SA Ep63 - Dialogue with the Devil (Part 2)

SA Ep63 - Dialogue with the Devil (Part 2)

In this episode we examine the first step in Satan’s strategy of deception. In Genesis 3:1 the serpent asks Eve a subtle but dangerous question that reframes God’s generosity as restriction. Although God had given Adam and Eve abundant provision in the garden, Satan shifted their attention to the one command they were told to obey. The goal of this deception was to plant doubt about the goodness of God. When people begin to believe that God is withholding something good, obedience starts to feel like loss rather than blessing. Scripture reveals a very different truth. God “giveth us richly all things to enjoy” and promises that no good thing will be withheld from those who walk uprightly. In this episode we expose the lie that God is a cosmic killjoy and rediscover the truth that sin steals joy while God restores it. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Have you ever found yourself wondering if that's Satan that's talking to you or if it's God? That's what we began looking at last time in this series that we're calling Dialogue with the Devil. We want to continue looking at that as over the next few episodes, we're going to look at some flaws in Satan's dialogue that will give him away so you can know that if you're talking with him or if you're talking with God. And there's some things that you can see. They're very subtle. The Bible warns us of that, but there are some things you can see, and we want to try to bring those out to you. Now, over the next couple of episodes, you're going to be hearing words like moral relativism, pragmatism, uh, postmodernism, universalism, secular humanism. You're going to be hearing some of these words in the coming episodes. And we want to do this to show you what Satan has done and how he has altered things around us to make us think that maybe we have a hand in what we can do for ourselves. The Bible tells us that uh all things, all gifts are of God, that our life is of God, everything is, and that if we have a moment where we are doubting any of those things, well, we know that it's Satan in our head. So we want to turn back to Genesis chapter number three, where the first dialogue with the devil ever began. And I want to read to you the very first verse of chapter number three, and that's where we're really going to start uh with this uh with this session. It says in Genesis three, one, it says, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, that being Eve, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. So Satan there is taking something that God actually said, but putting it into a question form, wanting Eve to think more deeply, wanting her to try to figure out what God is saying. I tell you what, there's a whole heap of things that we could uh run down uh in that in just that line of thought about Satan wanting us to think more deeply about what God might have said. God is very clear on what he tells us to do. We don't have to, we don't have to try to jump through hoops to figure out what God is saying. But there's a lot of what I'll put in air quotes, Christians out there, theologians and scholars and and all sorts of uh, we'll just say really smart individuals who will try to cause us or try to make us believe that we've got to think deeper in what God would have for us. I heard a man, very, very popular man, uh, in an interview the other day. He's no longer uh with us, but I was watching the interview the other day, and uh he said, uh, I I I I cannot uh uh I cannot uh figure out the grace of God. And it's true, there's some things that we cannot figure out. There's some things we cannot know the mind of God, his ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. There's some things that we cannot figure out with God, and that's where faith has to come in. But there are some things in this world that God has told us through through his spoken word that we don't have to figure things out. He told us very plainly. So I want to get back to this dialogue and what we'll be looking at this this time. And it Satan he poses a very simple question at first glance. It seems harmless. He's just asking, well, is God has that did God say that you that you could eat of every tree? But notice how he frames it. He didn't begin with denying what God said outright. Instead he twists it the way that in the way he presented it. See, God had actually given Adam and Eve extraordinary freedom in the garden. The garden was filled with every provision you could think of. We don't we don't even have an understanding in our minds of what the God of what the garden provided. Because we are living under the curse that that we must work, we must sweat, we must you know toil and strive, and you know, these sinful bodies and they're decaying and all of this. But in that garden, everything was provided. Every tree, every plant, every herb was was there for them. There was no restrictions there, except one. Except one, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don't eat of that tree. Don't don't partake of that. If you just trust what I'm telling you to trust. And this is where that that first choice by man, I know there's a group of people out there that say we don't have free will, we don't have choice in the matter. It all started with choice. God was saying, God was telling Adam and Eve, don't worry about knowing good from evil. Just know what I've told you. If you just do the very simple thing that I've commanded you is that all of this is yours. Just don't go after trying to know the difference in good and evil. Just trust me. Let's just have fellowship together in the garden. But it wasn't good enough. Satan immediately wanted the people to start thinking. He wanted them to start evaluating, evaluating God, evaluating his commands. Why wouldn't he want you to know the difference in good and evil? Well, we see today why. So this provision that God wasn't being restrictive to him, he was being very generous. But Satan, he framed this question deliberately to shift their focus away from the abundance that God had provided for them and placed it on the one thing that they were not allowed to have. And what is it? I mean, look at look at kids today. You can see it today in our kids today. You can tell them you can play with everything in this room. Just don't touch that over there. And the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna touch that. I gotta go get that. So what this shows us, it gives us the deeper lie behind Satan's question. His goal is not merely to challenge what God said, but to challenge the character of God. He wants us to evaluate God and evaluate God's character. Satan wanted Eve to believe that God was withholding something from something good. Why would he not want you to know that? He just don't want you to be as good as he is. We know that's that's Satan's ploy from the beginning. When he gave his five I will statements, he was wanting to elevate himself to God. And he lied to them, thinking, making them think that God is restrictive, that he's holding back. That was preventing Adam and Eve from experiencing something that they deserved or something that was fun or good. And this is the oldest accusations against God's character. The oldest accusation is that God is holding me back. Satan said that in Ezekiel. He said it in Isaiah, uh, whenever he was uh trying to rise up against God, that he was being held back from what his potential was. And he wants you to believe the very same thing. He wants you to believe that your happiness is being diminished because of your obedience to God. In 1 Timothy 6 7, Paul writes, it says, God giveth us richly all things to enjoy. God's not holding us back. He's not some harsh taskmaster that withholds blessings and and forces us to do. God gives us that free will. Psalm uh 84, 11. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. God is the source of all things good. And this lie that started in the beginning, it still continues to echo all through culture. And now it has made its way into churches and into seminaries. People wanting to believe that there's more to this. What is God hiding from us? We've got to search the scriptures in a deeper way that because there's going to be some hidden, you know, behind some cavern somewhere that we didn't see it, there's some unopened storage room in scripture that once we open it, then ah, all the things will be unveiled. No, everything has been. That's why we've got the last book is the revelation, the the apocalypto, the unveiling. Everything has been given to us. Everything that we that we need to know has been given to us right there. But there's there's this belief that that if you become uh a follower of Christ, that you have to give up all the things that are enjoyable and replace it with restriction and burden. That's the kind of the caricature that that is that the Christian today, that that God is some cosmic killjoy who exists primarily to just forbid happiness, that you must be somber and uh walk a martyr's path the rest of your life. But the true s the true joy stealer is sin. Sin promises pleasure, but it only produces emptiness and guilt and destruction. God promises joy, peace, everlasting life. There's not one thing in the Bible, there's not one command that God has given us in the Bible that that if we apply it to our life, that will not make us better. Not one. Go find it. Go find any command that won't make us better. The only one I've ever heard somebody say that uh that I won't say that had any had any credence, but that uh for a moment might sound good as they said, well, the Bible tells us that we ought to be a slave and there should never be any slavery. Well, it depends on what you're talking about. If you're talking about the modern example of slavery, but that's not what biblical slavery is about. Biblical slavery, when you're being a bondservant unto Christ, when you're making yourself a slave unto him, that's again not lowering yourself under the harsh whip of a taskmaster. That's somebody who gives themselves, that bondservant is the one who was allowed to go free, who had served their time or worked their debt. And when they were done, they said, I don't want to leave. Because my master is taking care of my food, my shelter, my clothing. He's caring for my family, he cares for my health. I mean, why would I want to leave? And that's when they would take that all, that very sharp spike, and they would drive it through their ear and nail it into the doorpost. And that was the sign that you had given yourself over to that master freely. That's the kind of sort of so there's not there's nothing bad that's presented in scripture that if we if we take that and apply it to our life, that's gonna that I mean everything will make us better. But it's Satan who always wants us to see the outliers, the the things that that um that may look good on the surface. And then we begin to question. And as soon as we start questioning God, we're in our first step towards sin. That's all it takes, it all it takes is for Satan to get you to start doubting. And that's why it's so scary that people continue to have these dialogues with the devil thinking that they're they're capable of standing against him. And it's it's just not possible. I said it, I guess, in the in the last episode, or maybe it was in the uh the service, they they start running together with doing two online classes, three services a week, plus a uh devotion every morning and a podcast every day, they start running together. But at some at some point this past week I was I was just talking about it that uh that we are no match for Satan. We we like to think we are, but we're no match for Satan. And the only thing, the only way that we have any possibility of standing against Satan is is that we must stand in Jesus Christ. He's the only one. He's the only way but Satan wants to wants to slip in and begin that dialogue, and he'll begin it by causing you to want to think. Let me see, is there something else that God is uh that is keeping from me, offering me? Is there something I've got to figure out? And that's why I don't like these these um these scholars, these biblical scholars out there that say that that want you to believe that you've got to figure this thing out that's that's just error. It's the first it's the first thing that's Satan. So if you want to know if Satan is speaking to you, is speaking in your mind, or if it's God that's speaking, if it has if there's any if it's bringing into question any good thing, that's of Satan. If it's causing you to think about something that's out there that is not commanded of God, that's Satan. And it's very simple. And if we could stop it there, generally we wouldn't get further down the road in the dialogue. If we'll stop him right at the beginning, there's people that that will that will uh uh hate other people. There's there's situations where where people will uh uh try to uh uh mentally and emotionally cause harm to other Christians, and they'll say they're doing it in the name of the Lord because we're supposed to do this. And they'll they'll they'll they'll say that this is you know the and and and attach God's name to it, and it's nothing but of the devil. It's nothing but Satan. Are we should we have uh you know certain things that uh that we shouldn't have going on in the church? Yes, absolutely. Paul talked about that. But those those are if you go and look at at the situation that that Paul was dealing with, especially with the church of Corinthians, the things he was dealing with there, there was some very vulgar things going on, and they were repeatedly happening, and the church was not standing against it. That's wrong. We've got to stand against some things. But to to some of the arguments and the things that are going on in church and people attaching God's name to it. I was watching uh we we used to be uh big boxing fans back in the uh like in the nineties in the heyday of of the heavyweight uh boxing world. Uh Holyfield Foreman and Tyson and uh uh Douglas and Lewis, Lennox Lewis was coming in on the on the tail end of all that. Um but uh you know in that era and then before that was the you know the the uh the Ollies and the uh Larry Holmes and and all that. Anyway, we were big boxing fans uh back then. I was watching uh an old boxing um match on um on YouTube the other day. Just got one of those uh urges to watch one of those fights, and they were showing the the the pre-match stuff in the locker room, and uh the the boxer had uh some trainer or somebody in front of him, probably some spiritual advisor, I have no idea who it was, but he was praying in Jesus' name now. And he he he said he said something to the effect of uh he's he's he's praying and very emotionally, he's praying, and he's he's got his you know his hands on the boxer, he kind of got him up on his shoulders, and and uh he's praying and he said, you know, and in Jesus' name, I just pray that you allow the blood to drip from this man's fist as as he pummels his opponent and going on. I'm like, what in the world are we praying for? And why in the world are you attaching Jesus' name to that? My heavens. I mean, some of the things that we that we attach to God that Satan would have us to do is is God's nowhere near it. Now, is he involved in the things of our life? Yeah, but I mean, praying for the the blood to flow from a man's fist while he pummels another man, my heavens, what are we doing? This is the beginning. And the first flaw that we'll see in Satan's arsenal is he wants you to start trying to outthink God. And we we must not think against what God has explicitly told us to do or not to do. In the next episode, we're gonna look at the second flaw of Satan's strategy, and that's when he begins to ramp up. Come back and be with us again here on seeking approval.