If you have your Bibles turn
with me to Genesis chapter 3 and begin reading from verse 1 and
read through verse 6. The title of my message tonight
is Satan's Scheme. Beginning with verse 1, Now the
serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which
the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea,
hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.
And the woman said, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of
the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst
of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it, neither
shall you touch it, lest you die. The serpent said unto the
woman, you shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the
day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, you shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw
that the tree was good for food, and it was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree to be desired to make one wise. She took of the fruit
thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her,
and he did eat." Let us pray. Our Father, we are thankful that
we have this account in Scripture that fully describes the origin
of sin into this world. It sets forth this disobedience
unto our father that plunged the world into ruin and chaos. We're thankful that we understand
this by your spirit because you have given us your spirit and
that blessed spirit who leads and guides us into all truth
shows us in some degree in our own self what sin is. but points
us to the cross of Christ where the penalty for sin is fully
revealed and the nature of sin is fully revealed. Father, we
ask tonight as we look at this passage of scripture to give
us understanding and reverence to what is taking place here.
Give us wisdom to see the manner in which the serpent approached
him. Help us tonight, Father, to worship you in thanksgiving
and praise, and because of your grace and your mercy bestowed
upon us. The devil can do nothing to us
unless you allow him to do it, and that for our good and for
your glory. Father, we pray for those who
are sick. Remember Sharon, if she's in the hospital, and Jim
Byrd, remember Wayne. Continue to minister to him,
to Robert, Ethel, Peggy Lambert. Pray you'd watch over them, comfort
them in Jesus Christ. Help us tonight to worship you.
To see the greatness of your person. To also see the weakness
of our nature and our carnality. Help us to see it clearly that
we might and camp ourselves at mercy's door. We pray in Christ's
name, amen. Now the wiles of the devil are
not explained in scripture. There's a reason for that. He's
a deceiver and there's no reason to study a deceiver because he's
a deceiver. You never know where he's coming
from. Our Lord did say in the New Testament to beware of the
wiles of the devil, but he never explained what those wiles were.
And though we can see somewhat how he operates, in this world
the clearest example of that operation is found here in these
first six verses of Genesis. Now last week we looked at the
serpent who is Satan and the conversation about which he began
to bring the seduction of Eve to its culmination. We saw and
understand that he's a religious being and operates in the realm
of religion. Here he's seen seducing women
and men to look to themselves in their own self-interest rather
than to obey God. The single prohibition in the
garden was that of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
they were not to eat it upon pain of death. That was the simple
word of God. The tree was not evil. It was
part of the good creation and it bore good fruit. There was
nothing wrong with the tree. The tree is simple. A tree can't
be simple. It can't be. The restriction upon eating its
fruit was for two reasons. First, it was restricted in anticipation
of the sure fall of a mutable creature, Adam. The fall was
not an accident, nor was it something that God was suddenly forced
to respond or react to. Before this ever happened, before
the world in fact was created and made, He had already chosen
an innumerable company of people to save from sin, which at the
time of this record had not yet been committed, but they were
already secure in the surety of the Lord Jesus Christ before
the world began. That's the language used in the
scripture. We know from Revelation 13 that
the lamb, the lamb that would accomplish that salvation in
time was already enthroned, having been slain, and by his death
he redeemed those God had given him before the world began. We
don't understand this concept of eternity. We have difficulty
in ourselves understanding the concept of time. But our Lord
says things that are so amazing that we can't begin to grasp
and yet we can wonder and worship him because of what he said.
In Ecclesiastes chapter three and verse 15, our Lord says simply
this, and it's a wondrous passage of scripture. That which hath
been is now. And that which is to be has already
been. It's already been. And God requires
that which is past. That's a simple statement, but
it's a wondrous statement. So even as we deal with this
matter of the fall and what it was, we know that it was part
of God's plan, part of God's purpose, because before man ever
sinned, there was a remedy for sin already in glory, and an
innumerable company of men that God had chosen to save before
the world began, before Adam was on the scene, before Eve
was on the scene. Secondly, the restriction of
the law of Eden, was made to ensure that Adam would know that
he was the creature. and under authority. He was the
creature and under authority and therefore responsible as
the creature to obey his creator. That's a simple thing. Now the
punishment for disobedience was death and thus the enemy of man,
death, was introduced into human history. There's no death before
this except that which was in the purpose of God and the slain
lamb before the foundation of the world. What is death? Death
is the product of the penalty for sin. Now most of science
and philosophy denies what happened here in the garden. They deny
this fall, they deny this original sin, and thus they deny the sinful
nature of humanity. If you want to trace most of
the junk that's going on in the world today, you can trace it
back to they really think man is okay. They really think man
is a good person and a good creature, though the scripture clearly
declares that there's none good no not one there is none righteous
there is not a good man on earth that doeth good and sinneth not
they are all gone all the way and according to psalm 14 they
are all stinking before god but men deny the sinful nature of
humanity and what they're denying is what happened here in the
garden of eden they're denying Now the evolutionist holds that
man came from the primordial ooze and after he had crawled
out on land or landed on land on some wave, landed there, he
continues to this day to improve. That's what men think about men.
The philosopher and the scientist holds that if a proper environment
can be established through education, conservation, and of late somehow
controlling the climate, that the world and its habitants would
rise to new heights of excellence and we would preserve this grand
old planet. That's not the case. Man was
the crown of creation. He did not start as a one-celled
creature. He was at the top of his game
the moment he was created. There was none greater among
humanity than Adam. He was the smartest, the brightest,
the most innocent, the most healthy creature and would have lived
on had it not been for sin. So he didn't begin at the bottom
of cellular existence, nor can he be educated or environmentally
conditioned to improve. Man was the crown of creation.
He started at the top and he fell. And that moment, and from
that moment, it's been a downhill run to oblivion and chaos. It's not got better since Eden.
And it won't get better. Our Lord said, the love of many
shall wax cold. Have you ever seen a time in
your life when men seem to despise each other over the least little
thing? They hate each other. Our Lord
said, things will grow wax worse and worse. Have you ever seen
this world in a worse condition than it's in today? Everybody's
at everybody's throat. Love, forget it. It's going out
the window. Nothing, now listen very carefully,
nothing, nothing of man will improve man at all. Nothing of man will improve man
and we have but to look around us to know that the world is
under the curse of sin. Why do people die? That's the
question. Why do people die? They die because
sin is in the world. Because this universe is under
a curse that will not be removed until God destroys it all. In Romans chapter 5 we find these
words. Verse 12. as by one man sin entered into
the world and so death passed upon all
men in whom all sinned is what it says richly for until the
law sin was in the world but no sin was not imputed when there
was no law nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even
over them that did not send after the similitude of Adam's transgression,
who is the figure of him that was to come." Why do men die? There is but one answer. Sin
is in the world. Sin reigns in the world unless
God, the greater sovereign, overcomes it and puts it away from a person
by the substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ. for us
in this text is the beginning. The beginning of it all. It's
important to note that sin did not enter the world by Eve. We'll
find that to be true. Though she surely disobeyed God. She did not fall when she disobeyed
God. She fell when Adam disobeyed
God. She was deceived. Adam was not. But the avenue by which Adam
plunged the world into ruin and brought it under the curse was
his reaction to Eve and his action against God. She is not held
accountable for man's sin. She's not held accountable for
man's sin. Why is that? Because centuries later, the
Savior will be born of the seed of woman. he will not come from
Adam's loins he's the son of God he will be warned of a woman
without the taint of the first man by whom sin entered the world
Jesus Christ came for this world without sin because sin is only
imputed through the man Adam and not the woman that's not
to say women aren't sinners but sin's not imputed Eve sinned
against God She disobeyed God. She was deceived but she still
disobeyed God. But sin's not imputed through
her. Satan's approach has not changed. His approach is to the
woman. You say, well, you gonna finish
that sentence? Yes, I am. His approach is to
the woman which is a picture and a type of the realm in which
he employs his tactics to this day and that is the church. the bride of Christ. What would
benefit Satan to do his evil against those who would not be
saved? Why would he bother? He's interested
in the last Adam's wife and that's who he seeks to tempt. the church,
the pulpit, the congregation, the elect, the woman married
to Christ is the Satan's target yet today in a futile hope of
diminishing the record of the success of his Savior, of the
Savior. He will have his small successes. You can count on that. He will create schisms and divisions
in the church like that which occurred in Antioch with Peter
and Barnabas or the sifting of Peter to deny the Lord three
times. He will have his successes. He has throughout the ages. but
he will fail. He will fail because the Savior
has already bruised his head and in his demonic dementia he
pursues a goal that will never be realized. He will not ever
do eternal harm to any whom God has chosen to salvation. Mark
it down. Mark it down. He approaches men
in the exact opposite way that God approaches men. The serpent
works, as O.A.W. Pink said, from the outside in,
whereas God works from the inside out. Satan appeals to the senses
and the sensibilities of humanity. He approaches man's high esteem
of their intellect, nudging their human reason and self-interest.
And once the proposition was set forth that God had actually
said they could eat of every tree in the garden, it was an
incomplete truth. It was a half-truth and therefore
no truth. Eve bought into the conversation. She immediately
bought into the conversation. Why? Because she's a human being.
And human beings like to believe that there's something better
out there always. They just like to believe that.
So she bought into it. She added to God's words in her
own thing, and actually softened the punishment that attended
the disobedience that God had spoken of. In verse three, she
said, neither shall you touch it. God didn't say not to touch
the fruit. And it says in Proverbs 30, don't
add to the word of God, don't take from there. God, you'll
receive punishment for it. Then she used a different word
than God used. God said, you shall surely die. She would use
the word, lest you die. Lest. Look it up. The first definition
is perventure. Maybe. That's the language he
used. We can't eat of that fruit. We
can't touch it. Maybe we'd die. Peradventure,
we would die, rather than we will surely die, which God said,
you will surely die. And dying, you shall die. And
Satan immediately jumped on that vacillation and simply denied
the threat of God altogether. He said, you shall not die. You will not die. You will not
die. He then begins to explain to
Eve why she will not die. In verse 5, he says, for God
doth know. He uses that little word for,
which means because. You won't die because God knows,
is what he said. With the explanation that followed,
he successfully insinuated that God was holding back something
good from Eve. He said, God knew that if you
eat the fruit, that you will be greater. You will be better. You will be brighter. You will
be greater than what you were before. The religion, I'd say
to use it today, you will be on a higher plane. a higher life,
or a nobler life. His approach was self-help, and
that's what all religion is, save for the religion, that is,
the religion of God, which is, you have no help, you can't help
yourself, only God can help you, but the religion of this day
says, you can help yourself, you can make your world better,
you can't. Your presence in this world is
a direct product of sin in this world. And you're going to sin
just like everybody else has and what you touch you ain't
going to make better, you're going to make worse. That's just
the way it is. Only God can do something that
makes something better, that makes something better. He says
your eyes will be opened. He spoke of open eyes in the
sense of increased knowledge and greater understanding. The
incentive proffered was that Eve could know what God knows. Isn't that the way he said it?
It says, for God does know in the day you eat thereof, then
your eyes shall be open and you shall be as God. You shall know
good and evil. You'll be like God. You'll be
as God is. This is irresistible to the human
nature, even innocent nature. It's impossible not to want to
know stuff that nobody but God knows. that's what he got, that's how
he did it and the hook now firmly planted in the mouth of Eve her
response to the serpent's seduction is founded upon carnal natural
human logic and is the revelation of the scheme of Satan and when
the woman saw that the tree was good for food and was pleasant
to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise she
took of the fruit thereof and did eat. What's the first thing
you see here? She saw. Now, God has said obey, which requires faith, which requires
believing rather than seeing. But she saw. She saw that the
tree was good for food. She saw the enticement was first
to sight, which is the opposite of faith and belief. We walk
by faith and not by sight. If you can see it, you gain hope
in it. This is what our Lord teaches us throughout the book.
The senses that attend the human being are the first avenue of
Satan's approach. Our senses. Our senses. Covetousness is called idolatry
because at its heart it is the demissal of faith. It dismisses
faith. Covetousness is One covets what
he sees but does not possess. That's what one covets. What
he sees and wants but does not possess. She assessed that the
fruit was pleasant to the eyes also. So she saw that the fruit
was pleasant to the eyes. This spoke to the human pursuit
of pleasing the flesh. It looked like it would taste
good. It'd be good for me. I'd enjoy this. Pleasant to the
eyes. the desires of the mind, pleasant
to the desires of the mind, and those things are attributed to
the soul of man, desires, wants, and needs. The fruit that Satan
dangles before the church is the luscious, flesh-pleasing
fruit of human merit, the rotten fruit of self-righteousness,
called in Scripture the fruit unto death, but it's pleasing
to the eyes for Satan to tell an elect child of God, you know,
I know you're saved by grace. But you know, you can better
yourself. You can be a big Christian. You can be a good Christian.
You can be one of them super Christians. Here's the way you do it. By
doing this and not doing that, but doing this and that. Men
like the idea of that. It's pleasing to the eyes. Pleasing to the eyes. Thirdly,
she was persuaded that the tree was desired to make one wise. I've wished all my life that
I was smart. Still wishing, ain't got there
yet, but I've always wished that I was a smart man. Always wishing
I had like an identic memory where I could read anything and
it would always be with me. Desire to make one wise. The
human intellect. The human intellect. The intellect
is what God calls in scripture the spirit of man. The spirit
of man. If you turn over to 1 Corinthians
chapter two, Look at verse 11, for what man
knoweth the things of man save the spirit of man which is in
him? Even so, the things of God knoweth
no man but the spirit of God. That's speaking of the human
intellect, the way our mind works. From without, from outside, what
you can see, taste, touch, handle. what you can see. This is the
area of Satan. This is the area of Satan. From
without, Satan reached the woman and ruined her inward self. From
outside, God begins where? In the heart. In the inward man. And the result is that it changes
his outward self. That's how God works. Just the
opposite of Satan. God begins in the inward man.
How did Satan seek to tempt our Lord in the wilderness? You remember
that? First he appealed to our Lord's
bodily senses. Make these stones bread. Why? Because he's hungry. He
hasn't eaten in 40 days. Make these stones bread. That's
the first thing. Food. Eats. the senses, the bodily
needs. Then he said, cast thyself down. And that was appealing to the
idea of courage, trying to seduce the Lord on his emotions, the
nature and the soul of humanity. But remember, Jesus Christ is
without sin. He doesn't have the human nature
that we have. He took on the likeness of flesh,
took on the likeness of the human nature. But he didn't take the
nature of angels, he took the seed of Abraham. That's what
he said. seed of Abraham cast thyself down that's appealing
to to the emotions to the soul if you will the nature of his
soul and thirdly Satan said fall down and worship me seeking to
appeal to the Lord's spirit the Lord's intellect this is the
scheme of Satan on his assault of the church and it's the very
same today as it was in Eden as it was in the garden the wilderness
when our Lord was tempted by Satan and it's the same thing
is going on this very hour There's only one religion. Mark it. Only one religion in the world.
Only one. That says you have nothing to
do with your salvation. It's all by grace and mercy. Only one. All the rest have some
input of humanity using man's senses His emotions and his intellect. Pursuing those things, wanting
him to be better than he was before. But he's still adamant. And he's still sinful. And nothing
has changed. Satan succeeded with Eve, but
he failed with Christ. She took the fruit and did eat.
That's the word. Human logic, when applied to
the truth, to the word of God, will always fail. it will always
fail. His thoughts are not our thoughts.
But apart from grace and mercy sovereignly applied to our hearts,
the appeal of our nature and our flesh and the application
of our esteemed logic will be the mode of our operation. Thank
God if He subdues your flesh by His Spirit. Thank God if He
does that for you. What follows, we'll look at next
week, is that Eve gave the fruit to her husband. And without any
seduction, without any enticement, without any approach by the serpent,
any wiles of the devil, it is summarily and succinctly reported
with four words, and he did eat. He wasn't to see. That'll be
our next lesson. The fall of humanity. Father, bless us to our understanding.
We pray in Christ's name.