There Are Two Kinds of Counsel

Good good morning. If you do have a Bible turn to Genesis 3. We're gonna be reading Genesis 3 1 through 6. We're continuing our study on basic truths and the basic truth that we are going to be Presenting today is the truth.

There are two kinds of counsel. So when you do have your Bible to Genesis 3 1 through 6 go ahead and stand up for the reading of God's Word. Genesis 3 1. 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 at the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden.

Neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman you shall 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.

Word Lord.

You maybe see it. Let's pray. The Lord we do thank you for the opportunity we have to think about your scriptures today. We know that you have given us words of truth. To help us to understand you better and to understand your purposes for us.

As centered in what Jesus has done for us. Pray that you bless our time here today and help us to learn great things from your word in your son's name. I pray. Amen. Perhaps one of the great temptations that we face today is the temptation to compartmentalize our life.

What I mean by that is to adopt a certain set of standards and rules that you apply to Church and then adopt a certain set of standards and rules that you might apply to your home life. And then another set of rules and standards that you apply to your work life.

This is a very common temptation that all of us face where we have different kinds of counsel that we are operating under that affect different areas of our life and. This temptation is perhaps no more pronounced than in the area of counsel itself.

So you live in a world that thinks that counsel is neutral. You live in this a society that thinks that there is such a thing as just Neutral advice that a person can give as it relates to how you live your life.

How as it relates to how you operate and govern your affairs? You're being told by many people That the Bible needs to be compartmentalized into a very narrow set of theological concerns.

Namely.

Most specifically the Bible is meant to tell you Basically how to get to heaven when you die and beyond that the real counsel that you're going to be. That you're going to find the real counsel that should be governing most of your affairs Should be found in other voices who are more informed by modern technology and more informed by science and the concerns of medicine today so you're living in a world that is trying to get you to compartmentalize your life and compartmentalize the truth of God's Word in a very narrow way and Apply the truths of the scriptures very narrowly.

Only in terms to You know in the primary sense how to get how to get you to heaven when you die. And maybe if someone is a slightly more careful than that Then you're going to be told that the Bible is going to give you some direction as to how you should live your life.

But most of that in in terms of popular Christianity today is being put in a framework of Things that you need to do in order to experience God's Blessing in a prosperity kind of sense in your life, so most of the counsel that you receive from the scriptures is being put in a very narrow sense on how to get you to how to help you to be justified and Then we have it if it speaks to the areas of sanctification at all.

It really has a very narrow focus today. But as I said when you look at the Bible one of the things you'll realize is the Bible presents Particularly in this passage in Genesis two forms of counsel. Two forms of counsel that are both standing in opposition to each other.

There is a dichotomy of counseling that is presented in this passage and all of God's words to man are Presented as words to us which are or to tell us who we are where we come from where we're going Why we're here and As we know we have the great enemy of our souls who is speaking to us in this passage as well in Trying to call into question God's counsel and trying to encourage us to follow his advice.

And so the basic truth that we're going to be discussing today is the truth. There are two different kinds of counsel there is the counsel of God and there is the counsel of our enemy. And most of the most of the things that you might be tempted to put into some kind of neutral third Category which doesn't fit either one of these when you think about it to any length of time.

You'll realize that it really isn't as complicated. It really isn't that simple as what you might think. So even things that you might think are fairly neutral for example a recipe For how to make a meal.

You think that's a fairly neutral form of counsel that may not fit into this kind of dichotomy. Namely there are two different types of counsel the counsel of God and the counsel of Satan may think that a recipe itself would be Advice given to help you to accomplish a particular objective and that would be fairly neutral.

But when you think about things even as simple as that For any length of time one of the things you'll realize is that even counsel like that is based on certain worldviews. So you think about a recipe for example it's going to give you a List of ingredients that you're supposed to use to put into a usable form.

But everything about that recipe is based on certain assumptions about the world. It's based on certain assumptions about the goal that you might have with food. So that recipe is going to define a serving size for you, isn't it?

And it's going to define I just going to give you ingredients Which may be beneficial to you in certain quantities or maybe not beneficial to you in certain quantities. If you follow that advice about that recipe that is given to you.

One of the things you'll realize is you're adopting a certain framework of the world you're adopting a certain perspective of food and if you follow that advice and you Acknowledge those portion size and you follow those directions.

You'll realize that there will be results To that advice that you have been given in the form of food that are going to be manifest in your life. So if it was a good recipe It'll help you in your life and the results that to that advice will be manifest if it's a bad recipe.

The results of that will also be manifested in your life in different ways. What I'm trying to say is that we think of advice as if it's just neutral it's not based on a worldview. It's not based on certain assumptions.

It's not geared towards any objective. We try to take advice and divorce it from the motivations that a person might have in following that advice. So if I were to give you an investment advice today, it would be based on my Assumptions about the way the world works.

I may give you good investment advice. If I have a good view of the world if I have a certain set of assumptions that undergird that. That are going to lead you into greater faithfulness to God or I could give you advice.

That doesn't really care about God's priorities doesn't really care about God's values. Doesn't really care about God's purposes, but it might increase your bottom line. My point is just to say that they're fundamentally there are two foundational types of counsel in the world and counsel really isn't neutral and The advice you give people Is either going to lead them into greater faithfulness to God or it's going to lead them into greater unfaithfulness.

To God.

So the basic truth today is that there there are these two kinds of counsel. There is the counsel of God and there's the counsel of our enemy. And I'm not sure if we're going to be able to cover both of these today.

But at the very least we'll cover the counsel of God now notice. When you think about the truths that you're going to find in the passage today. You're going to realize that God is there and he has spoken.

He has not left man in the dark as to why he's here and what his expectations for man are. God has spoken to this new creation Adam and Eve. He's given him he's given Adam and Eve certain instructions that they are to follow.

And one thing to remember about God's counsel. To man is it's given in the form of words. So God speaks to the man. He he doesn't just create him and say hey, you're on your own to figure it all out. God speaks to man and tells him exactly why he's here now over the past month a couple months.

We've been talking about some of these things that God has said. Which our society is pretending weren't said. So we've gone to great length to describe some of these Statements this counsel that God has given to man and given some elaboration on these things.

These kind of things that God has plain plainly spoken. Things that we try to at times pretend like they aren't there, but here's the point that the counsel of God is true. Everything that God says in this passage is true.

The great enemy of our souls comes along and he's going to try to persuade us that God is a liar. He does so out of his own character because he is a liar. But the point here is just to say that the counsel of God is true.

Everything that God says will happen in this passage ends up happening. So God tells man and woman he puts them in a garden to work and keep it. He gives them a command. He says do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And the day that you eat of it dying you will die. He gives them a warning about the nature of it. He gives a counsel in the form of a warning. That comes as a prohibition. Don't eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Their lives are fundamentally Changed in ways that are staggering to consider on. The basis of the fact that they were tempted to distrust that what God says was true. But everything in the passage that God says happens.

So we've noticed in God's creation of the world that God creates the world by speaking the world into existence. By words of power over and over again in the opening chapter of the Bible you see That God says something and it was so.

What God says is so so the the means that God used to create the world. Were spoken words that the we know based on more revelation. That Christ himself is the agent of God's creation. But the point here is just to say that everything that God says is true and That's obvious obviously true on the basis of the fact that when he says something it happens.

You're living in the world. That's the result of God's faithfulness. Everything that you see today has come about because God said it would be and it is so. So you you live in a time right now That is filled with so many lies.

To the point where it's almost impossible at times to know what the difference between Between what is true, and what is false? I? Mean you if you think about this for a second you're living in a very remarkable time our kid my kids are living in a time That really is breathtaking in certain ways to consider.

My daughter will ask me sometimes To show her pictures of things on the internet. And she comes up with crazy ideas of things that Make sense in the mind of a girl her age. But she will ask me to show her pictures of these things that she comes up with and right now We have the technology to where any Prompt that she gives me I can put in the internet, and I can show you a picture of it, right.

I think I think a few nights ago. I was showing her a picture of an octopus kitty. So you're living you're living in a time right now where every she was persuaded though She was she was more intelligent than my game.

She was telling me that that's not real. Someone just made that up, but maybe you are living in a time right now where? You can't really even believe the evidence that your eyes see anymore. And I don't think that we understand the staggering implications of these things as it relates to the criminal justice system itself.

I mean you're living in a time right now where someone can make a video of you committing a crime and They can put it on the internet. And I'm not sure that our court system is caught up with that reality at the moment like meaning I could be framed for a crime.

I didn't commit and we could see video evidence of it. That's being put on the internet right now. And we are predisposed to believe what we see but so much of what we see we don't know if it's true. Anymore.

You know are the drones are they drones or are they camera tricks? What are they right is it aliens, or is it video editing? What's going on like we don't know. I don't know. Now no not only do we not know like not only are we not able to trust what we see at times.

Because people can make new new videos of things that don't exist that aren't real. They can alter things in certain ways, but I mean you're faced with the deluge of information every day. It's difficult to discern the difference between fact and error but brothers and sisters you have in the Word of God.

You have in the counsel of God Words that are true that you can trust on trust that you can depend upon. You don't have to question the things that you Read in the scriptures. And maybe if you have a digital copy of it you You may not be Aware of subtle changes that could possibly be made in the future.

But the point here is just to say that we have access to the living Word of God. We have access to the counsel of God and God's counsel always proves true. I'm amazed in situation after situation after situation.

When I'm counseling people I I'm amazed at the reality of the relevance of the Bible to every single thing that I'm seeing in the lives of other people in the lives of myself in the lives of my children and lives of the people around me and In the lives of the world that I live in.

The Bible has given me an in Thor authoritative interpretation of everything that I see. That I can count on and that I can trust because the counsel of God is true. But not only is the counsel of God true.

It's sufficient for life and godliness. God in his word He's given us everything that we need for life and godliness. And you see this in the opening chapters of Genesis what I mean by that is God created man.

He put him in a garden to work and to keep it. He told man what man was to do. He said he blessed man. He said to man be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the animals have dominion over the Birds the air the fish of the sea and everything that moves on the face of the earth.

God In his word gave man everything that man needed to know in order to know how to glorify him. And to be faithful to his purposes for him. So imagine yourself being Adam and Eve in the garden and wanting to know how to please God.

Think about yourself in that situation. God didn't have like sneaky hidden commands out there that he didn't reveal to Adam and Eve. God gave Adam and Eve everything they needed to know in order to know what life was.

So think about the basic statements that you find in the opening chapters of the Bible. God tells man he's made in the image of God. He tells man he's been given dominion over the creatures. He tells man that he's given him the green plants for food.

Think about the basic issues of life. What are the most basic issues of life for all of us today? I mean you don't you take for granted. These are basic issues because you most of our life Just goes on autopilot and we have our routines.

But I mean imagine yourself there as a new creation who has no experience no history no one to teach you Why you're here what you're supposed to be doing with your life. Imagine yourself in Adam and Eve's Situation.

God tells him I've given you green plants for food. Well, what are we supposed to do right? What are we supposed to do. God put him in a garden to work and to keep it. So I want you to work and to keep this garden.

I want you to have dominion over the whole earth. You have dominion over the animals dominion over the plants. You're to rule in my stead as an image-bearer over all the earth. You're to be fruitful and multiply.

You're to fill the earth and subdue it. That is your task. And because Adam and Eve were not they didn't have a sin nature at that time. There's nothing internally inside of them that is compelling them to reject God's plan and God's purposes.

There's no temptations they experience to basically say well God tells me to work in a garden and you know what that kind of work is demeaning for me. I think that God could have given me a better job to do than to be a gardener here.

There's nothing like that that happened so Adam and Eve are being told I've given you the green plants for food. Adam and Eve are being told I've given you dominion over the whole earth. Adam and Eve are being told to be fruitful and multiply the fill the earth and subdue it.

Adam and Eve are being told that this is. There is a husband who's made first. Who's been given a wife. Who has made second. Who is going to be a helper suitable to them? They're given counsel by God to tell them why they are here what God has them to do and they're given one command.

They're given one prohibition. They're given a command to be fruitful multiply fill the earth and subdue it. They're given one prohibition. One prohibition may eat of any of the trees that you want to eat.

But don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Point here is just to say that God's Word to them was sufficient for life and godliness. He gave them everything. In the information I just gave you he gave them everything that they needed to know to know how to honor him.

And how to be well-pleasing in their sight. Now you live in a world that obviously denies this in very remarkable ways. So much of the modern counseling movement is denying this very point about the sufficiency of God's Word.

And the reason why they deny it is because they have very different goals than Christians should have. So if you're a Christian here today, your goal should be to live a life that is honoring to the Lord.

And if you want to live a life that's honoring to the Lord. Then what you should realize is that God in his Word has given you everything that you've need. In order to be faithful to his purposes. You don't really need to look outside of his Word.

To find his expectations for you. He doesn't have sneaky hidden expectations that. That he has withheld from you. And then he's going to judge you when you don't when you fail to find these sneaky hidden expectations.

Here's the point though. The point I'm trying to say is just to say that God's Word is sufficient it his Word in the garden was sufficient for them.

It.

God told them what he expected of them. There was no lack of clarity with it. Like he told them what it was what he expected of them. He gave them the his his Word. And if they wanted to know how to honor him and how to please him They had access to all the information that they needed to have in order to know how to honor and to please God.

As I said, I mean you're living in a world that that is constantly trying to give you counsel and. The counsel that the world that you're living in is trying to give you is not counsel. Designed to help you know how to glorify God with your life.

The counsel that you're being given at every single point is is directed towards different goals. Now, you know this I mean, you know this if you've talked to unbelievers for any length of time you know this because you know if you are in situations where You're trying to give advice to someone Who does not want to honor the Lord with their life?

Your natural inclination is going to be to take your advice and direct it towards a different goal and. And you're gonna your natural inclination is to Is to try to direct it to the towards goals like personal fulfillment personal happiness.

Right if you're to try to say hey, they don't want the Bible can't give them the Bible. But I'm still gonna try to give them some kind of advice. Well that advice is just going to be towards personal happiness.

Self-fulfillment. You're living in a world right now that is constantly trying to brainwash you and make you think that the purpose of your life is to be happy. Every form of media that you listen to is constantly trying to brainwash you into thinking that your goal of your life is to be happy.

That's the chief end of man is to be happy to be fulfilled. Right to be successful. Successful for what purpose to be happy right to be safe to speak to be secure all these are All this all this form of counsel.

I'm trying to say is given To help you to serve a different goal a different objective than the one that God has for you. But here's the point God in his word if you want to know how to please God. He's not trying to confuse you he's given you everything you need.

He gave Adam and Eve in the garden everything that they need in Order to know how to glorify him. The counsel that God gave to them was enough. It was sufficient for their life and sufficient for godliness.

And when I say it was sufficient for life and godliness what I'm not suggesting is that it was an exhaustive Presentation of all the true things that there are. There's plenty. God did not instantaneously download into Adam and Eve's brain All true things that exist and everything that they can possibly do.

He didn't give them Exhaustive knowledge of all areas of knowledge in all the earth. But he gave them the information they needed to know in order to glorify him. And if your goals brothers and sister if your goal is to glorify God and And to know how to honor him with your life.

All you have to do is look to God's Word to know how to do that. So the counsel of God is true. It's sufficient for life and godliness, but notice it's a blessing. So we've talked about this Genesis 1 28.

God blessed them and God said to them be Fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the seas and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth and God said behold I've given you every plant yielding seed that's on the face of the earth and every tree with seedness fruit.

You shall have them for food. God's commands God's counsel. They're true. They're sufficient for life and godliness their blessings. God's. God's counsel is intended for Adam and Eve's good. Hebrew word for bless here is to declare a person endowed with power for success prosperity.

Fertility point here is to say that God's commands God's counsel is for your good. Later on we'll see that that the enemy has his counsel as well. So you have the counsel of God and you have the counsel of the enemy.

If you look at the results of both of these Forms of counsel what you'll realize is that God gave counsel as a blessing to man. And if you listen to God there are going to be good things that come from that.

But you can see that God's God's counsel is not meant to curse. God's counsel was not given as a curse. It's not as if if Adam and Eve were to fall have followed God's counsel that they were going to be followed.

That they were going to end up in a pit. That's not the way it works. I mean, that's the way it works on the other end of things if they were to follow the counsel of the enemy. They're going to end up in a pit and that's obviously what we find out in the opening chapters of the Bible.

We see that God gives this counsel to Adam and Eve as a blessing. But then when they listen to the voice of the serpent. Consequences come from that so God already warned Adam and Eve that in the day They eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil dying.

They would die. But then there are also many other consequences that came from that that we've talked about as well. So Genesis 4 14 Yahweh said to the serpent because you have done this cursed. Are you more than any of the cattle and more than every beast of the field on your belly?

You will go and the dust you will eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman in between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel.

To the woman He said I will greatly multiply your pain and conception in pain. You will bear children your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. Then to Adam He said because you've listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree about which I've commanded you saying you shall Not eat of it.

Cursed is the ground because of you in pain. You will eat of it all the days of your life both thorns and thistles. It shall grow for you and you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face.

You shall eat bread till you return to the ground because from it you were taken for you are dust and to dust. You shall return. Point is to say that God's commands are blessings. His counsel is a blessing to us.

If Adam and Eve were to have listened to God's counsel Our lives would be very different than what they are now. I'm not suggesting that there wasn't a plan before the foundation of the world. To create man to allow him to fall and to provide a Redeemer in Christ.

I'm simply suggesting that There are entailments to disobedience. God's commands are blessings. Your sinful flesh is tempted to believe that God's commands are curses that there are chains on your personal happiness.

When you talk to unbelievers about the standard that you try to live Unbelievers see this standard that you're trying to live and to embody as.

Chains.

For your own personal happiness. They see the standard of God's counsel as the path to boredom as the path to drudgery as the path to slavery. You're living in a world that's trying to persuade you that if you obey the Lord and you follow his designs.

Particularly the kind of designs that we've talked about over the past few months. Related to the family. That you're signing yourself up for a form of degrading and dehumanized slavery. You live in a world that thinks that if you have children that you are destroying the planet and You are acting.

You are committing a great act of violence on those kids by bringing them forth into existence apart from their consent. If you live in a world that's trying to persuade you. That gender roles are forms of slavery.

They're shackles. They're degrading. They're Dehumanizing. The problem is that everything that God says is true. And everything he says is a blessing is a blessing and the way of the transgressor is hard.

If you listen to the counsel of the world. You're going to experience all the problems that come from listening to the counsel of the world. Council of God is true. It's sufficient for life and godliness.

It's a blessing. And it's clear it's clear. So Genesis 2 15 the Lord God Took the man and he put him in the garden to work and to keep it and Lord God Commanded man saying you shut you may surely eat of every tree of the garden.

But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it. You shall surely die. Here's the point God's commands to man. We're very clear. God gave his word To Adam he gave his word to Eve.

He very clearly tells them why they're here now. The serpent later is going to call and to question the clarity of God's Word. But the point here is just to say that the counsel of God is clear. It's not designed to confuse.

There's nothing confusing about anything that I just read Genesis 2 16 the Lord God commanded man saying you may surely eat of every tree in the garden. But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it.

You shall surely die. There's no there's no tricks there. There's no funny words there. Adam and Eve weren't to look at this command and think to themself. Well, God said I can't eat of this one tree.

But maybe there's other command. There's other trees. I shouldn't be able to eat of as well. Like it God God gave his word and his word to to Adam. He was very clear and you know what despite all the claims of modern biblical interpreters today God's Word is very clear brothers and sisters if you don't believe that God's Word is clear.

You'll never obey it. But God God doesn't have a speech impediment. He hasn't given you his word to confuse you. He's given you he's given you the scriptures which are abundantly clear, you know that God's message to you in the scriptures is Abundantly clear.

He tells us the same things over and over and over again. It is a it's obviously it's a big book and there's a lot to learn. But the more that you read the Bible the more that you realize that the Bible is self-attesting.

God repeats himself over and over and over again. He's not trying to confuse you. He's not trying to trip you up he's not trying to Set traps for you so that you you think he wants you to do one thing.

But really he wanted you to do other things that you think about the nature of God's command to Adam and Eve in the garden you'll realize that. There's one prohibition there brothers and sisters. There's one prohibition.

Don't eat of this tree. That's it. He wasn't trying to trick him. He wasn't trying to trap him. He just gave him one prohibition and obviously It didn't seem to take very long for Adam and Eve to Violate that very one simple command.

But the point here is to say that the reason Adam and Eve violated that command was not because it wasn't clear. It was exceedingly clear what God was saying to them. The counsel of God is true sufficient for life and godliness blessing.

It's clear. And it's good, it's good. So Genesis 2 18 then the Lord God said it's not good for a man to be alone. I'll make a helper fit for him. God's designs and God's plans are not trying to harm you.

Now sin will promise you that the path to good is going to be found in rejecting God's Word. But brothers and sisters the way of the transgressor is hard, isn't it? The way of the transgressor is hard.

When you sin when you do things, you know that you shouldn't do. You there is guilt and there is shame. That you are going to feel. That's very heavy, you know, there's there's very few people in life that are more unhappy than a disobedient Christian.

Because a disobedient Christian will be tormented by a conscience that's constantly screaming at them. Because they know that they believe. That God is real that he exists. And they that he has sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us.

And at the same time they set their face in opposition towards God and his purposes. And they're stiffening their neck and they're hardening their heart. And brothers sisters. It's just a miserable place to be.

It's a miserable place to be. Sin promises pleasure. Sin promises life. Sin promises peace. Sin promises safety. At the end it leaves you feeling guilty. And gives you shame. It makes you want to hide yourself from both God and other people.

You know when you sin, do you immediately want to go and pray and ask God to forgive you? Particularly when you were sinning a sin that you've committed over and over and over again. Your temptation in your flesh is going to be to try to do the same thing that Adam and Eve did which is to hide themselves from God and In in the same temptation is going to be to hide yourself from other people.

There are many of you here today that I imagine struggle with secret sins that you wouldn't want anyone to know about and a lot of your life is spent trying to hide those things and Hoping that no one finds out about it.

And you know what that paralyzes you keeps you from relating to other people properly. Destroys the joy that you should have as it relates to your own salvation because you know that you're holding on to vices.

Your life is filled with secrecy that it doesn't have to be filled with and shame and guilt. It doesn't have to be filled with. The point here is just to say that God's commands there. They're good therefore are good.

How blessed is it to?

Walk.

By the power of the Spirit. Without all of these secrets without all this secret guilt without all the secret shame. Without all the consequences, you know brothers and sisters when When you when you turn from your sin you realize that the pleasures of sin are fleeting the fleeting.

And I'm not suggesting that we can ever turn perfectly from our sin in this life. I'm just I'm just suggesting that we you understand that when you're Falling in the same pattern of sin over and over and over again There's a blessedness that comes from repenting of that and giving that over to Christ and seeing the fruit that comes from that.