Sermon Tone Analysis

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.

And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?”

The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.”

The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!

For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing God and evil.”

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 desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

They heard the sound of the LORD God in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”

In churches and Christian circles we like to discuss what mankind’s purpose is in the world.

There are sections of many catechisms dedicated to that question, normally answered that man’s purpose is to worship and enjoy God.

In fact, the bulk of human history has found mankind in a struggling attempt to find an answer to that question.

“Why are we here?”

It’s an important question.

After all, we cannot fulfill our purpose without first knowing it.

But as important as that question is to answer, rarely do we stop and try to figure out the answer to another question.

“Why is God here?”

It’s probably a reasonable assumption to say that we cannot answer that.

God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.

In a very real sense we cannot know or understand what God’s purpose is for Himself.

After all, His name, Yahweh, means “I am,” the “self-existent one.”

He told Moses “I am that I am,” or “I exist because I exist,” so it would be the purpose for Himself for which He exists, and we cannot know that, but what we can know is God’s intentions toward mankind.

That is revealed in Scripture.

God’s desire and intention in the world has been from the very beginning to bless mankind.

In the 1400’s BC Moses led the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt and gathered them at Mt. Sinai.

It was there that Israel entered into a covenant relationship with God, and it was there that God revealed to Moses what he was to write down for the people.

Under God’s direction Moses wrote a history of the Israelite people, and he wrote the Law that spelled out the details of their covenant with God.

Moses wrote the passage of Scripture we’re looking at today to communicate to the people of Israel entering into a covenant with God that God would accomplish His original intention of blessing mankind, and that He would do it in spite of man’s sin, which means it will be accomplished by His grace.

The first nine verses of Genesis 3 tells the story of the first man and woman, and we’re going to see them in terms of their relationship with God, and as we go along we’re going to follow the different stages Adam and Eve’s relationship with God went through, and in the end we’ll see what conclusion we should draw about how to understand and guard our own relationship with God.

Phase #1: Man’s Relationship with God is attacked by the assault on God’s Word.

Chapter 2 of Genesis shows the details of God’s creation of the first man and woman, and it defines their relationships, to each other, to the earth, to the animals, and most importantly to God.

We find this relationship articulated in verses 16 and 17 of Chapter 2. God has placed two trees in the garden of Eden, and also within the garden He has given the man and his wife everything they will ever need.

Now, about these two trees God says, beginning in verse 16 of Chapter 2:

“From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it you will surely die.”

And thus, man’s relationship with God was defined by the man’s choice of blessing or cursing for himself.

There are a couple of parallel phrases we need to look at briefly.

“You may freely eat,” and “you will surely die.”

Literally, these phrases read, “eating you will eat” and “dying you will die.”

And so, the consequence of eating from either tree was a promise of continuation in the chosen behavior.

To eat from the permitted trees was to continue in fellowship with God, but to eat from the other was to break that fellowship.

This is the background our story fits into, so let’s take a look at it.

Look at verse 1 of Chapter 3:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.

Now, we could speculate and question and argue all day long about the details of how Satan is using the snake here.

That’s beyond the scope of this message, but is one important thing to point out about his identity.

Notice that the snake is identified as one “of the beasts of the field.”

This points us back to the description of the animals that were created in chapter 2 verse 19.

In that verse God was parading the animals before Adam so that he could name them.

To give a name to something was to exercise a position of sovereignty or authority over what is being named.

So what’s the point?

The point is that this snake is identified among the animals Adam had already exercised authority over.

In the end, if you’re familiar with the story, it should have been Adam and Eve who banished the snake from the garden, rather than being the ones God banished because they listened to the snake.

And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?”

What exactly is Satan doing doing here?

It’s fairly obvious that he’s launching some sort of an attack, and thus begins the first phase of man’s relationship with God in this passage: man’s relationship with God is attacked by the assault on God’s Word.

Since Satan can’t thwart God’s plan, his intention is to destroy the relationship within which God bestows blessing.

Satan does this by putting a roadblock between mankind and the vehicle that God has instituted to bring about His blessings, which is His Word.

Let’s say you are an upper level supervisor at work, and a supervisor that works directly below you has been treating one of his subordinates really poorly.

He insults him in front of his coworkers, he makes him work at needless tasks after hours for no apparent reason.

He just makes this guys’ life miserable.

He hasn’t come to you, but someone else in the company lets you know.

So, rather than call the bullying supervisor in to your office immediately, you want to hear from the guy who’s been bullied, so you call him into your office.

When he comes in it’s obvious that he’s extremely stressed out and bothered by what’s been happening to him.

You look him in the eye, maybe you put your hand on your shoulder, and you say, “Is what I’m hearing true?

Has your supervisor really been mistreating you in the office?”

Now, imagine you said that to a different new guy in the company, one whose boss was not mistreating him.

Even though his boss was treating him fine, the fact that a third party stepped in and questioned the boss’s character would cause some real doubts.

I really believe this is how we’re supposed to understand Satan’s words to Eve here, as speaking with a feigned attitude of indignant disbelief.

“Has God really told you you can’t eat anything from the garden?”

“Is God really holding out on you?” What’s Satan doing?

He’s sowing doubt in God’s character.

Why?

If he can cast a doubtful light on the God’s character, he succeeds in casting a doubtful light on the truth of God’s Word, and this is typical of Satan.

This is not unique.

This is typical.

Now, when Satan attacks here, notice that his attack is threefold, with doubting God’s character being the first attack.

Also, remember that what Satan is attacking is not God’s Word, but man’s relationship with God.

He attacks man’s relationship with God by attacking God’s Word.

It’s not God Satan’s after.

He’s after you and me.

Believe it or not, we are all susceptible to this particular attack of Satan.

This is probably the most common attack.

See, sowing doubt in God’s character doesn’t have to mean getting us to doubt whether God is good.

It can mean getting us to think that God is too harsh, which pushes us into legalism.

It can also mean getting us to believe rules don’t apply to us, that God will forgive us because it’s us.

Just to be clear, although God is merciful and forgiving, God will not make an exception for you, or for me.

Sadly, a common statement made by ministers who experience moral failure by having an affair or something like that is that they thought that somehow God would let it slide because they had done so much for Him.

“Surely God will forgive me.

After all, it’s me!

Look at what all I’ve done for Him!” Satan tries to get us to question God’s character based on our feelings, but God’s character cannot be known apart from His Word.

That is a false division.

Let’s look at Eve’s response in Vs. 2-3.

The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”

There are two tragic errors we find in Eve’s response.

The first is that she hardened the command.

God never said they couldn’t touch it.

I’m not inclined to believe that this misunderstanding should be directly attributed to Satan’s deception.

He tricked her, all right, but to say that she added the rule about touching just because Satan asked a question is, I think, a bit of a stretch.

The point is that, regardless of how it happened, God’s command was misunderstood and misrepresented.

The second error is that she reduced the severity of the consequence.