The Wiles of the Devil

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis chapter 3 and hold your place at verse 1.
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We're going to be reading verses 1 to 7.
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While we're preparing to read Genesis 3, I want to remind you of another passage as sort of a prelude to what we're going to read.
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In the sixth chapter of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul admonishes us to put on the whole armor of God that we might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
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In the ESV, the word wiles is translated schemes.
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The Greek word methodeos comes from the same root as we get our word method.
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And so what the term wiles or schemes means is the methods of Satan, but more so specifically the evil methods.
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Methodeos means organized evil doing, methodical strategic evil.
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In short, the devil is very good at being very bad.
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Most of us are familiar with the mafia.
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You've seen movies, heard terms about the mafia, and we know low-level criminals are not known for their grand schemes and their sophisticated plans, but the mafia is famous because their crime is organized.
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They have a plan, they employ a method to allow themselves to stay just outside of the reach of justice.
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Well, in a way the devil engages in a form of organized crime against God's people.
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He is not randomly knocking over convenience stores.
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He is working systematically to maintain the corruption of the world and the corruption of the church.
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Is there corruption in the church? I hope you would agree that there is corruption.
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Part of the reason for the reformation was that the church had become so corrupt that a movement of Protestants, meaning to protest, that a movement of Protestants had to stand up against the corruption that had gained a foothold in God's church.
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As believers we are called to stand against the wiles of the devil, against his schemes, but to do so it is important that we understand them.
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It is a common maxim in battle that we must know thine enemy.
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It's important to recognize the strategies that he employs.
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Like men going into battle, it serves us to know both the weapons and the schemes of our enemy.
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And here's the only positive thing that we can come up with in the midst of all this is the one positive thing is the devil has been using the same schemes from the beginning.
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The same schemes that he started in the garden are still being employed today and today we're going to see what these are.
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We are going to recognize the schemes that the devil used against Eve and we're going to see that those schemes are still being employed today in our world.
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So if you would stand I'd like to read Genesis chapter 3 and we're going to read verses 1 to 7 to give honor and reverence to the Word of God.
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Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
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Father in heaven as I seek to give an exposition of your word I pray that you would keep me from error for God I am a fallible man and I am capable of preaching error and for the sake of your name and for the sake of your people and for the sake of my conscience I pray that you would protect me from error but also Lord that you might protect me from cowardice that I would not fear those who are listening that I would not fear the world but that I would fear you and in doing so preach your word with boldness and truth.
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Father again I pray that your Holy Spirit would be present and the teacher for Lord God without the Holy Spirit my words will go into the air and mean nothing.
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I pray that the words will be used by the Spirit to go into the ear through the mind and to the heart and Lord for those who are believers today that they will be instructed corrected rebuked where necessary Lord but ultimately edified and Lord for those who have not yet bowed the knee to Jesus Christ that they would understand that today is the day of salvation and that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved and we pray all of this in his name and for his sake Amen.
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Last week we spent an entire message on Genesis chapter 3 and verse 1.
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We discussed the fact that the devil is real.
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We discussed the fact that he took the form of a serpent.
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That the devil himself is not just a symbol for evil and the serpent in the garden is not just a metaphor but that this is a real event that happened in real history.
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Genesis is not mythology.
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Some read of the talking snake and they immediately say well this can't be literal but the text lays a foundation for the rest of scripture and for the rest of human history that cannot be ignored.
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If we take Genesis 1 and 2 and 3 and say that's not literal then we have to then go and begin to say well maybe the maybe Noah in the ark isn't literal and maybe Abraham wasn't a literal person and and maybe the nation of Israel itself.
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We begin to go and go go and go and we end up finding ourselves in a pit of despair because we realize that we have written off the entire scripture as being mere folklore.
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Genesis chapter 3 is not only a real event in history.
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I would say Genesis chapter 3 is one of the most defining moments of history because it is at this point that man will never be the same.
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From this moment on, from Genesis chapter 3 verses 1 to 7, man will never be the same again.
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Up until now he has lived in sinless innocence but after that his innocence will be no more.
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One of the great unanswered questions of scripture is the question of how long was Adam and Eve in the state of innocence.
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A lot of people want to know how long did it take for them to go from creation to the fall.
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John Calvin in his commentary on this passage cites Augustine and did you know Augustine believed they fell the same day they were created.
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Augustine said they stood upright for only six hours.
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Now he has no reference for that and I would say that's incorrect because on the seventh day which is still yet to be, everything was still good.
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So some people would then come after Augustine and say no it wasn't on the sixth day that they fell but it was on the seventh.
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Satan tempted them on the seventh day so that they would profane the Lord's holy day.
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Okay, I can see the argument but again it's not in the text.
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All of this is conjecture.
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We don't know.
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What we do know is this and this is what Calvin points out in his commentary.
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He says what we do know is this they were not innocent and in that state of innocence long enough to bear children and therefore it could be said that we could assume that it was a relatively short time because no children are born in their state of innocence.
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So therefore likely a shorter time than some people have conjectured well maybe they were thousands of years in a state of innocence.
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I don't believe that.
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There's no children formed.
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There's no children procreated at this time so I don't believe that it's thousands of years but I don't know how long it was.
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But however long it was whether it was hours or days the faithful moment finally came.
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The woman was confronted by the serpent.
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She was deceived by the wiles of the devil.
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She took her forbidden bounty back to her husband and they both indulged.
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And from that moment on mankind would never be the same.
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But what methods did Satan use? What methods did the serpent employ to deceive Eve? I've observed three methods that Satan used.
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Three schemes that Satan used.
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And I'm going to put them up on the board.
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Thank you Nate for putting them up there.
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This is the outline of today.
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And what we're going to look at is we're going to see three methodologies or three schemes, three wiles of the devil that I believe are still employed today.
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First is the question.
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The second is the contradiction.
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And the third is the motivation.
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The question, the contradiction, and motivation.
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And each one of these is actually longer.
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I didn't have space to put it on the screen.
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But it's actually the question regarding God's word.
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It's the contradiction regarding God's punishment.
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And it's the motivation regarding man's pride.
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So it's really a longer point but to keep in our mind and keep it short I made it three short bullet points.
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The question, the contradiction, and the motivation.
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So we're going to look at each one of these.
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We're going to read through the text.
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And we're going to see how these were used by Satan to deceive Eve.
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Let's look first at the question.
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This is actually still in chapter 3 verse 1.
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Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
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He said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? This is the first time we have a question mark in the Bible.
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Now one might argue that the original language did not have the same punctuation that we have today.
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And that's true.
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There's no question mark in the Hebrew Bible.
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But this is the first time we see a question, the form of a statement of a question.
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And the question comes from the mouth of the serpent as an illegitimate question.
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And I say it's an illegitimate question because the question is formed in such a way that it's purpose is to malign Almighty God.
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We know this because he does not even represent God properly in the question.
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Notice what he says.
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He says, has God said, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? That's not what God said.
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That's not what God said.
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If you go back to Genesis 2 verse 16, God said, you may eat of all the trees of the garden except one.
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You say, well what's the difference? The difference is this.
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God has given a positive invitation to man to eat of all the trees except one.
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Satan is focusing on the negative.
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God has told you, you may not eat of all the trees because he held one back from you.
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You see the difference in the form of the construction? You see, when God gives the statement, it's a statement of liberality.
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You can eat of all the trees except one.
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When Satan comes in, he says, God doesn't want you to eat all the trees because he held one back from you.
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You see, it's Satan's way of questioning the word of God by turning the good command on its head.
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By turning the liberal allowance into a negative prohibition.
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He focuses not on what's given, but what's held.
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He focuses not on what is offered, but what is held back.
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What is forbidden.
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Jim Boyce, in his commentary on this, he says, Satan suggests that God is essentially prohibitive.
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That he is not good and that he does not wish the very best of all worlds for his creatures.
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You see, that's the point of the question.
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Trying to get Adam and Eve, Eve particularly at this moment, to see God is not good.
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I want to make a point about something.
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Adam and Eve did not eat because they were hungry.
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Let me say that again.
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Adam and Eve did not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because they were hungry.
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Because they had all the trees of the garden from which to eat.
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They weren't hungry.
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They weren't desperate.
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They weren't like a criminal who steals because his family is going hungry and they need food to take home and they can't get a job and the economy is down and everything is desperate.
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And so they go and they steal a few apples off of a cart and they take it home to feed their hungry children.
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They are not desperate.
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They are absolutely kings in the Lord's garden.
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They have every tree from which to eat.
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They have nothing missing.
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And Satan comes in and says, uh-uh, God is holding back from you.
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You got all the beautiful fruit and all the beautiful vegetables.
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You are able to eat from every tree.
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You are able to eat from every plant.
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You are able to eat from everything.
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But God doesn't love you because He is holding this one thing back from you.
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God doesn't love you because He has this one thing that you can't have.
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The ESV says, did God actually say, the King James, I like the King James at this point.
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Yea, hath God said.
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You see, because the whole point of Satan in this question is to cause doubt.
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And the response of Eve exasperates the question because she doesn't even know the command of God.
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Look with me at verse 2.
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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.
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You know there is no prohibition against touching the tree.
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If you go back and read Genesis 2, it doesn't say anything about touching the tree.
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This has caused a lot of speculation on behalf of interpreters.
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Because they are saying, did Eve add this in? Because it doesn't say it.
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So did Eve add this prohibition? Or maybe Adam added the prohibition.
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Maybe he was concerned for the safety of his wife.
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Don't even touch it.
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Eve, don't go near it.
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You know.
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We don't know.
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The text doesn't tell us.
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But what we do know this.
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She is added to the command of God.
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She is confused a bit about the command that is going to come back.
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Because when Satan responds to her, we are going to see Satan quotes God directly.
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Satan knows the word of God better than Eve does.
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By the way, if you go back to Genesis 2, she wasn't there when the command was given.
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Genesis 2, 16 and 17 come before the creation of the woman, which is Genesis 2, 18 and following.
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So there is a good chance that she heard the command from Adam.
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So she has the command second hand.
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And therefore, Adam maybe did include the prohibition of touching.
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And in that case, she wouldn't be wrong.
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Because she is simply repeating what her husband told her.
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And from her position, he is in the position of her authority in the same way God is in the position of their both authority.
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Therefore, she is not necessarily wrong.
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But at this moment, she is not really fully understanding God's command.
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You know what the Bible says about men and their wives? It says men are supposed to teach their wives the word of God.
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Do you know that? 1 Corinthians 14, it says, Woman, if you have a question, go and ask your husband.
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You know what that tells us husbands? You are supposed to know the word of God.
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So that your wife can feel confident that when you teach her the word of God, that you are teaching her correctly.
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That puts a burden on you.
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Your wife sits under your teaching as the pastor of your home.
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That is an important responsibility.
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So getting back to the text.
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The first method Satan is employing is questioning God's word.
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It is founded upon speculation.
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Has God really said this? Has God truly said this? Hath God said? And it is confounded by the fact that Eve didn't really understand what God had said.
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And honestly, this is the same method that Satan uses today.
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How many people do you know that this is the first distortion that they fall into? Did God really say all those things in the Bible? Did God really mean all those things that He said? Is God really and truly saying those things? And are they really right? I mean, we go to evangelize.
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And what do people always say? Well, I don't know if I believe the whole Bible is true.
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Well, what would cause us to question the word of God? Well, I have an education.
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I have a degree, a bachelor's, a master's degree.
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And I was told in my religious history class that the Bible has been put together over thousands of years by many different people.
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It's been redacted, edited.
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Over time, it's been told to this one and that one.
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And all the changes have happened.
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And we have no idea what Adam and Eve really knew about.
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We don't even know if they really existed.
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We don't even know if that was just a myth created by Moses.
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We don't know, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know.
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It's always, we don't know.
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Turn on the History Channel.
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We don't know.
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That should be the History Channel motto.
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The History Channel.
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We don't have any idea.
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Because it's all about questioning the word of God.
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It's always about, we don't know what God said.
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When I talk to people who are unbelievers, when I have conversations with people who are outside of the faith, and they don't want to believe the attacks always.
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And this is my experience.
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You may have a different experience.
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And experiences come and change and go.
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But my experience is this.
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It's always an attempt to try to disprove God's word.
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They say God's word is unreliable.
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God's word is untrustworthy.
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God's word is untenable.
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You look up any source where there is a website or a book that's trying to disprove God's word, or trying to disprove Christianity.
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It always starts with trying to disprove God's word.
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The Bible is untrustworthy, corrupted, contradicted, filled with historical and scientific inaccuracies.
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And all of these are the common starting point for attacking the faith.
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We've had people come here.
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People come into this church and they say, or we don't know if the Bible is the whole, we don't believe the Bible is the word of God.
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Well, this ain't the church for you.
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Now, I ain't trying to be ugly.
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You can come in here and you can sit and you can learn.
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But you ain't joining this church unless you affirm the Bible is the word of God.
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I mean, this is who we are.
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You say, I don't believe the Bible is the word of God.
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Sit and listen.
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But you ain't joining the church.
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Part of the covenant community that we have here is an affirmation that the whole Bible, all 66 books, is the inspired and errant and fallible word of the living God.
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And the world will tell you that the Bible is corrupt.
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The world will tell you the Bible is wrong.
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The world will tell you the Bible has historic and scientific inaccuracies.
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The world will tell you the Bible is impossible to be harmonized.
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The world will tell you there's contradictions.
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Just come listen.
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Spend some time in the word of God.
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Because the world is following the prince of the power of the air, who from the beginning has said what? Has God really said? Is the word of God really true? They're following after their master.
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And it makes sense.
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That's the first issue.
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That's the first thing we all face.
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The question about God's word.
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Is it really true? And this is what starts Eve down a path, by the way.
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Think about Eve at this point.
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The very first thing Satan does is, Has God really said? And Eve, in her mind, she says, Well, God said this.
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But you can imagine Eve there going, Well, maybe He didn't.
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Or maybe, maybe He didn't mean it.
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Or maybe, maybe He's just wrong.
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So it always begins with the question.
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Hath God said? But the next thing we see in the text is the contradiction.
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And the contradiction regards God's punishment.
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Look at verse 4.
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Because Eve just said, If we eat of the tree, we will die.
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And what does Genesis 3, 4 say? But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die.
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God's command is clear.
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Go back to chapter 2 and look with me.
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Chapter 2, verse 16.
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You don't even have to turn the page in your Bible.
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Just look.
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Chapter 2, verse 16.
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And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.
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For in the day that you eat of it...
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Now, the ESV says you shall surely die.
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But the Hebrew is an idiomatic phrase.
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And the Hebrew actually says this.
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Dying you shall die.
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Dying you shall die.
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And what that construction indicates is it intensifies the sense of certainty.
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You will most certainly die.
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We see this same construction 49 times in the Old Testament.
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In fact, do you guys remember Abimelech? When Abraham had his wife Sarah, and he was going into this place, and he knew that Sarah was beautiful, so he decided instead of saying he was her wife, she was going to be his sister, because that solves the problem, right? That's going to solve everything.
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It creates a whole new problem, because when Abimelech finds out that this is his sister, he says, well, I'm going to take her as my wife.
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And he takes her in as one of his many wives or concubines, and before he can lay a hand on her, God speaks to Abimelech.
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And I'll read it to you.
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In Genesis 20, verse 7, it says, Now then, return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live.
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But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.
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That phrase, you shall surely die, is the same construction as is in Genesis 3, verse 4.
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If you don't return Sarah, you're going to die.
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Certainly, dying, you will die.
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You will die, if you don't return this woman.
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That's the same construction God is using in Genesis chapter 2, verses 16 and 17, when He says, On the day that you eat of the fruit, dying, you shall die.
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Now, we're going to talk later in our study about the fact that they didn't die that day.
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They didn't die physically for another 900 and some years.
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But they did die spiritually the moment they ate of the tree.
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And they began to die physically because even though their body didn't catch up for another 900 years, they started having all the problems that people have who are dying.
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Every one of us is dying, right? Dying from the moment we came out of our mother.
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We have been dying ever since.
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We've been growing to death.
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Because eventually we're going to die.
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Adam and Eve weren't in that condition Up until the fall, they were growing to life.
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But after the fall, now they're growing to death.
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The promise will not be revoked.
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Dying, you shall die.
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That's the command God has said.
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You do this, you shall surely die.
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Now go with me to chapter 3, verse 4, and notice this.
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But the serpent said to the woman, you shall not surely die.
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That's the ESV, but in the Hebrew it says this.
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Not dying, you shall die.
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Not dying, you shall die.
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You see, what Satan does is he takes the word of God and he contradicts it word for word.
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He gives an exact quote, but he adds the adversative.
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Not.
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He gives a direct quote.
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God says dying, you shall die.
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I tell you not dying, you shall die.
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You shall not die.
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See, Satan doesn't just want us to question the word of God.
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Satan wants us to contradict and deny the word of God.
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Because that's what he does.
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God says you're going to die.
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I tell you what I think.
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I think God's a liar.
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God says you're going to die.
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I tell you what.
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You're not going to die.
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There is no more common deception in the world today than people who doubt the willingness of God to punish the wicked.
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Let me say that again.
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There is no more greater deception today than people who disbelieve that God is willing to punish the wicked.
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I mean, how many times have you heard people say, God's not going to send anybody to hell because God is love.
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Let me say something about that statement.
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God is love.
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That is true.
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The Bible says God is love, but it doesn't say love is God.
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That's an important distinction because that's how it's been turned on its head.
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God is love, but God is also justice.
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God is also wrath.
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All of those things.
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In fact, there's only one thing that God is threefold and that is holy.
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God is holy, holy, holy.
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And if your understanding of God's love does not include an understanding of God's holiness, you don't understand God's love.
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If you don't understand God's holiness in view of His love and His love in view of His holiness, then you don't have a right understanding of God.
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See people say, well God is love, therefore God would never create hell.
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The Bible says God created hell for the devil and his angels and that's where the wicked are going to end up.
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How many churches today are telling people that God will not punish sin? How many churches in order to fill their seats and appear to be inclusive and loving have denied God's wrath? They are following after their father the devil.
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The devil was a liar from the beginning.
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What did he say? You shall not surely die.
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The Bible says that it is appointed unto every man to die.
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And after this is judgment.
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And I tell you what, as sure as you will die, you will be judged.
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As sure as you are one day going to close your eyes and not open them again on this planet, as sure as that is going to happen, you will be judged.
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And the devil has from the beginning tried to convince men and women that it ain't going to happen.
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I do funerals all the time.
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I have one today.
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I have one at three o'clock.
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And every time I do a funeral, I try to remind the people that are there that it is appointed unto every man once to die.
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And after this is judgment.
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Death comes to the rich and to the poor.
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It comes to the old and to the young.
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Royal doors cannot block its entrance.
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Wealth cannot bribe it away.
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You will die.
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Ten out of ten.
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It is the ultimate statistic.
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And 250,000 people will die today.
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All around the world.
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And 250,000 people will die tomorrow.
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All around the world.
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My wife and I are getting on an airplane Friday.
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I encourage your prayers.
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And it's been on our heart.
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We thought about that.
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We've decided to make a will.
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I mean, hopefully we'll be back.
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But, you never know when God will call you home.
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And are you prepared for that? See, the devil says there's nothing to get prepared for.
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Because there's no judgment coming.
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The devil says there's nothing to be prepared for because God isn't going to punish evil.
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You shall not surely die is the greatest lie in the history of man.
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And it's still the most prominent teaching in much of evangelical church.
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In fact, over the years, I've had an opportunity to meet a lot of Bible teachers.
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Some of them have been some of the greatest men I've ever known.
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I've met R.C.
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Sproul.
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I've met several people.
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James White.
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People who have changed my life.
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But I've also met some real, real scoundrels.
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I met a man one time by the name of John Shelby Spong.
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John Shelby Spong is a retired priest in the Episcopal Church.
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And he made his living, he made his life denying and contradicting the Word of God.
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Telling people, God is not going to punish wickedness.
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God is not going to punish evil.
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He denies the wrath of God.
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He denies substitutionary atonement.
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Why do you need substitutionary atonement if there is no wrath of God? His entire message is based on this.
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You will not surely die.
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So who is he echoing? John Shelby Spong is a voice of the devil.
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He is not echoing God.
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He is echoing God's great enemy.
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It's been a little longer on part two, but this part is important.
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Because you shall not surely die is the great and most wicked of all of Satan's schemes and it's still alive in the church.
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If you go to a church, I tell you what, you may leave here one day and you may go to another church.
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Maybe you move.
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Maybe something causes you to have to go to a different church.
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If you go to a church where they tell you there is no hell and there is no punishment and there is no judgment, then you take your pen and you pick up your Bible and you run for the door.
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There are things that are negotiable.
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The judgment of God is not.
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So part two is the contradiction.
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Part three, lastly, is the motivation.
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The motivation comes in verse 5.
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This is Satan's continuing to contradict God's word, but now he is going to touch on Eve's motivation.
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He says, For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
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You know something? Satan not only says God is a liar, Satan says God is afraid.
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Hear that again.
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God knows when you eat of it, you will be like Him.
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See, what Satan is trying to do is Satan is trying to paint a picture of a God who is worried.
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Satan is trying to paint a picture of a God who is wringing his hands saying, Oh, I don't want Him to be like me.
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I don't want Him to know all that I know because then we'll be on an equal playing field.
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I don't want Him to be like me.
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Oh boy! You see, he paints a picture of a God who is a liar and a God who is afraid, and by doing so, he taps in the most insidious part of man's nature and that is his pride.
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Because Satan comes at us two very powerful ways.
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The first way is he calls God's word into question which encourages doubt, but the second thing he does is he calls God's punishment into question which encourages rebellion, but he also calls God's goodness into question which encourages our pride.
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How dare God keep something from me? How dare God keep good from me? How dare God not want me to be just like Him? How dare God keep keeping me down? God's the man.
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The man's keeping me down.
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Right? It's ridiculous.
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It's that idea though, right? God is keeping us down.
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That's the point.
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And if all it takes to be like God is to eat, hand me a fork.
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If all it takes to be like God is to consume, then I'm going to reach up and I'm going to grab the fruit.
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Because God is wicked and He just doesn't want me to be like Him.
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And all it's going to take for me to be like Him is to take a piece of this forbidden fruit.
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You understand, it's pride.
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It's pride.
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Pride is what caused the devil to fall.
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We talked about that last week.
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And pride is the instrument by which man will fall.
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Because yes, the question causes her to have wonder.
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The contradiction causes her to have doubt.
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But it's the pride that steps her over the line.
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It's pride that steps her over the line.
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James Boyce said this, What lay at the root of the woman's determination to eat the forbidden fruit and give some to her husband Adam if it was not pride? What lay at the root of Adam's determination to go his own way rather than adhere to the path God placed before him if it was not pride? In the woman's case it was the conviction that she knew what was better for herself and her husband than God did.
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God had said that eating of the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil would bring death.
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But she was convinced by her own empirical observation after Satan had raised the doubt that the tree would actually be good for her and that God was mistaken.
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And in the man's case pride is also present for he repeated the sin of Satan saying in effect, I will cast off God's rule.
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I am too great to be bound by it.
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I shall declare myself autonomous.
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I will be like the Most High.
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You see, it was Satan that fell by pride and it was that same tool that he used to bring the fall of our first parents.
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And understand this, pride did not vanish with Adam and Eve.
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As C.S.
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Lewis said, pride is the utmost evil and it leads to every other vice.
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All sin is a form of pride.
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All sin is a form of pride because in that moment that we sin we say at that moment, I know better than God.
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Every time we sin it is a form of pride because we are telling God, get down off of your throne, I am going to take your seat.
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What does Proverbs 6.16 say? It says, there are six things that God hates, yea, seven are an abomination to Him.
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And what's the first thing that God hates? A proud look.
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The first thing that God hates is pride.
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Remember what happened to Nebuchadnezzar? You say, well, a lot happened to Nebuchadnezzar.
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I know a lot happened.
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What I mean is when Nebuchadnezzar went into the field to eat grass like an ox and his hair grew like eagle's feathers and his nails grew like the claws of a bird and he was crazy.
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Remember why that happened? Because he stood and he surveyed his kingdom and he said, look at my glory.
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Look at all that I have done.
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Look at all that I have accomplished.
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Look at my glory.
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And God said, I will show you how much glory you have.
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You are going to live like a beast.
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And he struck him with madness.
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And somebody says, well, that's the Old Testament God.
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Old Testament God is mean.
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First of all, that's foolish thinking, but I want to just remind you of something else.
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In the book of Acts, it tells us that there was a king who pronounced his own glory.
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What happened to him? Struck dead.
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At least Nebuchadnezzar got to come back.
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At least Nebuchadnezzar was given mercy.
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And at least he came back to the point to say God is great in the heavens and he does all that he pleases.
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And who can stay his hand? You know that great testimony of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter 4? But when we get to the book of Acts, there is a king who pronounces his own glory.
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And the Bible says he was struck down at that very moment, eaten by worms.
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You don't think God has a problem with pride? God has a problem with pride.
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And God's biggest problem with pride, I think, is that pride is what goes before our fall.
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God hates pride because it is a motivator for all sin.
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Satan's schemes include questioning God's word, contradicting God's punishment, and motivating man's pride.
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Why do we sin? Because in that moment, God's word is not rightfully believed.
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I'll tell you, every time I have a talk about somebody, when I talk about sin, it's either one of these three things.
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It's either God's word is not rightfully believed, it's His wrath is not rightfully acknowledged, or their pride is not rightfully suppressed.
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I've talked to people who are living in sin, living in unrepentant sin, and I go to them and I say, God commands that we don't live this way.
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God commands that we repent.
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And the person looks at me and says, Well, I'm happy.
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Wouldn't God want me to be happy? No! If you think that your happiness is God's motivating force, you are wrong.
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Your happiness is nothing compared to your holiness.
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That's what God cares about.
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And if you can live happily in sin, there's something wrong.
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If you can live in sin perpetually, and without conviction to repent, there is an issue.
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And so, when we sin, it's either we don't believe God's word at that moment, or we don't acknowledge God's punishment at that moment, or our pride is not suppressed enough at that moment.
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And often it's the third one.
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For this moment, I need to be the king.
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For this moment, I need to be in charge.
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We sin because we don't believe God enough and we don't fear Him enough.
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We sin because we trust ourselves and we love ourselves too much.
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That's how Satan tempted Eve.
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You don't need to believe God.
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You don't need to fear God.
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You can be like God.
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In fact, you deserve to be like God.
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And this is how he still tempts men and women today.
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But praise God, the tempter does not have the last word.
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Because thankfully, God chose to provide a savior for sin.
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When Satan came to destroy, and he did destroy, God had a plan in place to send His Son to redeem what Satan destroyed.
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Satan came to Jesus with the same tactics as Eve, by the way.
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When Satan came to Jesus in the time of Jesus' testing in the wilderness, he came with the same temptations.
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He said he tried to get Jesus to deny God's word.
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He tried to get Jesus to test God's resolve.
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He tried to get Jesus to succumb to his pride.
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Here, I'm going to put you on top of the temple.
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Throw yourselves off.
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You know God won't touch you.
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You know God will send His angels to protect you.
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That's the same pride that Satan is trying to appeal to Jesus.
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And you know the difference between Jesus and Adam? It's Jesus did not fail.
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Jesus did not give in to the wiles of the devil.
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We do.
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Don't we? We have.
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Though we like sheep have gone astray, every one of us to his own way, but God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
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Why on Him? Because He could take it.
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Because He didn't deserve it Himself.
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The reason why God could lay on Christ my iniquity was because Christ had none of His own.
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Christ stood against the wiles of the devil.
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Christ stood against the hardest temptations that Satan could throw at Him at the weakest point in His life.
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Had not eaten, had not had sustenance for 40 days, Satan comes in, attempts to tempt our Savior, and our Savior looks at Him with the word of God and says, No further.
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You've gone this far.
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You will go no further.
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Your wiles will not work with me.
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Your temptation will not follow me.
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For I am the Son of God, and I will use the word of God to defeat the enemy of God.
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And He defeated that enemy for us.
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And on that cross when Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.
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And therefore, all that Satan brought into the world to destroy, Christ came into the world to save.
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This morning, if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have an opportunity.
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We have an opportunity to enjoy this table together.
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Understand this, in a lot of churches that you go to, in a lot of churches that you go to, at the end of the sermon, the pastor will invite unbelievers to come forward.
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But in this church, we invite believers to come forward.
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Because this table is for believers.
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This table is the bread which represents the body of Christ, the cup which represents His blood.
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And if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have a welcome seat at this table.
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But let me tell you this too.
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If you're not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have yet to bow the knee to Him and receive Him as Savior and repent of your sins, this table is not yet for you.
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So in many churches, getting up and coming is the point of making a statement.
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Today, you make a statement by sitting.
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Where are you? Because if you come and take, you're saying, I am in Christ.
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But if you don't come, I want to ask you, what's holding you back? Say, I'm not ready to give up my sin.
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I'm not ready to repent and trust in Jesus.
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I still want to be on the throne.
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Know this, you will surely die.
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And after this is judgment.
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And there is no other name under heaven given among men by which you must be saved than the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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So my encouragement to you today, if you are not in Christ, to call out to Him in mercy and repent of your sins and trust in the Savior.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for the opportunity again to be in Your Word.
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I thank You for the opportunity to be reminded that there is a devil and he does have schemes, but there is a Son of God who is greater than the devil.
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And if we are in Him, then we are safe.
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And if we are not in Him, then we are still lost in our sins.
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And Lord, I pray for everyone here today who is not safe in the arms of Christ, that they would repent of their sins like David, that they would cry out, Lord, create in me a clean heart.
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Father, may we as believers understand the importance of what it means to come to know Christ as Savior.
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We pray all this in His name.
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Amen.