Troy a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Solicitor; Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." The Lord God had made a lot of animals, as we well know, that creation of animals is discussed back in the first chapter. And the Lord made a wonderful world of animals, including reptiles. More than any other animal which God had made, this particular serpent was wise and the reason he was wise is because Satan himself, that fallen angel, Lucifer, son of the morning who had been thrown out of heaven for his rebellion, had moved into that reptile and was speaking through that reptile the supernatural wisdom that he possessed as a fallen angel. This is a real reptile, a reptile--the term nachash as sometimes synonymous with tannin which is the word for dragon. Sometimes serpent, sometimes dragon and that's consistent with Revelation 12:9, Revelation 20 verse 2 which says of Satan that he is the serpent and the dragon. Some kind of an upright reptile who approached Eve, but really it was Satan. Satan, that fallen angel, that supernatural enemy of God and man, wiser more cunning than any animal because literally this animal had the very mind of the supernatural being Satan. He had fallen, as we remember from Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. We also remember from Revelation 12 that when he fell he took a third of the angels with him. So it is Satan who speaks through this animal and that is why this animal is more cunning, more wise, more intelligent than any other animal.
Satan has one objective in mind, he is the solicitor of evil. He wants to solicit Eve and Adam into sin. He wants to solicit their disobedience to God. He wants to corrupt God's good creation.
The strategy unfolds in the middle of verse 1 down through the end of verse 5. The solicitor is Satan, the strategy is lies, or deception...if you will. What Satan needs to do to effect the result he wants is to create a lie that Eve believes. He had to deceive her. And that is why Jesus in John 8:44 called Satan the father of lies. Here you have the first lie, as far as we know, ever told. And that is what Satan does, he lies. And mark this down. He lies about two things...one, he lies about the character of God, and he lies about the Word of God. And that's where his assault is inevitably directed.
Satan, who has fallen himself at this point, Satan who has taken a third of the angels along with him in the rebellion, moves in to target God's highest creation in the natural world, man. Man must have been a novel creature to Satan. He had never since his own creation seen anyone who could procreate. There was no procreation, of course, in the Godhead, the trinity was eternal. There was no procreation among animals, among angels, I mean. There were, as the New Testament says, neither marry or given in marriage. Angels were all created at the same time and there are as many now as there ever has been, although some now are fallen and some are holy. But this was a creature who had the capacity of angels to consciously worship God and to have relationships and the relationship with the living God, but a creature who could reproduce. This was something very different than what Satan had experienced. I'm not sure that Satan knew that by getting Eve to sin he could corrupt the whole of humanity that would come from Eve, but it was certainly a possibility.
Satan moves in then as the originator of lies and his lies always have to do with the character of God and the Word of God. And if you understand that then you understand that his strategy is basically very simple. He disguises himself, however, as an angel of light, according to 2 Corinthians 11:14. He wants you to believe that he is telling you the truth and God, the God of the Bible, is the liar. That's the strategy. If he can get you to believe that the character of God can't be trusted and therefore the Word of God can't be trusted but he can be trusted, then he has accomplished his goal. And that's essentially what he did with Eve. He got her to doubt the character of God, doubt the Word of God and believe Satan...and that's exactly what he does in the world even in your life and mine.
Only in lying is Satan consistent, okay? That's one of the things you learn by studying Satan and demonology, as it's called. One of the things you learn is that there's a massive amount of inconsistency in the kingdom of darkness. The kingdom of darkness can't get its act together because there really is no sovereign over the kingdom of darkness that can control it. Satan obviously is the leader but he cannot control what his wicked minions and demons do and so there is massive inconsistency in the kingdom of darkness. But in one thing they are constant and consistent, and that is in lying. They are void of the truth. And everything coming out of that kingdom is deceptive.
Satan approaches Eve with what sounds like an innocent question from an interested observer who really is concerned for Eve's well being. Satan passes himself off, first of all, as just a sort of neutral observer asking a very innocuous question of Eve. He moves from being an innocent observer to convincing Eve that he really is the one who has her well-being in view and that if he can get her to follow him, she will reach great heights of bliss and blessing that God would like to deprive her of. He tells Eve in so many words that he knows more than God knows and he also knows things about God that Eve doesn't know because God doesn't want her to know and if she did know she would be very disappointed in God. He gets Eve to lower her view of God and then to disbelieve God's Word and to believe him. Jesus also said in John 8:44, not only is he the father of lies, but he is the first murderer. In the garden he told the first lie and in the garden he killed Adam and Eve and the whole human race. From the outset, he is a liar and a murderer.
Now let's follow the strategy. It is fascinating and maybe not immediately visible on the surface because the words are so simple and straightforward, it might be easy to miss. Let's go to verse 1 in the middle of the verse. "He said to the woman, 'Indeed, has God said that you shall not eat from any tree of the garden"?
Why did he go to Eve and not Adam? Well I think maybe the best answer is 1 Peter 3:7 that the woman by God's design from the physical standpoint, from the emotional structure standpoint is the weaker vessel. God has poured into the lives of women sensitivities, compassions, a certain level of tenderness. She is not by created design the warrior, the fighter, the defender, the protector, she is the one to be defended, to be protected. She is the one who needs to be covered and cared for. That's why in Ephesians 5 husbands are to love their wives and they're to be the guardians of their wives purity and the guardians of their wives character and they are to nourish them and to cherish them. At the same time they are to be their savior, as Christ is the Savior and provider of His church. And 1 Timothy 2:12 the Apostle Paul says, "I do not permit a woman in the church to take leadership, to teach, but rather she is to learn." And the New Testament even says she is to go home if she has questions and ask her husband. The husband is the leader, the husband is the spiritual guardian and the spiritual protector of this woman because she is wired to be tender, she is wired to be compliant,k she is wired to be compassionate because that is such a critical matter in the rearing of children and in offsetting the strength of her husband. The balance is wonderful.
Now this situation is exactly what Satan would have wanted, an uncovered, unprotected, sensitive Eve. This is what the Apostle Paul refers to in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 3, "I'm afraid lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." What happened was, Eve was led astray. She wandered off. She was found, I'm sure, by Satan in an unprotected condition and that's exactly what he wanted. Now he may well have succeeded with Adam, but he believed he had a better opportunity to launch this thing with Eve.
She falls rather innocently into the conversation and the solicitor's strategy is progressively deceptive. It begins with what appears as this very innocuous question by just this interested observer. Here's just an animal in the garden like a lot of other animals and this animal comes up and says, "Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?" This is the first question, by the way, in the Bible. Before this there was only answers. There weren't any dilemmas cause there was nobody to introduce a dilemma. And the question is designed to start Eve on a path, a path of questioning God, a path that leads from questioning God to doubting God, to distrusting God to disobeying God. It's a very clever plan and it's the essence of all sin. All sin follows the same pattern. You have a right to question God, you have a right to doubt God, you have a right to distrust God that leads to disobedience.
Amen
Troy
The Solicitor; Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." The Lord God had made a lot of animals, as we well know, that creation of animals is discussed back in the first chapter. And the Lord made a wonderful world of animals, including reptiles. More than any other animal which God had made, this particular serpent was wise and the reason he was wise is because Satan himself, that fallen angel, Lucifer, son of the morning who had been thrown out of heaven for his rebellion, had moved into that reptile and was speaking through that reptile the supernatural wisdom that he possessed as a fallen angel. This is a real reptile, a reptile--the term nachash as sometimes synonymous with tannin which is the word for dragon. Sometimes serpent, sometimes dragon and that's consistent with Revelation 12:9, Revelation 20 verse 2 which says of Satan that he is the serpent and the dragon. Some kind of an upright reptile who approached Eve, but really it was Satan. Satan, that fallen angel, that supernatural enemy of God and man, wiser more cunning than any animal because literally this animal had the very mind of the supernatural being Satan. He had fallen, as we remember from Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. We also remember from Revelation 12 that when he fell he took a third of the angels with him. So it is Satan who speaks through this animal and that is why this animal is more cunning, more wise, more intelligent than any other animal.
Satan has one objective in mind, he is the solicitor of evil. He wants to solicit Eve and Adam into sin. He wants to solicit their disobedience to God. He wants to corrupt God's good creation.
The strategy unfolds in the middle of verse 1 down through the end of verse 5. The solicitor is Satan, the strategy is lies, or deception...if you will. What Satan needs to do to effect the result he wants is to create a lie that Eve believes. He had to deceive her. And that is why Jesus in John 8:44 called Satan the father of lies. Here you have the first lie, as far as we know, ever told. And that is what Satan does, he lies. And mark this down. He lies about two things...one, he lies about the character of God, and he lies about the Word of God. And that's where his assault is inevitably directed.
Satan, who has fallen himself at this point, Satan who has taken a third of the angels along with him in the rebellion, moves in to target God's highest creation in the natural world, man. Man must have been a novel creature to Satan. He had never since his own creation seen anyone who could procreate. There was no procreation, of course, in the Godhead, the trinity was eternal. There was no procreation among animals, among angels, I mean. There were, as the New Testament says, neither marry or given in marriage. Angels were all created at the same time and there are as many now as there ever has been, although some now are fallen and some are holy. But this was a creature who had the capacity of angels to consciously worship God and to have relationships and the relationship with the living God, but a creature who could reproduce. This was something very different than what Satan had experienced. I'm not sure that Satan knew that by getting Eve to sin he could corrupt the whole of humanity that would come from Eve, but it was certainly a possibility.
Satan moves in then as the originator of lies and his lies always have to do with the character of God and the Word of God. And if you understand that then you understand that his strategy is basically very simple. He disguises himself, however, as an angel of light, according to 2 Corinthians 11:14. He wants you to believe that he is telling you the truth and God, the God of the Bible, is the liar. That's the strategy. If he can get you to believe that the character of God can't be trusted and therefore the Word of God can't be trusted but he can be trusted, then he has accomplished his goal. And that's essentially what he did with Eve. He got her to doubt the character of God, doubt the Word of God and believe Satan...and that's exactly what he does in the world even in your life and mine.
Only in lying is Satan consistent, okay? That's one of the things you learn by studying Satan and demonology, as it's called. One of the things you learn is that there's a massive amount of inconsistency in the kingdom of darkness. The kingdom of darkness can't get its act together because there really is no sovereign over the kingdom of darkness that can control it. Satan obviously is the leader but he cannot control what his wicked minions and demons do and so there is massive inconsistency in the kingdom of darkness. But in one thing they are constant and consistent, and that is in lying. They are void of the truth. And everything coming out of that kingdom is deceptive.
Satan approaches Eve with what sounds like an innocent question from an interested observer who really is concerned for Eve's well being. Satan passes himself off, first of all, as just a sort of neutral observer asking a very innocuous question of Eve. He moves from being an innocent observer to convincing Eve that he really is the one who has her well-being in view and that if he can get her to follow him, she will reach great heights of bliss and blessing that God would like to deprive her of. He tells Eve in so many words that he knows more than God knows and he also knows things about God that Eve doesn't know because God doesn't want her to know and if she did know she would be very disappointed in God. He gets Eve to lower her view of God and then to disbelieve God's Word and to believe him. Jesus also said in John 8:44, not only is he the father of lies, but he is the first murderer. In the garden he told the first lie and in the garden he killed Adam and Eve and the whole human race. From the outset, he is a liar and a murderer.
Now let's follow the strategy. It is fascinating and maybe not immediately visible on the surface because the words are so simple and straightforward, it might be easy to miss. Let's go to verse 1 in the middle of the verse. "He said to the woman, 'Indeed, has God said that you shall not eat from any tree of the garden"?
Why did he go to Eve and not Adam? Well I think maybe the best answer is 1 Peter 3:7 that the woman by God's design from the physical standpoint, from the emotional structure standpoint is the weaker vessel. God has poured into the lives of women sensitivities, compassions, a certain level of tenderness. She is not by created design the warrior, the fighter, the defender, the protector, she is the one to be defended, to be protected. She is the one who needs to be covered and cared for. That's why in Ephesians 5 husbands are to love their wives and they're to be the guardians of their wives purity and the guardians of their wives character and they are to nourish them and to cherish them. At the same time they are to be their savior, as Christ is the Savior and provider of His church. And 1 Timothy 2:12 the Apostle Paul says, "I do not permit a woman in the church to take leadership, to teach, but rather she is to learn." And the New Testament even says she is to go home if she has questions and ask her husband. The husband is the leader, the husband is the spiritual guardian and the spiritual protector of this woman because she is wired to be tender, she is wired to be compliant,k she is wired to be compassionate because that is such a critical matter in the rearing of children and in offsetting the strength of her husband. The balance is wonderful.
Now this situation is exactly what Satan would have wanted, an uncovered, unprotected, sensitive Eve. This is what the Apostle Paul refers to in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 3, "I'm afraid lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." What happened was, Eve was led astray. She wandered off. She was found, I'm sure, by Satan in an unprotected condition and that's exactly what he wanted. Now he may well have succeeded with Adam, but he believed he had a better opportunity to launch this thing with Eve.
She falls rather innocently into the conversation and the solicitor's strategy is progressively deceptive. It begins with what appears as this very innocuous question by just this interested observer. Here's just an animal in the garden like a lot of other animals and this animal comes up and says, "Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?" This is the first question, by the way, in the Bible. Before this there was only answers. There weren't any dilemmas cause there was nobody to introduce a dilemma. And the question is designed to start Eve on a path, a path of questioning God, a path that leads from questioning God to doubting God, to distrusting God to disobeying God. It's a very clever plan and it's the essence of all sin. All sin follows the same pattern. You have a right to question God, you have a right to doubt God, you have a right to distrust God that leads to disobedience.
Amen
Troy
