September 13, 2024 -- Genesis 3:1-7 -- Hear Him!

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 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.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 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.” 6 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. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Genesis 3:1-7 ESV

The lie of the serpent, Satan, is so blatant in this temptation, yet it is a lie that works over and over again. In order to see how blatantly wrong, grossly misleading his lie is, you need to recall the earlier chapters. Genesis 1:26 the Triune God declared “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Now consider verse 27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him”. The repetition sears into the brain of the reader that God Himself has made Adam and Eve in His image. They are like God. In Genesis 2, before Eve was created, Adam was exercising his dominion over creation by naming the livestock and the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field. As he did so, he realized there was no creature like unto him, created in the image of God. No other creature bore the unique stamp of God’s love and was created for fellowship with the LORD of heaven. Okay, you have this background. Now look at Satan’s lie at Genesis 3:5, when you eat of the forbidden fruit you will be like God, knowing good and evil”. See the lie? They were already like God. As close as ever could be because that IS how God made them.

Now, armed with the information on the image of God which is given in the previous two chapters, you can see how the lie of Satan is exposed as absolutely wrong. Adam and Eve are already in the image of God. Adam and Eve. They were created to walk with God in the cool of the evening. Adam and Eve were created for life which stretched on and would allow for constant growth in the knowledge of God, ever more delight in Him, and greater understanding of what it meant to be made in His image. Satan caused them to doubt the generosity of God and His goodness towards them. It is his most familiar, most often used tactic.

Jesus’s disciple, Peter, though having walked with Jesus for three years was still susceptible to the lies of Satan which started in the Garden of Eden. When Jesus was arrested, Peter and John stood in the courtyard of the place where Jesus was being tried. A young servant girl asked Peter “were you with Him?” He vehemently denied it. He was prepared to identify with the enemy, doubting God's good and holy intentions for him. So, he betrayed Jesus, rather than stay true to the One in Whose likeness He was made and Whose fellowship he enjoyed. All of us can see how easily we fall. We fail.

Be encouraged, dear fellow Christians, this same Jesus, risen and ascended to heaven, has given us His righteousness. He has poured out His Spirit so that “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (I Peter 1:3a). In fact, Peter goes on to write that this divine power, to which is added the God’s very great and precious promises, you escape “the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (I Peter 1:4).

Sinclair Ferguson makes the point that the people of God might be deceived by what their eyes see, or are led by their feelings. However, the one sense which must be cultivated is the sense of hearing. The people of God hear the word of God. The people of the Savior listen to His voice. Think of Jesus’s words “The sheep hear His voice, and He calls His Own sheep by name and leads them out” (John 10:3). Believers reading the Word of God hear the voice of Jesus.

Believers when they are out in the world, tested and tempted, must recall the Word of God and His very great and precious promises. Those precious promises expose the lies of the enemy. His Word destroys the fictions we tell ourselves, and show how ridiculous the incessant catechism of the world is. A constant, spewing narrative that strives to dictate what is current, what is fashionable, what matters. It is an endless treadmill going nowhere but to hell. Believers hear the voice of Jesus, over the crashing waves of life’s wild restless sea. Believers hear His invitation to defy evil and not be fooled by the lies of the world and the temptations of the Devil, instead hearing His voice, returning again and again to Him. Jesus' voice is discerned in the Bible, from start to finish, it is His instruction in His very great, very precious promise of life.

IN THE MORNING

O LORD, our heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God, Who has safely brought us to the beginning of this day; defend us in the same with Thy mighty power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger; but that all our doings may be ordered by Thy governance, to do always that which is righteous in Thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE DIVINE SERVICE BOOK FOR THE ARMED FORCES, 1950, page 32

https://youtu.be/In-MtdNjF44?si=LmjBSaJDFBtBCuXN “Jesus Calls Us O’er the Tumult”

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