Temptation

Our text, this morning, has to be among the saddest parts of all of the Bible. God had created something beautiful, but here it becomes ugly. Adam and Eve refuse to fulfill their callings and instead rebel against their Creator. They are tempted by Satan, and they sin. We’re going to look at what happened and work to get a better understanding of this thing called temptation and the sin that results from yielding to it. Through most of the sermon I’ll be talking about Eve and not much at all about Adam. In this I am not blaming Eve more than Adam. But, for one thing, the text focuses on Eve. In addition, their attitudes in all of this are different. Paul teaches that Eve was deceived but not Adam. I think that that means that Adam saw more clearly what was going on. If I’m right on that, it means that he was more rebellious. But sorting that out will have to wait for another time.

Please listen as I read our text, Genesis 3.1-7.

Before I say anything about the details of our text, I think that it’s important to remind you of the most critical lesson of the text. Satan is after you. That is a fact, and if you would be wise you won’t forget it. That doesn’t mean that you should become paranoid. That’s responding in fear, and there never is a good reason for a Christian to fear. But you should be aware of the danger so that you can respond wisely. That is one of the reasons for this sermon. Satan’s desire was to rule creation. Our text is his attempt to achieve that goal and to recruit Adam and Eve to his cause. However, because of the Cross, Satan has been defeated, and he knows it. But that does not mean that he has given up. Though he has having failed at usurping God’s rule, he’s still trying to ruin as many people as possible so that they will join him in eternal torment. So, the sermon is all about how to deal with Satan as he tries to get you.

Now, let’s consider what happened in the Garden. We’ll walk through the conversation that the serpent and Eve had. As we do that you’ll see that Satan’s scheme had to do with words and motives. Let’s start with the words. Temptations are always about what God has said. So, Satan starts with a question, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden”?’ Now, compare that to what God did say. ‘And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”’ It’s obvious that Satan comes nowhere near what God really said. But that’s not because he’s stupid or ignorant. He knows what God said. But it’s a way to start a conversation, a way to engage Eve. It may be that the wise thing for her to do would have been to walk away. Sometimes, the best way to deal with a temptation is to simply walk away from it. ‘Do not answer a fool according to his folly lest you be like him.’ [Proverbs 26.4]

Eve chooses to respond to the serpent’s words, to answer this fool, and maybe that was the right course in this situation. What does she say? She corrects the serpent and tells him what God really said. ‘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.’”’ Now, imagine if Eve had not known what God had said. What would she have done then? She would have had no reason not to believe Satan. She would, then, have been completely confused about God, thinking that He was miserly. You will not be able to respond well to Satan’s schemes if you don’t know what God has said. You really need to know.

Now, some may respond by saying, ‘All Eve needed to know was one sentence about what she could and couldn’t eat. We need to know a whole book, and it’s a book of hundreds of pages.’ Actually, that’s not true. All you need to know is also just one sentence. ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.’ That, after all, is what this temptation in the Garden – and every other temptation – is all about. There was nothing special about that tree. It was just some fruit tree. But God made it the focus of this question: ‘Will you love Me? Will you love Me with all that you are?’ That’s what life as one of God’s creatures is all about. And it is in loving God that we flourish. Now, let’s go back to that large book with hundreds of pages. What you will find within its pages are illustrations of what loving God wholeheartedly looks like or applications of that one thought to different kinds of situations. In the Bible you will find examples of those who have not done that – and our text is one of those examples – along with some examples of those who have done well at loving God. And the Bible also includes what to do when you have failed to love God. The Bible is really about one sentence. It’s about loving God with all you’ve got. So, our situation isn’t much different than that of Eve. Satan’s goal is to get is to turn from loving God. And sometimes it has to do with something as simple as what God has said about what to eat.

This now, leads us to the matter of motives. Satan shifts the point of his attack. If he can’t get you one way, he’ll try another. ‘But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”’ Do you see what he is doing? He’s talking about God’s motives. Satan raises a question about what’s behind God’s command. The real problem with eating the fruit, according to the serpent, isn’t that Eve will die. It’s that she will become like God. So, Satan whispers in her ear, ‘Eve don’t you see it? He wants to keep that from you. God doesn’t love you. He’s keeping something really good from you, and that’s not fair! Eve, don’t you see? Take the fruit, and get what is rightfully yours.’ This is all about God’s motives. Behind every temptation is this question. What is God like? Is He really as good as He says? Or is He holding out? Does He love me or is He keeping something from me? The character of God is always the key question.

This kind of attack about God’s motives is more subtle than the first about God’s words. When it comes to God’s words, the situation is pretty objective. What did He say? That is something that is a matter of record. But this approach is more subjective. Does God love me? Is it His love that lies behind His words? Or is He like so many people who say that they love but who really don’t, not when it will cost them? And this gets us back to that basic question, ‘Do you trust Me now?’ All of this in the Garden is a matter of trust. God made it clear to Eve that she is loved and cherished. His desire was that she would thrive. Should she believe Him? Should she trust what He has said? Does He really love her? What is God like?

It appears that Eve’s tilted toward a stricter view of God. Did you notice that she added something to what God had said? This is how she reported God’s words. ‘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.’ God never said anything about touching the fruit. Putting those words in His mouth may reflect a bit of a twisted understanding in Eve. She is imitated by so many through the millennia who think of God as something like a very strict parent. That is slanderous and it opens someone to Satan’s attacks on God’s motives. It really is important to be clear about God’s character. Does he really love you even when He says, ‘No’? Or is He simply being strict and denying you some pleasure you deserve? In our world where pleasure is king, this is a very important issue.

Satan says no more. He’s done enough simply by asking a question about God’s words and offering a thought about God’s character. The rest of what happens, happens in Eve’s heart. That’s where the battle is fought. And so, we read this: ‘So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.’ What is this? It’s Eve’s assessment of the tree. She saw that the tree provided tasty food, was beautiful, and that it would give her great wisdom. Was she right or wrong in this assessment? She was clearly right on all counts. Her assessment was on target. So, she concluded that she should eat the fruit. She had, after all, those three good reasons: it’s tasty, beautiful and will give wisdom. Great reasons. So, what went wrong here? Eve ignored God’s assessment. What did He say? ‘Don’t eat!’ And in this, He acted out of love. By not eating Eve could enjoy the beauty of the tree, she could become wise beyond her imagining, and she could taste the fruit of a better tree, the tree of life.

But Eve ignored God’s words, suspected His motives and so declared her independence. She ate, and then Adam joined her. So, the real battle is not about the act of eating. It’s about trusting. Should I love God by trusting His words and His declared motives? The real battle was in the heart long before that first bite. And that battle isn’t about knowledge. To be sure, there are things to be known, but the battle is not about that knowledge. The battle is about the desires of the heart. What delights a person? In Eve’s case the desire of her heart was her own well-being, as she defined it. The tree was food, beautiful, a resource for wisdom. It just made sense for her to eat its fruit. The key issue when it comes to temptations isn’t about fruit trees, extra dessert or cheating on your taxes or on your wife. The key issue is about the desires of the heart.

And that gets us back to that one sentence, to love God with all you’ve got. That’s delighting in Him, desiring Him. Eve, and Adam with her, were tempted and the delight of their hearts was revealed. They delighted first and foremost in themselves. And that describes humanity since their day. We delight in ourselves and not in God. The most important person in our universe is ourselves. That person is our delight. When that is true, it really doesn’t matter what God has said or whether He loves. The key issue is always the same: allowing our delight in ourselves to have free rein. People will pursue that in lots of different ways. Some may pursue pleasure in its raunchiest of forms while others will become the perfect image of chaste respectability. But all choose as they do because they have fallen for Satan’s schemes. All choose as they do because they delight in themselves.

So, what happened to Eve and her husband Adam? What did God say would happen? ‘In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ And they did. Remember, God’s idea of death is not limited to biology, whether the heart is still beating. Death is about God. It’s about being far from God. When we are far from God life doesn’t work. None of it. There is the appearance of life because people still get up and go to work or check off things on their to do list or whatever else they might do. But these people are actually dead. God is far. It’s only a matter of time until that death becomes evident to all. And that’s what a funeral is. This person has been dead from the day of his conception. It’s just that now that he is in the ground everyone can see his death clearly.

I’m sure that that sounds bleak. It’s so dark and depressing. But it’s true. How else would you describe, ‘In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’? And it is completely understandable that God should curse us with such a death. From Eve’s day down to our own, what has humanity done? We have ignored God’s words and doubted His motives. Would it be less shameful if we had spit in His face? He has described how we might live well in His creation. He has declared His love for us. But we reject that. We refuse to pursue that one sentence: You shall love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Instead we love ourselves first. Doesn’t it make sense that He would keep His word and curse humanity with death? Doesn’t it make sense that He would give us what our hearts desire: life without Him? But our lives cannot work without God. And that is true in this age and more so in the age to come.

What I just said would describe all of us except for one fact: Jesus has come. The God who has been so greatly offended, has come to rescue us from ourselves. And what has He done? He has provided forgiveness. That will mean little unless you remember how wicked our sin is: rejecting His words and doubting His motives, time and time and time again. We have sinned against love. The forgiveness that Jesus has provided is no little thing because our sin is no little thing.

But for Jesus, forgiveness alone is not enough. He has also removed the curse of death. God is no longer far from us. We have been brought near. We have been given life to replace death. And part of what that means is that we have been given a delight in God. It starts small, but it is there. It grows over time until we can say with the Psalmist, ‘Whom have I in heaven but You. And besides You I desire nothing that is on the earth.’ And this is how that delight in God shows. We embrace His words and trust His motives. To be sure, there is remaining sin that gets in the way. And Satan hasn’t given up. He is still trying to get us. And truth be known, we do falter at times. But armed with the truth that we have been forgiven and that we are alive and near to God, we push on, certain of the goal, the day when even the last traces of death are gone. We embrace His words, both commands and promises, as the way of entering into more of life. We trust His motives, becoming more and more convinced that He really does love us. And we push on until we find ourselves back in the Garden, enjoying the beauty of that place, enjoying each other and especially enjoying those walks with God in the cool of the day.

Apart from Jesus life is bleak and depressing. But those who follow Jesus know something very different. We know life. So, this is what you do. Believe the Gospel. That is, believe God’s words and believe His motives. And from that position, do battle with Satan. You may falter – in fact, you will. But remember repentance and faith. And also remember that with each battle you can grow. Even if you lose the battle, as you repent and believe, you will grow. You will be able to see that God’s words are a sure guide a greater experience of life and that His motives are full of love for you. Believe the Gospel and live.