Unmasking Sins Deception

Unmasking Sins’ Deception

Introduction: Being deceived.

Transition: Deception is a constant threat to all of us. Tonight I want to talk about how sin deceives us. Next week I am going to talk about what to do when we are tempted.

Of course when we think about the battle with sin we have to go back and visit the story of our first parents—Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis. We read in the first couple of chapters of Genesis and find the beautiful account of God creating the world. We see him eventually creating man. Now it is important to stop here and say that man was not created just to enjoy God’s creation but to enjoy and glorify the Creator. God placed man (Adam) in a beautiful garden called Eden. It was paradise on earth. It had everything Adam needed to survive. It had food, water, perfect scenery. Some of you are frantically reading ahead to see if it had a Foley’s or Dilliards. (The Genesis account is proof that you can survive without a mall and McDonalds!) God saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone so he created Eve—a helper suitable for him. Scripture says they became one flesh. Now God told Adam even before he made Eve. You can have anything you want in this garden—but don’t eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. You can have the tree next to it called the Tree of Life but you can’t have the other one. God told them, “for when you eat of it you will die.” The Tree of life and the Tree of Knowledge were representative of the choice between being obedient to God or not. It was a choice between God meant what he said. Wouldn’t it be great for us to read on and find that Adam and Eve lived happily ever after? We don’t find that in Scripture.

As a matter of fact in verse 25 of chapter two we read, “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” But in the very next verse in 3:1 the serpent comes on the scene. Of course those of us who are followers of the New Testament are able to read about the serpent and see that this is Satan. Satan takes on the body of a serpent and has this brief conversation with Eve and ends up shaking the world. Since Halloween is coming up there are a lot of folks interested in the history of Halloween. I think we can safely say that the first one to wear a Halloween constume was the devil. He came to the party in a snake outfit! (I’m attempting to be funny here)

What is the serpents approach to deception? How does this sneaky snake deceive Eve?

1). The first thing he does is get her to doubt God’s goodness.

“Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden?” 3:1 Now you know Eve is a little taken back at this moment. I mean she hears this snake talking to her. That’s enough to make anyone take a double take. Now the serpent is not playing dumb here. He is trying to get her to see that God has created the whole garden of Eden for them to enjoy and he is going to leave out just one little thing. It’s just a tree for goodness sakes. Why would God want to keep that from you? It must be something very good. As a matter of fact the serpent says to her in verse 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” In other words, God is holding out on you!

The very thing happens to us. So many times we are deceived into thinking God is holding out on us. So we push ahead. We strive to get what we want. We look at other people and think wow, God is surely blessing them. I wonder why he is not doing the same for me. So we begin to take our own initiative in life. God’s goodness isn’t just measured in the material. We need to understand God’s goodness to us and for us. Oh God you are immeasurably good. Just the fact that we get to take up space on his universe is a good thing.

Illustration on God’s goodness.

The serpent deceives Eve in another way:

2). By getting her to disbelieve God’s word.

Now, in 2:17 God gives Adam a specific command about the tree of knowledge of good and evil. “But you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Now that is as clear as you can get. I mean there is no room for discussion here.