Has God Said?: The Serpent and His Half‑Truths

It's good to see you. Let's open our Bibles and we're going to read from Genesis chapter 3, verse 1, but I want to actually begin the reading with the last verse of chapter 2. And then we're going to read the portion of chapter 3 together. Okay, and if you feel like, well, I think we've already done chapter 3. You'd be correct. However, for various reasons, I am compelled tonight to repeat some things. And some of what you hear will be familiar appear here on that particular night, but some of it unfamiliar. Chapter 2 and verse 25. And they were both naked. This is speaking of Adam and Eve, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. He said unto the woman, Ye hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. The woman said unto the serpent, we may

eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. But of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes will be opened, ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in

the cool of the day. Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid myself. He said, Who told thee that thou was naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree? Where have I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gave us to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. I'll stop right there, and I'd like to spend the next little bit studying this passage of Scripture, and particularly the subject of the clarity of God's word. And Jesus helped me to teach faithful and help me give my voice strength. And I pray for I pray for us to be in your presence in the presence of your

word. That is, that we would be sensitive to you walking amongst us in the form of your word. That we would place ourselves in this situation, that we would not just see this as a story about once upon a time, but see it as a story that is happening even now. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. You'd be seated. After. Thank you. Chapter 3 and verse 1 ties together with what preceded it, verse 25 of the previous chapter. It's very important that you read those two together. They were naked and were not ashamed. And then the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field. You can't see the play on words in English, but we're dealing with a very ancient language, and the English is a translation of something that was written thousands of years ago in a completely different time and place and tongue. And there's word play that I'd like to draw your attention to between these two verses,

chapter 2 and verse 25 and then chapter 3 and verse 1. It's not important for doctrine, but it is, nevertheless, scripture's way of drawing attention to something that is important. Man and woman in chapter 2 and 25 are both said to be, in the Hebrew word is arrum. I'm rolling my Rs. And at the risk of sounding goofy. But nevertheless, man and woman are arrum. That is, they're naked. The serpent in chapter 3 and verse 1 is said to be arrum, crafty or subtle. So there's a little play on words. So one verse, they're naked, arrum. And then the beast is arrum. We have, in English, we have words that have similar sounds, but it means completely different things. For instance, the word bear can be spelled B-A-R-E to bear your muscle or bear your teeth. But then there's the bear that comes out of the woods. It's nothing like bearing your teeth. The words sound the same. They have different meanings. Hebrew

is the same way. But it seems that scripture's trying to draw attention to and draw in association the nakedness of man, the innocence and nakedness of man and woman, and then the craftiness of the serpent. In trying to be, by the time we get through this story, in trying to be arrum, that is, in trying to be wise, that's what Eve reaches for, the forbidden fruit, in trying to be arrum, like the serpent, Eve will find herself arrum. She'll find that she's naked. See, she's naked at the beginning of the story, but she doesn't know she is. She's in a state of innocence. But by the end of it all, by the serpent's arrum, they're going to learn that they are arrum, missing something. The serpent begins his conversation with Eve with a question. Questions are not the problem. A God, when he speaks to Adam and Eve, he's going to ask them a question. Where are you? Nothing wrong with the question

itself. But I want you to notice his framing. He says, has God said? All right. Now, what he's about to do is he's asking an open-ended question, a question that genuinely seeks an answer. He doesn't ask a rhetorical question. So, if he were asking a rhetorical question, he would have framed it this way. He would have said, has not God said, you shall eat the fruit of the tree of all the trees in the garden? He didn't frame it as a rhetorical question. He framed it as an open-ended question that begs an answer. And he says, has God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Now, God had said, I want you to notice, if you take a look at chapter 2 and look at it with me, verse 17, put up there on the screen or if you have your Bible in front of you, I want you to notice this very carefully. God is speaking to Adam

and Eve, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Notice, verse 16, the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In other words, there's one exception, but you may eat of every tree, except that one. Now look at how the serpent has framed it. You shall not eat of every tree of the garden, as God said that. And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. What's missing? The word every. All right? It's subtle. Remember, he's subtle, but subtleties is gain. And these slight omissions are the thin end of the wedge to put between Eve and her maker. You shall not eat of every tree in the garden. And she says, she says, we

may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. I want you to notice something else subtle that's happened right here. Please notice, the serpent in verse one refers to God, the creator, as God, or in Hebrew, it's Elohim. But if you look at every other reference to God in chapter two, and then other references later on in chapter three, how is God referred to? In chapter two, he's referred to starting with verse four on as the Lord God. Okay, chapter two, verse four. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. And then the next verse, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth. Verse seven,

and the Lord God formed man at the dust of the ground. Verse eight, and the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden. And verse nine, out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree. I could keep going. All of a sudden, though, when you get this introduction of the serpent, he no longer refers to the narrative is broken up, he no longer refers to God as the Lord God. He refers to him simply as the generic God. Now it's highly significant. The word or the phrase Lord God is literally the Yahweh Elohim. This is a reference to God's covenant name with human beings, covenant name. The serpent begins to speak of God not by His covenant name, not as a God that they're in covenant with, but just as a generic God. All right? So we'll give him that. You serpent refer to him as God. You don't have a relationship with him. He's not the Lord God to

you. He's God. He's your maker, but he's not, you're not in covenant. That's fine. But then I want you to notice Eve's response. The woman said under the serpent, verse two, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God has said. Now she has adopted his language. She's now referring to him no longer as the covenant God, the God of relationship, the God of somebody you walk with, a person. But now she refers to him the way the serpent refers to him. There's a loss of reverence for God, a loss of awe for God, and a loss of accountability. That's first. And second, the serpent grossly misstates God's command. Did he really say you shall not eat of any tree? God had generously given the fruit of all trees, but one. He says, has God said you shall not eat the fruit of any

tree? Okay. 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 trees that's in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die. So Eve has adopted his reference and called the Lord God simply God. And her reply also subtracts just a bit from God's generosity. She didn't say, God said, we can eat the fruit of every tree except, she said, we may eat the fruit trees in the garden. In other words, she took out every, she proceeds then to add to the severity of God's command by saying, we may not touch it. This makes God seem even more harsh and subject to criticism. Again, she's adopting the attitude of the serpent. 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'll be like God, knowing good and evil. Now, by the end of this story, it appears that the serpent spoke prophetically and that it was God who was less than forthright. For by the end of this particular episode, Adam and Eve do not die. In fact, Adam goes on to live 930 years. We don't know how long Eve lived. And God says to his counsel that man has become like him, knowing good and evil. So we need to make sure he can't have access anymore to the tree of life. So he posts the cherubim there. Okay, so remember that the serpent had promised, he had said, you shall not die. And they don't die by the end of the episode. And the serpent said, you shall be like God, knowing good from evil. And God confirms this with his counsel at the end saying, they know good from evil and we need to make sure that they can't have access to the

tree of life. All right, the serpent also never directly tells them to eat. Notice that he's very subtle. He doesn't say, go on, eat it. He's using suggestion and subtle commentary on the nature of God. And as I like to, I like to say and remember frequently, the devil is the world's first theologian. The serpent makes three promises. You will not certainly die. Your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. But his words are, we should note what we call half truths, the prophecies that he makes. They're ambiguous. Your eyes will be opened. It sounds like a promise of seeing better things or knowing greater, higher, more wonderful truths. But it ends up meaning that what they'll know is shame. They, the second promise, they are indeed like God in knowing good and evil now. But in this one case, the nearer they approach his likeness in knowing good from evil, the further away they are from

him. All right, I'll say a few words about, on the subject of half truths, the half truths of the enemy. There were, in the ancient world, there were what the pagans called oracles. And an oracle was typically stationed somewhere in some mountain because mountains were thought to be the throne of the gods. And one particular mountain in Greece was called Delphi. And there was an oracle, a famous oracle, called the Delphic Oracle. And at the Delphic Oracle, there would be a priestess and a priest. And if you paid the priest a certain, you know, whatever they asked, the priestess would go into a trance and then she would begin to speak. And the priest would then interpret what she's saying. And it would be some form of wisdom to try to help or ostensibly to help this person who came asking for guidance. But you had to pay attention to the nature of the oracles because the oracles were almost always delivered in

half truths. By the way, by the way, you'll never guess what these priests and priestesses were called. They were called the priests of the Pythia. That's where we get the word Python, the serpent, the priests of the serpent, Apollo. There's an old tradition in ancient Greece of a serpent speaking in half truths and oracles. Interesting. All right, so you have oracles in the ancient world. I've given this example before. Tune me out if you've heard it before. But turn to me back in after a few seconds. One of the most famous examples of the Oracle of the Pythia was the instance in which the priestess says to two men who have come and asked which of the two will be the successor of their father, the king, who had just died. They wanted the oracles to settle this for them, so there wouldn't be civil war. And they figured, you know, if we get the voice of Apollo, the Pythia telling us, then

nobody will doubt who it's going to be. The nation will be spared civil war and all that sort of thing. And the priest says whoever kisses his mother first, I assume on the cheek, will be the next king. And so they both instinctively turn, run back, and they're going to get back to their homeland and go give their mother a kiss. And whoever wins the race is going to be the next legitimate king of the nation. But one of the young men realizes, oh, this was a remember they always speak in half truths. And they usually use metaphors. So he drops down to the ground and kisses the earth, mother earth. And he becomes the king. That was kind of a pagan prophecy was to go consult an oracle. But you always had to be mindful. You can never take one of these oracles of face value because they only speak in half truths. And these half truths by their tradition were uttered

by a serpent, a Pythia, the devil. This has long been known not just in Judeo Christianity, but the devil speaks in half truths. I want you to imagine a scenario with me from modern, more modern times. The scenario that I asked you to envision is Abraham Lincoln's assassination at the Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. April 14, 1865 at 1015 p.m. John Wilkes Booth, a national celebrity actor, famous actor in the United States. Everybody knows him, especially the people that work at Ford's Theater. That's how he gets access. He's going to use that fame to access the theater and enter the presidential booth and shoot President Lincoln just behind his left ear with a derringer, while the president is sitting in a rocking chair watching the play called Our American Cousin. Booth acted in the play himself once upon a time and knew every line as actors do. And he waited outside the door of the presidential booth for one particular line, the line

that he knew would draw always drew the biggest laugh. And here was the line. And it's not going to sound funny to you. But it was funny, uproariously funny, apparently, in 1865. And here's the line. Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal. You sock-dologizing old man trap. Now, the word sock-dologizing was not really a it was kind of a nonsense word as it is now. It was then. But it sounded witty, apparently, and people just burst out laughing. And Booth at that moment, when he heard the word sock-dologizing and the laughter of the crowd, he looked through the hole that he had bored in the door the day before to make sure of where the president was sitting. And like everybody else in the theater, Lincoln laughed at this line and Booth saw that. And at that word, Booth enters and he opens fire. And then he jumped 12 feet down onto the theater's floor. Everyone was

still laughing, by the way. And they thought that the commotion of the man jumping down out of the booth and onto the stage, that it was part of the show, part of the play. And before he exited, Booth, no one knows whether he's an actor if this is real, shouts out, Sick Simper Tyrannus. And he says, the South is free. Lincoln died nine hours later. And the nation suddenly was drawn to Lincoln in a way that it hadn't been before. He went from being a controversial, polarizing, hated by half the nation, loved by the other. He grew into overnight, a legend. He seemed to be almost an angelic visitation to our nation, a divine sacrifice on the altar of freedom and justice. Though Robert E. Lee had surrendered five days earlier at Appomattox, the South truly lost the war on this day and the North one. Because you're now at the hearts and mind stage, no longer at the bullets and sword stage.

There would never again be any significant national doubt that Lincoln had been right. And Lincoln himself would become not just the greatest president in American history, but the greatest American. If you go today to Trafalgar Square in London, you go and look at all the luminaries. They have statues of all the great European statesmen, people who changed history and all of the greatest heroes in history. Great big statues in Liberty Square. And there's one American there, only one. And it's Abraham Lincoln. He would become the greatest man of the modern age in many people's minds. His speeches would be immortalized. His figure, his likeness, would become synonymous with American greatness. So in some, his assassination elevated him far above his station as a man. And Lincoln the man didn't die on that day so much as Lincoln the legend and the myth began to live on that day. So that's our scenario. Now a friend of Lincoln's came forward a few months later

after Lincoln's death. And he shared that Lincoln had been having dreams and premonitions of his death in the weeks leading up to April 14. There were warnings from members of Lincoln's cabinet that going to the play would jeopardize his safety. Now imagine that a fortune teller, imagine if a fortune teller had passed a note to Lincoln the day before the event and that fortune teller's note read the following. If you go to the play, you won't truly die as your friends fear. Two, if you go to the play, a famous actor will immortalize you. Three, if you go, you will win the hearts of the people. In fact, the whole nation. Four, if you go, the next day, every newspaper in America will sing your praises. All of those things are true. But each one of these conditional statements while it's technically true, it's true in the most misleading of ways. These are the kinds of half-truths that the devil deals in. He

uses truth in order to deceive us. Okay, he doesn't just make up stuff. Typically, he tries to borrow from the truth. Usually, when you walk away from an encounter with the devil, you're going to walk away feeling enlightened like you figured something out. When I think about our modern world, a half-truth comes to mind. One of the great and terrible half-truths. I'd call it the half-truth, truth of Aphrodite. Aphrodite was the pagan goddess of sexuality. And these different pagan gods represented human defects. And one that the modern world is particularly prone to is the idolatry of sexuality. If you think about the young man, the rich young ruler that came to Jesus, who followed all the commandments, and he wanted to follow Jesus. But he walked away from Jesus because Jesus said, if you want to follow me, sell everything that you have, give it to the poor, and then follow me. And the rich young ruler, the scripture says, he walked away.

He loved money, but he was sad. And if you think about that, if you just take today, maybe it's not so much money. I mean, money is a problem too, but sexuality. If Jesus were to say, leave that sexuality, leave that fornication, that intense, almost divine status that you give to sexuality, turn away from that and follow me. Our modern age has said, you know, Jesus says a lot of good things, but the one thing I can't, I'm going to hold on to is the fornication, is the adultery. I'm going to hold on to it. What money was to the rich young ruler, sexuality, is to our age. The modern world has essentially made a deal with the devil. We were told, we were promised that we could have freedom from responsibility and duty. What the world didn't know when they made the deal is that when they gave away responsibility in a sense of duty, they were also giving away meaning and

significance. They were told that they don't need to believe in God. If there's no God, there's ultimately no responsibility to anything. They say, we weren't created because that would mean we were made according to someone else's design, but we want to make ourselves. We want to be free. The trouble is that belief in God, it turns out that it's emotionally and psychologically and intellectually necessary. God represents something higher than ourselves. The belief that we ourselves aren't the best that the universe has to offer. The belief that there is in fact something better than us that's good and holy in the universe. It's flawless, something truly and everlastingly beautiful. When you take that away from people, they become chronically depressed and they don't know why, but this unbelief manifests itself in all kinds of ways, but in drug abuse, in drinking with almost every meal, the constant consuming of food, in media, in entertainment and pornography, and out of sheer self-hatred sexual perversion. In

my grandparents' day, there was a reason very few children were born out of wedlock, and the reason wasn't that people were more virtuous back then because they weren't. I remember. The actual reason was that society was structured in such a way as to make sexual permissiveness a kind of death sentence. Abortions weren't available, of course, but neither was contraception even. Those who tried to create and distribute male or female contraception, they were treated the way that China now deals with drug dealers. The shame and stigma attached to impregnating a woman out of wedlock was meant as a punishment in former times, but the shame functioned primarily as a strong deterrent, a deterrent that channeled all but the most incurable members of society towards finding fulfillment within the boundaries of marriage. And what this social system lost in being on the harsh side, it more than made up for by ensuring that children generally didn't grow up, to be the kind of mal-adjusted souls

that we see everywhere today. Drug use is directly proportionate to sexual promiscuity. In 2022, an average of 300 people a day died of fentanyl overdose in the United States. I haven't been able to find out what the most recent stats are. Most of these who died are the products of broken homes since 2000, nearly 1 million young people have died of drug overdose. The 2024 federal budget for drug control was $35 billion. 38 million Americans aged 12 and older are drug addicts. 40% of Americans between the ages of 18 to 25 are regular drug users. The real legacy of the sexual revolution of the 1960s is the millions of homeless men and women living like zombies in the richest country that has ever existed. Has God said? By the way, one of the promises of the sexual revolution, one of the promises of Aphrodite was women are going to be the primary beneficiaries of the sexual revolution. They're going to be liberated at

last. It was supposed to free her from the excessive burdens that society placed upon her. It was intended to enable men and women to have sex without consequence. And if you've ever wondered though why there's such demonic energy surrounding the subject of abortion, if you wonder how a seemingly normal human being can defend such a monstrous practice with the kind of ferocity that we see today, just remember that abortion is a guarantor of the doctrines of the sexual revolution. But things never work out the way we imagine. Remember, he speaks in half truths. I would argue that women are in fact the greatest victims of the sexual freedom movement. Women are finding fewer and fewer, fewer marriageable men. Men who are willing to do the hard work of developing the kinds of high standards for character that women generally find attractive. Sex is so freely and immediately available that immature men see no reason to grow up. Access to abortion has created the

very culture of sexual permissiveness that worldly men desire most. The stark reality of the so-called women's liberation movement has turned out to be a men's liberation movement. There are roughly 106 million males between the ages of 15 and 65 in the United States and Canada. Nearly 46 million men visit pornography sites daily. This means that out of the 106 million males in North America, almost half visit porn sites regularly. I can't overstate how devastating this is for women socially and economically. The sexual instinct acts like a computer hard drive running silently in the background of everything that younger men do, compelling them to compete for excellence, virtue, strength, competence, but at the same time it drives them to submit to women's standards. But pornography essentially has a dampening effect upon men. It dulls their instincts to strive for excellence. It dulls their instincts to strive for virtue. With pornography, men can simply remain at the maturity level of a 15-year-old boy and have

the simulacrum of the maturity level of that 15-year-old boy and the physical intimacy they desire. Yes, of course, it's not the intimacy that would fully satisfy, but they're willing to forgo the full satisfaction of real intimacy for being free of the painful demands of maturity and responsibility. Our world has junk versions of just about everything important. Think of junk food and then real food and then just draw the parallels. The junk version of religion is politics. The junk version of truth is relevance. The junk version of marital intimacy is tender and okay-cupid in pornography. Many women find themselves in their 20s moving from relationship to relationship and every time hitting a wall with men at the same point in the relationship. And that point in the relationship is where she demands that he grows up, turns off the Marvel movies, gets off video games, quits blowing, quits blowing money on toys, and hanging out constantly with his boys. And worse still, real women

in a relationship find themselves having to compare to the models who make porn videos. As the real-life woman walks down the short road to middle age, she must compete with women who are not only without shame, but also by the miracle of video they're ageless. So I wonder if this era that started out with promises of liberation and the elevation of women hasn't taken the lowest view of women that society has ever had, the view of women is now so low that deranged men are taking over women's sports women's beauty contests women's awards women's bathrooms and through unrelenting propaganda the modern world has achieved the idea that a woman is not something one is born to be but something one can achieve through makeup and surgeries womanhood is just something one can accessorize womanhood is being cheap and to the point that now a man can buy it with a few visits to the surgeon a regimen of pills and a trip to

Macy's has God said this is the this is the road where it all in this is where Satan's words ends this is where Satan's interpretation of God's word ends it doesn't lead to bright sunlight lands it it it leads to death and destruction the opposite of everything that's good and then oftentimes the devil likes to say likes to say well but does God's word really say that because that's not really what it doesn't seem clear to me and I I've been saying this a lot later I'll keep on repeating myself I'm gonna say it about once a month for the next year at least I'm gonna say it's amazing how how clear the Bible is when your heart's right with God but it's really amazing really even more amazing how unclear the Bible is when your heart's not right with God it's also confusing and so complicated and really we need to bring the scholars in let's get Harvard in here and and

figure out what the scripture says right here because I'm not sure that that's what it says about about sex and sexuality I'm not sure about that and next if you're not careful you just you keep on walking the Bible says that Psalm chapter one blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly you don't listen to it you don't even you don't you don't go down that road you don't do it because the next thing you know you just start entertaining it start listening to it a little bit you start reading the scripture through Satan's eyes and the next thing you know you're going to be talked out of your innocence you're going to be talked out of your freedom you're going to be talked out of your liberty you're going to be talked out of your joy and happiness and now finally out of your salvation and this promise this half truth of liberation has us in a

situation where I would say secularists can only look forward to a long solitary future of things coming apart they've made nothing with access to everything they conquered nothing they can't even conquer themselves so they're tearing it all down screaming into the void at how unfair it all is they give no regard for their legacy they can only destroy the legacy of others deface monuments and memorials build nothing of their own they take their drugs at night to forget their paralyzing anxiety watch some porn hire door dash to bring them dinner binge watch mature content on prime arrange a hookup on a dating app and have casual sex with strangers they blame the system it's not their fault the unwritten rule of utopia is that you will be part of it whether you like it or not you'll be forced to live inside another man's dreams and like it i think it was bukowski who once asked the poignant question when nobody wakes you

up in the morning and when nobody waits for you at night no child no spouse and when you can do whatever you want what do you call it freedom or loneliness western education which has been a great tool of the enemy has in the name of freedom essentially built chronic and debilitating loneliness into modern life if you've noticed the ideologies ideologies that are hostile to christianity today generally share one thing in common for millions of young college educated americans life is low paid drone work at some soulless digital company punctuated only by brunch on the weekends netflix and white wine at night and a bit of pornography to kill natural drives and avoid having to take responsibility forever until you die alone with no descendants to remember you i'm not talking about some dark corner of our world i'm talking about what you're rubbing shoulders with every single day so we hear god's word we listen to god's word and we don't ask

for we don't ask for a way to wiggle out of what god's word requires talk to me lord guide me direct me that's that's what i want my heart to be god speak to me i gladly gladly follow my delight lord let it be in your law and let me meditate upon it day and night never let me have the serpents attitude never let me muddy clear waters a jesus name i bring some up of this up again sometimes sometimes things just kind of eat a little bit at at at your at your heart when you you know you love and you care and and and you know you know that there there there are some people making some decisions of bad decisions some really really irresponsible decisions and hope god let me speak clearly in the pulpit your word let me show them what's at the end of that road so that they don't have to walk down it and then find

out but lord let me paint the picture and show it here lord let your word be clear and let it be loved cherished let it be my delight and the joy of my heart or let it be true of this church i get trouble when i when i hear about i i hear about children of god i'm not talking about little kids we start flirting with things and justifying things things that you should you never once upon a time you never would have messed with that stuff when you were close to the altar when you were close to the altar i mean in your heart you were close to your close to the altar and the lord's presence was there you never could have imagined walking down this road but now here we are i hear about christians going to casinos and gambling i'm not talking about christians out there i'm talking about christians in here i'm talking about i'm talking about christians

going out and getting drunk just messing with a little bit don't flirt with this stuff don't flirt with any of this stuff i hear about fornication freedom's not at the end of that road bondage follow the word of lord the lord loves you he loves you so much he loves you more than you love yourself and he knows the end from the beginning follow him the promises of the enemy are half truths it's like a scorpion sting is in its tail you don't feel it at first but it comes all right the text says so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food that it was a delight to the eyes that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took its fruit and ate she gave also some of her husband to her husband who's with her and he ate then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked they soaked

leaves together they heard the sound of the lord god walking in the garden in the cool of the day where are you adam where are you god knows that's a rhetorical question this is in the next chapter kane kills abel and god's question starts with where again where is your brother but then he says his blood is crying out from the ground which means god knows the answer adam says i heard the sound of you in the garden i was afraid because i was naked i hid myself adam's answer as he emerges shame faced wearing fig leaves it's evasive he doesn't explain what he did he explains instead what happened to him only after his transgression he said i heard the sound of you walking and i was afraid and hid because i was naked it says if adam who now himself knows good and evil thinks he's talking to someone who doesn't know good and evil and god said who told you

you were naked the man said the woman you gave me how typical right she's the problem all right and then he god turns to the woman and she turns to the serpent says i did what the serpent told me and the serpents curse to go on his belly god hands out curses but i want you to notice what god does not hand out a curse to he does not curse man and woman he curses the serpent he goes out after he knows a sin has been committed after he knows heaven and earth has committed rebellion against him that which he formed only recently with his hands out of clay and breathed his own breath into and lovingly gave them everything they could ever desire and asked that they keep one thing not for themselves but leave it for god just one thing they couldn't even stand that but does god say as easily as i spoke this universe into existence is six days

in which i created everything i can unmake everything and just just snap on my fingers a start over does he say that no and the lord god went walking in the garden and said where are you can you see that picture can you see the voice can you see the voice hear the voice can you see can you see your god walking through the garden he's looking all right this is a mess death is already crept in here he can see the whole future laid out full of darkness and misery it had been so tempting just to start over but instead what does god do he rolls up his sleeves all right this is going to mean calvary this is going to mean this is going to mean not just death in this world but it's going to mean the death the son of god for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son i love gods tenacity in

this story his absolute refusal to give up his obnoxiously almost stubborn love for us praise god so he gives the prophecy the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent's head the serpent will bruise his heel but it's not going to be all over for the enemy one day god's word is going to be the law of the land and guess what we get to do we get to obey it now before it becomes popular before it becomes everybody's law praise god what an opportunity what a blessing it is to have the word of god there's life and liberty joy peace and happiness in the presence of god's word let's stand praise god