The Devil Wears: Subtlety (Genesis 3:1-7)
The Devil Wears: Subtlety
Genesis 3:1-7
INTRODUCTION:
On January 26, 2037, twelve years from now, the state of Michigan will celebrate 200 years being a state in the United States of America. If you were to collect paintings of the western coast of the state, paintings of the shoreline of Lake Michigan over that 200 year period, you will have a very nice set of paintings. And you could learn something about the history of sailing from those pictures too. The earlier pictures would probably have a canoe; later pictures would have more modern sailing vessels. The paintings would not necessarily be paintings of the ships, but you could learn something because ships are in the paintings.
The Bible is not about Satan. The Bible is about the salvation of man through Jesus Christ to the glory of God. But Satan serves a major role in that story line, even if he is not the most important person in the story. Someone has suggested that we have a series of lessons on the nature and work of Satan, so we will be doing that this year, alongside studying who Jesus is from the book of Hebrews.
SATAN’S ORIGINS:
There are a few points that I don’t think need very much proof…
1. God / Jesus created everything - Neh. 9:6; Col. 1:15-17; Heb. 1:10.
2. The angels whom God created were originally created holy (just like man): James 1:13-14; 1 John 1:5.
3. Angels were created with freedom to choose: 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6.
4. Satan is apparently an angel: Matthew 25:41.
5. Through pride, Satan sinned against God and was expelled from his presence, eventually to spend eternity in hell which was prepared for him and the demons: 1 Tim. 3:7; Revelation 12; Matt. 25:41.
SATAN APPEARS IN HUMAN HISTORY - Genesis 3:1-7:
Of course we know that this serpent is Satan in a form that would appeal to Adam and Eve. John makes it clear in Revelation 12:9 that this serpent is, in fact, Satan.
The serpent is described by Moses as “crafty.” This Hebrew word is used 11 times in the OT, almost exclusively in poetry, the books of Job and Proverbs. This is the only use of the word in historical narrative. It is variously translated shrewd, crafty, prudent, and sensible (used in a good sense). The definition of the English word is: “clever at achieving one's aims by indirect or deceitful methods.” Your translation might have the word “subtle,” which means: “clever and indirect.”
So when we meditate on how Satan attacks us, we need to keep in mind these words - clever at deceiving indirectly.
God allowed Satan to leave the unseen world, take control of a serpent, and make the serpent speak to Eve. Observe the first attack Satan makes is against the word of God: “Indeed, has God said…”
Now, Eve did the right thing by quoting God; in verses 2-3, Eve quoted “Scripture.” That is, she quoted God. She could have - if Genesis had been written at that time - say, “God says in Genesis 2:16-17…
Before I go further, in that text (2:16-17), God emphasizes that if Adam (to whom He is talking) were to eat of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil he will “surely die.” Would Adam and Eve understand what “death” means? There are a lot of people who think that nothing has died in the Garden of Eden. If you walk through the Creation Museum down in Kentucky, they suggest that nothing had died during that time frame. Would Adam and Eve know what God meant by death?
You and I understand that there are two ways to die:
Physically
Spiritually
Did Adam and Eve understand that they would die spiritually if they ate the fruit? Would they understand they would die physically if they ate the fruit? I believe they understood something about death, but I don’t know exactly what they understood. But their understanding of the consequences were not so important as their understanding of the fundamental command: Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You don’t have to understand everything God says, but you do have to obey everything God commands.
So Eve quoted Scripture. She did the right thing.
But Satan is clever; he is crafty; he is subtle; he is indirect. Secondly, he directly contradicts God. “You surely will not die!” There’s your choice family. There’s the origin of sin. God says one thing. Satan says something very different. And we have the choice to either listen to God or listen to Satan.
Except Satan is crafty. He is clever. He is deceitful. He always dresses his lie up in clothing that makes it look and sound like it is good, like it is from God.
In verse 5, Satan tells Adam and Eve, he says, “Look. God knows that if you eat this fruit, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God! You will know good from evil.”
Satan is going to appeal to our pride, our vanity, our emotions, our feelings, our flesh. He is going to make his words sound much better than God’s words. That’s how he gets Adam and Eve and me and you to do what he wants us to do. He manipulates us through our flesh, our pride, our feelings.
The prophet Jeremiah said this about the human heart: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
What can man do? We’ll talk about that in just a moment.
Notice in verse 6 that Eve decides that the limitations of God’s word might just be worth ignoring. Look how Moses describes her fall into sin:
1) She saw the tree was good for food - the lust of the flesh.
2) She saw the tree was a delight to the eyes - the lust of the eyes.
3) She saw the tree was desirable to make one wise - the pride of life.
This is how Eve rationalized her disobedience. We get a look into Eve’s heart in this verse and we see how Eve justified her disobedience. And humans have an uncanny ability to rationalize our thoughts and our behavior before God.
Fleshly, fleshly, fleshly. God’s word was too boring. God’s word was too restrictive. God’s word was too exclusive. God’s word did not make her happy. God’s word did not tell Eve what she had decided she wanted to hear.
So she took from the fruit and ate it and gave it to her husband who - notice - was “with her” and he ate as well.
WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF LISTENING TO SATAN’S CLEVER TACTICS?
We will limit our discussion here to just verse 7…
Satan promised their eyes would be open and Moses says, “the eyes of them both were opened.” But what was all the other good that Satan promised? That they would be like God? But now they knew they were naked and they felt ashamed in that state and did not feel like they could be in God’s presence anymore. They took fig leaves and sewed them together and made some form of an apron to cover their waist. These were two married people - the only human beings on this entire planet, and they felt ashamed to be in God’s presence naked.
And then they were afraid and hid from God and, of course, God expelled them from His presence and excluded them from the tree of life from which they would be able to eat from it and live forever (3:22).
Before I go any further, you will often hear Catholics and Protestants talk about the nature of humanity being changed at this point. Mankind now became depraved and sinful. But that’s because they are listening more to Augustine and John Calvin rather than Peter and Paul. Well, meditate on what the Bible actually says and it shows.
Adam and Eve had the power of choice before the sin and they had the power of choice after the sin.
Adam and Eve had the power of love before the sin and they had the power of love after the sin.
Adam and Eve had the ability to have a relationship with God before the sin and they had the ability to have a relationship with God after the sin.
What I’m trying to show is that the nature of humanity did not change. The state of humanity changed; that is, their relationship with God was destroyed. But human nature did not change. Our nature today is the same nature of humanity that Adam and Eve had when they were first created.
The devil wears subtlety. Even today…
You recall that the apostle Paul wrote that people who speak for the devil speak with smooth and flattering speech (Rom. 16:17).
You recall that the apostle Paul wrote that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14).
We have created a caricature of Satan that looks more like a cartoon character than how the Bible describes Satan. And yet Satan works through human beings, too. He works on our hearts, our vanity, our feelings and emotions through people who look just like us, whom we know, love, and respect. But they are speaking the words of Satan when they challenge us to ignore the word of God.
SO HOW DO WE FIGHT AGAINST SATAN?
The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 2:11 that Satan does not have to take advantage of us because we are not ignorant of his “schemes.” That word is also translated as: “minds” or “thought.” We are not ignorant of Satan’s mind. We are not ignorant of his thoughts! That’s why God gave us 2,000 years worth of divine, inspired history! So we would know how Satan operates.
What did Eve do and what should she have done? What should Adam have done? They should have gone back to Scripture, quoted Scripture, and lived by Scripture. God tells Israel in Leviticus 18:5: “You shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.” If they had said, “No, Satan, God said in Genesis 2:16-17 that if we eat of this fruit, we will certainly die,” and then walked away, they would not have sinned against God, offended His holiness, and been driven out of His presence.
We will spend more time studying Jesus’ contrasting behavior in May in His own temptations. In Luke’s account, Luke 3 ends with Jesus’ genealogy which ends in 3:36 with the statement that Jesus was the “son of Adam, the son of God.” Immediately after that statement, we have the temptations of Jesus. That is as if the Holy Spirit through Luke wants us to contrast Jesus’ temptations by Satan with Adam and Eve’s temptation. But how did Jesus meet those temptations?
You know the answer to that question, right? Jesus quoted Scripture, just like Eve did. But with Jesus, quoting Scripture was enough. In Luke’s account, in 4:4, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3. Why do you and I need to study Deuteronomy? Because Jesus found strength in His fight against Satan from Deuteronomy! In 4:8, Jesus quoted from Deut. 6:13. And in 4:12, Jesus quoted Deut. 6:16.
BCV - book, chapter, verse. How do you win your battles against Satan? Book, chapter, verse. “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).
The heart of man is more deceitful than all else and desperately sick. How can we make sure our hearts are not deceiving us?
The psalmist says, “Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against you” (119:11). In fact, the whole 119th psalm is a psalm written in praise of the law of God. Nothing is ever written against the law of God - ever. Nothing in the Bible ever talks negatively about the commandments of God.
In verse 47, he writes: “I shall delight in your commandments, which I love.”
In verse 67, the inspired writer says, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.”
In verse 72, he says, “The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.”
In verse 97, he sings, “O how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.”
In verses 103-104, the psalmist writes: “How sweet are your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth! From your precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way.”
Of course we have the famous verse in 105: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Listen to verse 118: “You have rejected all those who wander from your statutes, for their deceitfulness is useless.”
Or how about verse 136: “My eyes shed streams of water, because they do not keep your law.”
In verse 160, he writes: “The sum of your word is truth, and everyone of your righteous ordinances is everlasting.”
Psalm 119 has 176 verses; it is the longest chapter in the Bible. But I find it interesting that this long chapter is not written about the love of God. It is written about the law of God. It is a poem that is written as an acrostic. What that means is that it is divided into 22 sections with each section beginning with each letter of the Hebrew alphabet in order. Let me show you…
And out of those 176 verses, I have counted 177 references to the law of God through various synonyms like “commandments” and “ordinances” and “judgments.”
How can we avoid the temptations that Satan throws at us? How can we avoid Satan taken advantage of our deceitful heart that is desperately sick? By keeping God’s word in our hearts and meditating on that word and understanding that word and obeying that word. It worked for Jesus. It will work for us too.
Take home message: We can win our battles against Satan if we will examine our heart and submit it to the word of God.