death, and she is saying it is good.

Now the very food that she should not find any delight in, because the only thing that God promised was that it would lead to her death.

She's looking at this thing and seeing that it's a delight to the eyes.

The very thing in the garden that should put her off, she desires.

This is the reality of the grip that Satan has on your life.

Your heart has the same problem.

Because of Adam and Eve's sin, we are all born with the same heart condition.

Our heart is corrupt.

We love the things that we should hate.

We hate the things that we should love.

This is why Jesus has come into the world, and so many have rejected him.

In fact, Jesus said these very words in John chapter 3.

John 3 · chapter mention

In John chapter 3, verse 19, he said, Light has come into the world, but look what happened.

John 3:19

People loved the darkness.

And Jesus has come to this world.

He walked this very ground.

He breathed this very air.

He ate food on this world.

He was a physical man, and light had come to this world.

And Jesus proclaimed, light, salvation, life is here.

He said, Come to me and you'll never thirst again.

All that Jesus spoke, his whole life was good news that if you believed, you could walk on the path of eternal joy, eternal satisfaction, eternal life.

And Jesus has been here and he preached that message.

And why did nobody follow?

Because our heart condition is corruption.

We love darkness more than we love light.

And so Jesus comes and he proclaims this message of good news, or some messenger comes into your life and speaks the message of good news to you, or I'm speaking right now from the word of God, and as you hear God's word, instead of loving the light, you love the darkness.

Why is that?

It's because our very hearts are corrupted by sin.

We look at the things that lead to our death and we think this thing is good for food.

This is what Satan desires.

This is why Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 4, says these words about Satan.

2 Corinthians 4:4

He says, in their case, the God of this world, that is Satan himself, has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of God, of Christ, who is the image of God.

See, Satan knows that if your eyes were opened, if the light was turned on in the dark room of your heart, you would immediately see how glorious Jesus is.

You would immediately see how good Jesus is.

You would immediately see how worth it it is for you to give up your whole life and follow Jesus.

And so he turns off the lights, he darkens the room, he blinds your eyes so that you cannot see.

So that you cannot see taste.

See, if you could just taste the Lord, if you could just know him, if you could just experience Christ, you would taste and see that the Lord is good.

But Satan is at work in your life if you are an unbeliever.

He is at work to keep you from tasting the sweetness of following Jesus Christ, of experiencing the joy that Jesus promises when he says, If you come to me, you will have water of which if you drink you will never thirst again.

This is what Satan desires.

He said, Desires are corruption.

Notice that it's the first heart corruption that then leads to acts of corruption.

So that first Adam and Eve a desire in their heart to take the fruit.

But then at the end of verse 6, again, as rapidly as she desired, she took its fruit.

She ate and she gave.

She commits the acts of sin.

And isn't that how fast sin happens in your own heart?

Don't you find yourself walking along one day, everything's good.

I'm gonna follow the Lord today.

I'm not gonna fall into that sin that I've been struggling with so much.

And then in a moment, uh as although someone flicks a switch in your heart, you desire to do that thing, you desire to burst out into anger, you desire to do that thing you said you would never do again.

You just in that moment, it's like you have no control.

You commit the act.

Why is it?

It's because your heart is corrupt.

It's because your heart is corrupt, and it just flicks like a switch, and you become this person that you thought you never could be, and that you in the morning you never wanted to be, and now you're doing this thing that you never imagined you would actually do.

It's because our hearts are corrupt, and this is Satan's desire, is that he just drags you deeper and deeper into that corruption.

Why does he want you to corrupt be to corrupt ultimately because he wants you to be condemned?

Satan's desire is your corruption, because Satan's ultimate desire is your condemnation.

That's why in verse 7, I'm sure Satan was watching from the bushes, and he was so happy about what happened in verse 7.

The eyes of both were opened, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Remember at the end of chapter 2, Adam and Eve were in the garden and they were naked and without shame.

They had no guilt, no sin.

They were living in God's garden, experiencing the pleasure of God's garden.

Now that shame enters into their life.

You know, Satan promised them knowledge, didn't he?

And there was some partial truth to Satan's knowledge because they did gain knowledge.

They gained the knowledge of what it's like to be a sinner.

They gained the knowledge of the fear of the Lord, of the Lord, of what it's like to stand in the presence of a holy God, knowing that you have disobeyed his command, knowing that you have lived in a way that is contrary to the way that he created you to live.

This is the knowledge that each of us need the knowledge of what our sin deserves.

In that very moment, Adam and Eve had never tasted this before.

They'd never never experienced this before.

They realized that they deserved death because they had eaten the forbidden fruit.

It's just justice.

That's what God said.

It was only a few verses ago that God said, if you eat this fruit, you will die.

Some of us look at God and we say we say, How could God, how, how could God love, how could he be a God of love and yet be a God that's so committed to the eternal damnation of sinners?

How can hell, the God of hell and the God of heaven, be the same God?

How can God be loving and send people to eternal separation from Him?

It's because this God is a God of justice.

Don't you desire justice in this world?

Don't you desire that people who do wrong pay the penalty for doing wrong?

I know you do.

It's in our human hearts to desire justice.

And this is the very justice that God loves.

It's the justice that He spoke to Adam and Eve and said, if you eat of that fruit, you will die.

And it's the justice that Adam and Eve in this moment experience a knowledge of that because they have eaten this fruit, they deserve death.

There is a penalty coming because of their sin.

They experience a knowledge of their condemnation, to know what it's like to be condemned, to know what it's like to know, to hear in the next verse that we're going to read next week, that God is coming and walking towards them.

And instead of knowing him as an intimate father, now they know him as an impending judge.

Their doom is coming.

And if you're here and you do not know Christ, it would not be loving for me to not speak to you in this moment.

And with all the energy and all the love and all the passion that I have in my heart to charge you to follow and run to Christ at this very moment.

Don't even wait till the end of the service to talk to someone in your heart of hearts.

Turn to Christ.

Turn to Christ and find in him a sufficient savior.

Satan desires our corruption, he desires our condemnation.

The last thing I want you to know in order to win the battle, you need to know your enemy's downfall.

Do you know what your enemy's downfall is?

You know what the greatest problem with Satan's plan is?

The greatest problem with Satan's plan is that the God of Adam and Eve love Adam and Eve too much.

Adam and Eve's God loves them too much to let the enemy win.

He's too committed to their life.

And Satan's greatest downfall, Satan's greatest weakness, is that God is a God who loves salvation.

You know, it's an interesting question.

Why doesn't God just deal with a serpent right away and then get on with paradise again?

Isn't that what you do?

If there is a serpent who bit one of your kids, the first thing you do would do is stomp the head of the serpent.

Jesus doesn't do that, doesn't he?

In fact, it takes some time before he eventually gets to Genesis 3.15, where he promises that in coming days in Genesis 15, he says he'll bruise the head of the serpent, and the serpent will bruise his heel, but God doesn't deal with the serpent right away.

Isn't that what we'd do?

I know that's a natural reaction of fathers when there's something in the house, isn't there?

When there's a bug or a spider, which that's their job, isn't it, to go and deal with that spider.

Now I say that, and that's really hypocritical of me, because my wife and I, we have the kind of like this thing going on, and she's not in here, so if you could not tell her about this because she doesn't know about it, that'd be great.

But she'll take a cup and put it over a bug in our house, and I'll find that cup and take the cup and let the bug free.

Because I have a real problem with killing a bug after it's been held in captivity for however long it took me to find that cup.

So please don't tell her if she's in kids' ministry.

If she doesn't hear that, that'll be a great thing that we've got going, just keep it going.

But what we should do, if I was a loving husband and following the command to biblical manhood, we should deal with the thing that's in our house.

Now, if it was a snake, just a side note, this is not part, this was not in the manuscript, but I just feel the need to justify myself.

If it was a snake, I'd get it out of the house, okay?

I would do that.

But why doesn't God do that?

Why does he then let the serpent rule so that by the time the New Testament comes, it says that Satan is the prince of the power of the air?

You know why God does that?

It's because he loves his children so much that he's not willing to deal with their enemy without dealing with their corruption.

If God just crushed the head of the serpent in the garden, Adam and Eve would still be sinners.

They would still deserve condemnation.

And throughout the history of God's people, God would deal with the serpent from time to time.

In fact, thousands of years later, Moses would stand before Pharaoh, and Pharaoh worshipped two gods, and they were both represented by a snake.

And on the crown of Pharaoh, Moses would look at Pharaoh in his eyes in fear as he looked at the strongest man on the face of the planet, and he would see the emblem of God's greatest enemy on the crown of Pharaoh, the snake.

And at one point in Exodus, Pharaoh would bring his strongest magicians to create all these snakes, and the snakes would start swarming around.

You remember what Moses did?

He threw a staff on the ground and it became a snake.

And what did the snake that God created do?

It swallowed up all the other snakes.

And what's God doing in that time?

Proclaiming a message that the battle is the Lord.

Lords, and the Lord is going to win it.

And just like this snake that is on God's side swallowed up all of his enemies.

So Pharaoh, a few days later, is gonna walk through the walls of the Red Sea.

And God, with the snap of his fingers, the power he has, is gonna bring the walls of water down on Pharaoh, and just like the snakes were swallowed.

So is Pharaoh gonna be swallowed.

Thousands of years later, David would stand before a giant named Goliath.

You know what it says that Goliath wore?

This is really interesting.

It says that he wore a suit of scales.

The only other time that that word is used is to speak of serpents.

And so David stands before this giant Goliath, who nobody has the power to face.

And what does David say to the Goliath?

He says, This battle belongs to God.

And Satan, or sorry, David crushes the head of that giant serpent, Goliath.

See, throughout human history, God would deal with his enemy.

But the problem is that he, in dealing with the enemy, could not deal with the corruption of their hearts.

So that those very same people that he delivered through the Red Sea, years later, would begin worshiping a golden calf.

Do you remember what happens at the end of Exodus?

When the people of God worship a golden calf, God sends judgment on them and snakes start coming out.

You can imagine the chaos of these snakes.

Every person they bite starts dying.

And it's a message of the justice of God.

Because of their sin, because they've worshipped this golden calf, they deserve death.

And so what does Moses and Aaron do?

They set up a staff, they spear a snake on the staff, and they say, Whoever looks to that staff shall live.

God deals with their sin.

He provides life for them.

And Jesus comes in John chapter 3, verse 14.

John 3:14

He would say, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man be lifted up.

That whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

The enemy of your own corruption, the enemy of your own sin.

He loved his children so much that he would send his son to die on a cross.

And his son would be lifted up on a cross, just like that snake was.

And for a moment, his son would be treated as an enemy of God.

And God would remove all of his love and place on his son all of his wrath.

He would treat Jesus like he should have treated the serpent in the garden.

He should have in that moment crushed the serpent.

Instead, he waited to crush his own son, so that whoever today looks to Jesus finds eternal life.

They find cleansing from the corruption that Satan has brought into them through Adam and Eve.

And they find freedom from the condemnation that has been brought in because of their sin.

So that Paul can say in Romans chapter 8, verse 1, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1

Hey, church, can I say that again?

Because I think some of us need to hear a specific word in there.

There is therefore now no.

You know what that means?

Satan has no power in your life.

When Satan puts his target on you today, when Satan comes to you to remind you of your condemnation, to remind you of how sinful you are, to remind you that you don't deserve God's love, that you don't deserve God's mercy, that you don't deserve God's grace.

You know what you do?

You hold up your bill of debt.

And you say, Look, Satan, look, this thing you're pointing out that I don't deserve, that I deserve condemnation for, it's not on my bill of debt.

I don't have a debt anymore.

It's wiped clean.

Jesus has taken every debt that I owed and wiped it clean on the cross.

He's paid for it all.

And look at my transaction record, look at all these sins that I've committed.

Look at every one of them says paid.

So many sins, so many reasons we deserve condemnation, so many reasons we deserve eternal separation.

But Jesus has come and wiped this lake clean so that you can have, instead of eternal condemnation, eternal life in him.

And now Satan has no power in your life.

Even the temptations that he might successfully lead you to in the future, those sins have already been paid for.

There is no condemnation for them.

Satan prowls around like a lion, but he's got no teeth in your life.

Because Jesus has already delivered the victory.

And Satan has already experienced his downfall.

And there is no condemnation for those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ.

This is the battle that we wage war in.

It's a battle that has been won for us on the behalf of Christ.

Church, let's pray.

Father, we give you all the praise.

God, as we consider the battle that we are in, we recognize, Lord, that we can do nothing to win it.

The enemy is too great, his power too strong, our flesh too weak.

And yet our God is so great that there is no chance that Satan can ever have any sort of victory over those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ.

And so, God, it's in this moment that our hearts rejoice in knowing that you have won.

Lord, in knowing the truth that you have done what you said you would do.

Lord, you said you would crush the head of the serpent, and on the cross, you crushed the head of the serpent, and your heel was bruised.

Lord, the cross was great cost to you as you gave your one and only Son, so that we might have eternal life.

God, you've done what you said you would do.

And so, Lord, I pray for our church, Lord, I pray for each person in this room.

Lord, for each person listening to this message, God, I pray that they would experience the victory that you have already won on the cross.

Lord, we experience defeat in so many ways.

And God, we just we're so sick of it.

I'm so sick of it.

I'm so sick of experiencing defeat, even though the victory's already been won.

This is not who I am anymore, Lord.

It's not who we are anymore.

We are not those who are defeated.

We are more than conquerors in Christ.

And so, Lord, we say to death, Oh death, where is your sting?

Oh death, where is your victory?

And God, we rejoice in this truth that it has no sting, it has no victory.

The victory is yours because the battle belongs to you.

And so, God, we praise you and we respond to you now to give you the praise of our hearts, God.

Amen.