Doubting God’s Goodness

Never Allow The Enemy to Disguise the Goodness of God.

Genesis 3:1-6

INTRODUCTION

Over 20 years ago, there was a very famous psychiatrist, Karl Menninger wrote a book called Whatever Became of Sin? It shocked an awful lot of people. In it, he called the country to a revival of a conscious sense of guilt and repentance. He writes, “I am calling for a revival of the concept of sin. ‘And what would be the good of that?’ some would ask. Shall we add depression to the already-mentioned gloom and world uneasiness? Why not a “no-fault” theology … no one to blame? Things just happen?’” He continues this way:

“Here’s why. The assumption that there is sin in it somewhere implies both a possibility and an obligation for intervention. Hence sin is the only hopeful view. When evil appears around us, and no one is responsible, and no one is guilty … then no moral questions are asked, and then there is, in short, nothing to do about it. So we sink into a despairing hopelessness. Therefore the consequences of my proposal for a revival of the consciousness of sin would not be more depression but less.” Karl Menninger.

Do you believe that? The best thing for us today would be a revival of guilt and repentance, he said. A few hundred years ago, another man, Martin Luther, decided the church had lost its soul. Of course, the church was the institution of the culture at the time. He nailed a reform plan, he nailed a program for reform to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral, and at the very top of it, it said, “All of life is repentance.”

Now, Menninger was a member of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Psychology, that’s not a hub of Christian belief. Luther, on the other hand, is part of the core of Christian orthodoxy. Strangely both of them say the same thing. They say the best thing for you if you want joy and if you want hope, if you want to get out of your depression, if you want a life of greatness, the most important thing for you to do today is to get a deeper grasp and understanding of the nature and depth of your sinfulness. Now if those two guys agree on something, we’d better listen.

Two different places. Two different views. Two different societies. Two different times. Of course, the reason we’re talking about it today is not because Karl Menninger said it and not because Martin Luther even said it, but because the Bible repeatedly tells us that unless you understand sin, you will not understand yourself, and you will not understand life.

If you're a Christian, the temptation to sin will dog your path and trip 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, one theme is woven repeatedly: sin and its destructive power.

Genesis, chapter 3, is a case study in temptation and why sin seems to trip us up daily.

Genesis 3:1–6 ESV

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’?” 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.’ ” 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.” 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.

SCRIPTURAL ANALYSIS

As we watch the way the serpent 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, and in your workplace. The scene has changed, but the methodology has not.

VERSE 1

The serpent is unforeseen prior to this narrative and appears suddenly. The reader is caught off guard. The snake is described by the narrator as “crafty,” alerting the reader to weigh the words of the beast carefully. In the ancient world, the serpent was viewed as possessing mystical wisdom and as a demonic and hostile creature. The serpent intentionally misconstrues the command of God by formulating a question designed to get the woman to express the command in her own words. The tactic used by the serpent was to cause doubt in the mind of the woman through interrogation and misrepresentation.

The snake has often been taken as a symbol for the devil as the Book of Revelation speaks of the devil as that ‘ancient serpent’, and it well may be that in Genesis, some supernatural evil stands behind the voice of the tempting snake. But the snake does not appear as the devil to the woman. The voice of temptation does not come as the voice of evil. If this is Satan in the story of Genesis 3, he is wearing a careful mask. He is hidden in the ordinariness and the everydayness of a creature in the Garden. The snake does not feature in this story as the cause of human failure, but as that which faces human beings with the reality of their trust in God.

With three potent arguments, the serpent sought to lead the woman and the man to believe that observing the prohibition was foolish. First, God did not intend to put to death anyone who ate of this tree, for like a jealous dictator, God was protecting himself by keeping from them knowledge that would raise their status to that of gods or heavenly beings. Second, this fruit held the potential for finding self-fulfillment, leading to a bold declaration of self-reliance apart from God. Third, eating it would bring them divine, esoteric knowledge. The serpent belittled God as unreasonable in limiting human pleasure and advancement with this prohibition. Rather than making a direct suggestion to disobey God’s command, the shrewd serpent indirectly enticed the woman to eat the forbidden fruit.

VERSES 2-3

The woman’s first mistake was her willingness to talk with the serpent and to respond to the creature’s cynicism by rehearsing God’s prohibition (2:17). Flee from temptation. However, she compounded her mistake by misrepresenting God’s command as the serpent had done, although definitely without the malicious intent of the snake. The serpent had succeeded in drawing the woman’s attention to another possible interpretation of God’s command.

Now the woman changes the tenor of the original command. First, she omits those elements in the command “any” and “freely,” which places the prohibition in a context of liberality to lessen its importance. Second, Eve identifies the tree according to its location rather than its significance; and third, she refers to “God” as the serpent had done, rather than “the Lord” (v. 3). Fourth, she also adds the phrase “you must not touch it” (v. 3), which may make the prohibition more stringent. You can see she is struggling to find a strong center as the serpent questions God’s goodness.

VERSES 4-5

The motivation for God’s command is impugned by the serpent. In the wisdom tradition the adversary argues the same case with Job. God is not good and gracious; he is selfish and deceptive, preventing the man and woman from achieving the same position as God. The serpent made three counterclaims: First, they will not die. Second, “your eyes will be opened,” a metaphor for knowledge, suggesting a newfound awareness not previously possessed. And finally, they will gain what belongs to God, “knowing good and evil.” Essentially he is contending that God is holding her back, a claim that is still echoed today.

The serpent’s half-truths concealed falsehoods and led the woman to expect a different result altogether. The serpent spoke only about what she would gain and avoided mentioning what she would lose in the process. Although their eyes were opened, they were rewarded only with seeing their nakedness and were burdened with human guilt and embarrassment (v. 7). Although they became like God in this one way, it was at an unexpected cost. They achieved isolation and fear. The couple was cut off as well from the possibility of life, the one feature of divinity for which otherwise they were destined. They obtained this “wisdom” in exchange for death.

VERSE 6

In the final verse, the woman recognizes three advantages of the forbidden tree: the fruit is good, the tree is beautiful, and eating would make her wise. Three strong drives compelled her to eat: physical cravings, aesthetic attraction, and the pride of life or need for self-boasting. She perceived that the tree’s fruit was good for food, stirring within her the desire to taste something new and exotic. And she noticed that the tree was pleasing to the eye. The pleasure of having something beautiful tugged at her. She discerned that the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom that would give her mastery over her own destiny, that is, the human desire to boast about one’s achievements or position. These desires impelled her to take some of that fruit and eat it. She also gave some to her husband, and he ate it. And thus, sin enters the world.

TODAY’S KEY TRUTH

Never Allow The Enemy to Disguise the Goodness of God.

APPLICATION

As you read this story, one of the things you discover is that when sin comes, it often 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 slithers 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 sin comes to you, it does not come in the form of a coiled snake. It does not come at the roar of a lion. It does not come at the wail of a siren. Sin does not come waving a red flag. Our enemy just slides into your life. He comes and seems almost like a comfortable companion. There seems to be nothing that you would dread. The New Testament says that Satan is 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 enemy is there, even when he has them by the throat.

Not only is he disguised in his person, but he is also 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 about questions; he doesn't want to talk about 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 in 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. She’s distracted from the rest of the beautiful Garden, the blessings that God has surrounded her with, and the joy God has given her. She has lost sight of everything else.

Sometimes, you wonder how people could turn their backs on all the good things, all the blessings that have been poured into their lives, and throw all that away for sin in their lives. 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. Sin comes in disguise. Satan conceals who he is. He conceals what he wants to do. He hides the full consequences, and He conceals the aftermath. Sin comes in disguise.

Never Allow The Enemy to Disguise the Goodness of God.

CONCLUSION

In verse 5, the serpent said to the woman, “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 good 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. 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 a bad one."

Once a well is poisoned, all the water is destroyed. All the enemy 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. Once that seed is planted, the entire mind can be distorted about sin. When you poison a well, all the water is poisoned. When you come to a place where you doubt God's goodness, then the enemy has done his work, and sin can overtake you. While sin appears enticing in its disguise, behind it awaits ugliness and, eventually, death.

Never Allow The Enemy to Disguise the Goodness of God.

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. He’s 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.

There is not a single command in the Bible that is meant to make you miserable. Did you know that? How would God be glorified from your begrudging submission? ‘I better say yes, or God will send me to hell.’ That’s nonsensical. That’s not what we believe. We believe that the thou shall and the thou shall nots are about pleasure and joy forever. Not less pleasure, more pleasure, less joy, more joy, not less life, more life. God is not trying to rob people of joy and pleasure, and contentment. He wants to give you life. On repeat, Jesus said, “I am life; life is found in me. You’re not getting life out there with what the world offers. You’re getting death, not life. Come to me. I am life.”

Never Allow The Enemy to Disguise the Goodness of God.

God's goodness is all around us: in nature, his word, answered prayers, blessings, and provision. When we take our eyes off ourselves, we can enjoy His goodness every day. Walk in faith, walk in love, and walk in forgiveness. His goodness is everywhere.

The Bible declares, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:6) God is perfectly good and righteous, and there is no evil or sin in him. God cannot be unjust. He doesn’t lose his temper, harbor bitterness, get frustrated with you, throw up His hands in disgust, or turn His back on you in exhaustion. God loves you unconditionally and uninterrupted. Your sins and failures don’t change the nature of God’s love for you. He loved you enough to send Jesus to cover your sins, rescue you, and bring you home.

Never Allow The Enemy to Disguise the Goodness of God.