Don’t Doubt God’s Goodness

Genesis 3:1-6

If you're a Christian temptation dogs your path and trips you at every turn. The question you must face someplace in your life is, "How does the Tempter do his work? How does he come to us? How does he destroy us?" In scripture we have one of the themes that is woven again and again throughout the Scripture, the theme of sin and its destructive power.

What we have here in Genesis, chapter 3, is a case study in temptation. As a case study, what you want to do is to get rid of the independent variables to study this correctly. And certainly as Eve is approached by the Tempter, there are many things that were not true of her that might be true of us. For example, she has no poisoned blood in her veins. She does not have a heritage on which she can blame her sin. Eve comes, as Adam did, from the direct creation of God, and when God created Adam and Eve, God declared that the creation was very good. Unlike people today, she was not half-damned in her birth. What is more, Eve and Adam live in perfect environment. There is nothing in the pollution of that atmosphere that would lead them away from God. She stands there in the morning of creation, a creature of great wonder. No sinful heritage, no sinful environment. We have a pure case study in temptation.

Genesis 3:1-6

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, `You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, `You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' " "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

As we watch the way the Tempter comes to Eve, we recognize that while this story comes to us out of the ancient past, it's as up-to-date as the temptation you may be facing this morning - the temptation you faced last night - the temptation you face in your study, in your home, in your work place, in your life. The scene has changed, but the methodology has not.

How does Satan tempt us?

1. He Comes to Us in Disguise.

As you read this story, one of things you discover is that when the Tempter comes, he comes to us in disguise. The writer of Genesis says that the serpent was more crafty than all of the wild animals the Lord God had made. I gather that he is telling us that when the serpent came, he did not come as a thing of ugliness. This scene happens before the curse. This happens before the serpent crawls on its belly upon the ground. There are no rattlers here that warn of an approaching poison. There's nothing here that would make Eve feel alarmed.

When Satan comes to you, he does not come in the form of a coiled snake. He does not come at the roar of a lion. He does not come at the wail of a siren. He does not come waving a red flag. Satan just slides into your life. He comes and seems almost like a comfortable companion. There seems to be nothing about him that you would dread. The New Testament says that he comes as an angel of light. One point that's quite clear is that when the Enemy comes to attack you, he comes in disguise. Unfortunately far too many people do not know the devil is there even when he has them by the throat.

Not only is he disguised in his person, he is disguised in his purposes. When he comes, he does not come to say to Eve, "I have come to tempt you." What he does is to come to have a religious discussion. He wants to talk theology; he doesn't want to talk sin. He begins his temptation by saying, "Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?" Satan comes and says, "Look, I just want to be sure of the idea that God was trying to get across. Did he really say you can't eat of any of the trees of the garden?" You see, he is a religious devil. He doesn't come to you and knock on the door of your soul and say, "Pardon me, sir, give me a half hour of your life. I'd like to destroy you." No, all he wants to do is talk a bit. He disguises his motives so that you can construct a theology that leads you to the disobedience of God.

Another thing that Satan does in this conversation, this discussion about God, is focus Eve's attention on that single tree in the center of the garden. He says, "It seems to me inconceivable that God wouldn't let you have any of these trees," and now Eve comes to God's defense. She's a witness for God. She says, "No, we can eat of all of the trees of the garden but that one tree--that tree there in the center--we can't eat from that, we can't touch that tree." God didn't say that. He didn't say anything about touching it. But one of the things people do in defending God is become more righteousness than God, become stricter than God. Eve makes it a point to say, "You know we can't taste it; we can't even touch it." What Satan has done, of course, is to focus her mind on that single tree, the one thing prohibited. Eve has forgotten everything else around her…the rest of beautiful Garden, the blessings that God has surrounded her with, the joy God has given her. She has lost sight of the blessings.

Sometimes you wonder how people could turn their backs on all the good things, all the blessings, that have been poured into their lives--throw all that away for sin in their lives. And the answer is, they don't see the blessings. Satan shifts the focus, and now there is that one thing you want so desperately you'll do anything to get it. It becomes the focus of your life and everything else God does, you forget. So Satan comes in disguise. He conceals who he is. He conceals what he wants to do.

2. He Attacks God's Word.

The second thing you discover is that in his attack he attacks God's word.

Eve responds, "We may eat from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat the fruit from the tree that's in the middle of the garden. You must not touch it or you will die.'" Then Satan throws his head back and with irrepressible laughter says, "Surely you don't believe that, do you? That you will surely die? Oh, come now. A bit of fruit? Surely die? That's just a bit of exaggeration that God's using to get your attention, but he doesn't mean that. Surely die? Come now, you're too sophisticated. You're too aware to believe that God who gave you this marvelous garden, and all these trees, and that bountiful fruit, is going to be that exited about your taking that one piece of fruit from the ...Surely die? You don't believe that, do you? God doesn't mean that. God certainly doesn't mean that."

For thousands of years Satan has repeated that. ‘It’s a little lie…who can it hurt? Go ahead indulge yourself…who will ever find out? I know God said that you shall not…but honestly this is not really a big deal.

So what God says don’t…it’s a little sin and everyone is doing it’. Satan attacks the validity and reality of God’s Word by belittling the true consequence of sin.

How do you feel about these warnings about disobedience that fill the Bible? How do you feel about them? Does God really mean it when he says that they who live after the flesh shall die? Does God really mean it when he says, "If you sow to your flesh, you will reap corruption?" Does God mean it when he says, "Be not deceived. Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap." Does God mean it when he says that the eye of the Lord is against the wicked? Does God mean it when he says, he shall judge his people? How do you feel about it? Does God mean it when he says things like that?

God is serious about sin because God is serious about you. God is serious about sin because God loves you and God knows the devastation that sin can have in your life, in your relationships, in your character, in your witness. God is serious about sin as a loving parent is serious about fire and warns a child about it, knowing that it can maim that child for life, destroy the home he lives in, and do untold damage. But how do you feel about it? Does God mean it when he says those things?

3. He Attacks God's Character.

Not only does Satan attack God's Word, but he goes deeper and attacks God's character. For the serpent said to the woman, in verse 5...

(v. 5) For God knows that when you eat of that tree, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

What Satan is doing is attacking God's goodness. What he is saying is, "You know why God gave you that command? He gave you that command because he wants to spoil your fun. The reason he gave you that command is he wants to keep you on a tight leash. He doesn't want you to be free. He doesn't want you to really experience the abundance of life. He wants to deny your pleasures. He wants to show you who is in control. He wants to keep you down. He doesn't want you to have the excitement that life can offer other people. He knows that when you eat it you'll be like him and you'll know good and evil. You'll have experiences you can have in no other way. God's got an ulterior motive, a hidden agenda, and it's an bad one."

Once the well is poisoned, all the water is destroyed. All Satan wants to do is to get you thinking that God doesn’t have your best interest at heart. All he wants to do is sow a seed of doubt where you begin thinking that God doesn’t really care about you and is only trying to keep you down. Satan just wants you to think that in this case you do know better God and therefore it’s okay. And then once that seed is planted the entire mind can be distorted about sin. When you poison the well, all the water is poisoned. When you come to the place where you doubt God's Word because you really doubt God's goodness, then Satan has done his work. How easily we do that.

All of us have served the Prince of Darkness and lived in his realm until we come to Christ. And when we come to God's Son we have a way of bringing our doubts and suspicions with us. Something happens in your life that is difficult, and you find yourself asking why, and that question mark grows to become a dagger pointed at the heart of God. How easily we begin to suspect that what has happened in our life is really a demonstration that God is against us, he’s abandoned us, he’s doesn’t care. We suffer such a twisted mindset that even when good things happen to us we still doubt God's goodness. Something marvelous comes into your life, something unexpected, and you're delighted. Then all at once there a shadow crosses your mind and then before long you are convinced that it all will be taken away. That God doesn't really want me to enjoy the expansion of his goodness; just as I get to enjoy it, he'll snatch it back like some cruel, sadistic parent. When you doubt God's goodness, you'll doubt his Word and you will see God restricting you and holding you back. And that point the work of temptation is done.

And so the writer tells us that at that moment, in verse 6, "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it." It now becomes pleasing to the eye. It becomes desirable because now she has listened to the lie of the Tempter and her senses take control.

When you come to question God's Word and God's goodness suddenly your senses come alive to what is evil and what was once out of bounds to you becomes the thing you desire and often the thing that will destroy you. That sin becomes okay in our mind. It was once a sin that you would have never dreamed of committing…and now after doubting God and His Word it seems so easy and harmless.

"Piece of fruit?" someone might say. "Surely not a piece of fruit. You're not going to tell me that Eve sinned with a piece of fruit in a fruit orchard. You're not going to tell me that's why Adam sinned and that's why murder came into their family. You're not going to tell me a piece of fruit damned the race."

No, not a piece of fruit. A disobedience to God's Word, a distrust of God's character. The fruit is out at the periphery; the sin is at the center. Whenever you come to deny or doubt the goodness of God, then at the point in which you struggle in your soul you'll come to deny his Word.

If Satan had come to Eve in that early morning and said, "Look, sign this paper. Say that you are done with God," she would never have signed it. When Satan comes he never comes dragging the chains that will confine us. He never speaks of consequence. He comes offering us pleasure, expansiveness, money, popularity, freedom, enjoyment. In fact, he never really says there are any consequences at all, just that we will fill all the desires of our hearts. It is there we are destroyed. That's the lesson: the temptations that destroy us strike at the heart of God, at God's integrity and God's goodness. When we deny his goodness, we reject his Word, we do so at our peril.

Hear me well this morning. I do not come to you to bring some kind of tight religion. Christianity is not just a matter of toeing the line and keeping the rules. Christianity is a relationship with a God who loves you so much that he gave you his Son, and loves you so much that he has made you his child--a God whose every gift is good and perfect. God is all about loving us, protecting us, helping us mature, and seeing that we live life according to His perfect purposes. But we sin and fall when we doubt his goodness and thus disobey his Word.