Bible Study Genesis Part 35-Sins of the Mind

The serpent’s first weapon isn’t a fanged attack. It’s a question that sounds reasonable, even helpful, and it’s aimed straight at your trust in God’s Word. We camp out in Genesis 3 and walk through the slow, subtle slide from “God hath said” to “I think I know better,” because that mental shift is where the real fall begins.

We talk about how half-truths function like full lies, how selective Bible reading can soften the parts of Scripture we don’t want, and why the enemy doesn’t need to erase God from the story to win. He only needs to repaint God as insincere or withholding. That’s why the line “You shall not surely die” lands with such force: confidence can create doubt even when the facts haven’t changed. We also unpack the “eyes shall be open” promise as an early form of fake news and conspiracy thinking, built to trigger pride and suspicion.

Finally, we clarify what God means by death in the Garden. Adam and Eve don’t drop dead instantly, so we explain spiritual death as separation from God and how physical death follows as humanity is pushed away from God’s life-giving presence. If you care about Bible Study, Christian living, and reading Genesis with seriousness, this one will challenge how you rank voices in your head. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with the biggest takeaway you heard.

Transcript

Why God’s Word Comes First

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the program Study in the Chapel. God's Word is supreme at Chapel Ministries. We consider it absolutely essential to a proper relationship with God. We study it, we love it, we rely on it every minute of every day. The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold. And we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture. Our intention is to travel all the way through the Bible. It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision. Through this study, you will be faced with either believing or rejecting what God has said to us. It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word. We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death. In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death. Never treat what God has said lightly. There's truly nothing more important to you. Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

Genesis 3 And The Serpent’s Question

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Anyways, we love God. We love his word. I think about it all the time. I think about it all day long. It's amazing how much of his word applies to us. And what's amazing about it is that we've been told since we're little ones that the Bible is cute and it's funny. We may even go to Bible study after church or before church or something like that. And we think, oh, these are cute little stories and they're cute little cartoons, but we never take it very seriously. Most of us have heard all of these stories from Genesis, but we've not had the meat off the bone. And once you start to look at the real mechanics of what God has done, the creative mechanics, you start to realize there is a real purpose behind that. We're slowly starting to figure that out. We are currently in chapter three of Genesis. We are still in the first few verses of chapter three. There's a reason behind that. We're taking our time because these are very important, very enduring issues. This is the very reason that Jesus came off this throne to us. So let's start reading again. Genesis 3:1. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. Hey, didn't God give you permission to do what you want? You can eat whatever you want. That's another one of his little tricks. He's gonna shine a light on half truths. And usually it's only the attractive half. He did that to Jesus in the desert. He was quoting scripture to scripture to Jesus, but only incompletely. He would tell them the good things and leave out the bad things. That's what's going on here. No need to throw the whole Bible out. He's trying to convince us of. There's plenty you can take advantage of. You know that friend I told you about last week, that one that told me the Bible was just a bunch of stories? Well, he once actually asked me to pray for him. He was having a personal crisis. This was many years ago, and he was scared and confused, and he didn't know what to do next. He knew what business I was in. So he came to me. In fact, I remember that my friend, who's not a terribly religious person, during that difficult time in his life, he started wearing, let me call it, religious jewelry. I'd never seen him wear it before. And to be honest, I haven't seen it since. I suppose the parts of the Bible where God says,

Half-Truths And Selective Bible Use

SPEAKER_01 4:33

I'll never leave you nor forsake you, or the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, those aren't too bad. Go ahead, John. Teach on those. It's fine. You know, there are some people that are so sure that the Bible prohibits abortion that they'll blow up the Planned Parenthood Clinics and everyone that's in them, despite the fact that the Bible also says, blessed are the peacemakers. This is all too common. People will carve up God's word to suit their needs, highlighting some parts and ignoring others. And it doesn't seem to matter which side of the church doors you spend most of your time. Those on the inside seem to be as apt as the ones on the outside. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. Listen to me, a half-truth is nothing more than a lie. But much to her credit, Eve actually gives a pretty good answer. Verse 2, and the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which isn't, you probably can do this from memory like me, which I can't. I have to read it. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. As I said, that's a good response. It's not word for word perfect, which actually gives a lot of scholars some anxiety, but it's really not a big deal. Eve says they're not to eat of it, neither shall ye touch it. It's that second part that has a minor amount of controversy attached to it. As you remember from when we covered it, there's no record of God saying, neither shall you touch it. Now, some critics may see this as cause to invalidate the whole thing, since consistency to them is sufficiently suspect to render the whole statement invalid. Some quick thoughts here. People are not robots. There are no play buttons on our memories. Very often there's some deviation from what we remember about events and the reality of what actually took place. Sometimes people embellish. If Eve did add this last part, should we get all worked up about it? If the meaning of the original statement was altered in a material way, then we might have to look further into the difference between the two statements. But in this case, I don't think we have too much to be concerned about unless we're looking for problems. Now, the other thing I would say is that it is entirely possible that what Eve reported here in verse three is actually the full truth of what God had said. And this new, this additional detail was left out for some reason from the previous account of God's instructions to Adam and Eve. Why do we get bogged down in these things? Because someone is going to confront you about this. Someone is going to confront you about all of these little teeny tiny things that happen in the Bible. There's not many of them, but it doesn't matter to the critics. They're always going to ask you, well, well, what about that lest ye touch it stuff? The Bible needs to be thrown out because of that. I want you to know, I want you to get into the habit of realizing you can explain these things if you want to. Some things are left out for one reason or another. Maybe Moses, remember he's the author of Genesis. Maybe Moses just decided to be interesting and leave the full statement for chapter 3, verse 1. Maybe he knew about it and didn't want to include it until this very part. We don't know. And honestly, it doesn't even seem like the minute and a half or so that we spent on it. The differences are minor and do not affect the meaning of the scripture. With that, let's keep moving. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. She got that last part right, didn't she? Eve remembered the lest ye die part. She remembered that very clearly. Some details just stick in our heads, don't they? Well, the devil doesn't seem to think so. Here's his response. It's cold, it's to the point. And it's said with such confidence that it must have aided in creating the doubt in Eve's mind. Sometimes just the way someone says something gives us enough pause to reconsider what we remember and what they've said. When someone seems so sure of themselves, sometimes we doubt our own version of the truth. I would like to give you some examples, but I think I might get myself in trouble. Verse three,

Confidence That Creates Doubt

SPEAKER_01 10:46

but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die. Mr. Serpent, are you saying that God is lying? No, no, no, no. I'm just saying, ye shall not surely die. As you can see, the serpent is definitely living up to his reputation. Right here, he is showing precisely why Moses described this snake-ish creature as more subtle than any other beast of the field. And by the way, don't get too hung up on that English phrase translated from the original as beast of the field. It's just meant to get us to realize that the serpent was a created being. Remember, it's high. Remember, we talked about high nefesh. This is just high. He's a created being, he's a living being. The point is that the serpent, Satan, is not eternal like God. God had no beginning. Satan did. The serpent did. He was created. Now the word beast translates a word that just means a living creature. And the reference to the field can just as easily be translated as the land. Now, why are you saying this? Because some people make the mistake of assuming that this is some sort of domesticated animal, some benign creature out there in a pasture somewhere. There's much more to it than the English imply. So back to our discussion. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. Didn't God say you could eat what you want? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. And a serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. You know, any conspiracy theory that has legs, shall we say, every hypothesis of some secret effort hidden from the eyes of the middle class that actually take root, that people only ever pay attention to is the one that suggests that there's some plot afoot whose design is to deny the distribution of one's due. Like no one would care if the government had some, I don't know, super covert plan to increase the

The First Conspiracy Theory In Scripture

SPEAKER_01 13:55

broccoli yield in the southeastern United States. That's boring. Give me something that's gonna make me feel put upon. That's conspiracy theory 101, right? Here in Genesis, we see the serpent becoming the first purveyor of fake news, don't we? He says, hey, listen, Eve, I'm not sure what God told you. I don't know how he put it to you. And by the way, it's very important for you to notice. This is very important for you to notice that the devil, that this serpent, it's the devil, but he is in the guise of a serpent. He's not attempting to disprove there's a God. Not even Satan is dumb enough to try to put that theory by someone. Only foolish modern human beings have the depth of ignorance to try something that outrageous. And the devil doesn't think Eve is that stupid either. Listen, she may be gullible, but to believe there isn't God takes a whole different level of foolishness. Anyways, here the serpent contradicts Eve's understanding of what God said, and he did it in a very special way. Eve said that God said they die, but the serpent challenges that stance in a okay, a subtle way to use it in the modern use. He says he's creating a conspiracy theory. He's creating this doubt in her mind. God's trying to keep something from you. You're not gonna die. Come on. God just wants, he doesn't want your eyes to be open because he doesn't want you to be like him. He's keeping something from you. You're much better than that. You're amazing, as a matter of fact. All you lack is a little understanding. Your eyes need to be open. As soon as your eyes open, you're gonna be just like him, and he knows it. Listen, at the moment, Adam and Eve, the only two humans in existence at the time, therefore, we can say at that moment, Adam and Eve really had no idea what right and wrong actually meant. So the devil's right, yes, their eyes would be open. And let me argue that the serpent's inference that God didn't want their eyes to be open is also correct. This is how the world will get you, it will appeal to you using some truth. There isn't a cult on the face of the earth that tries to dip into the Bible one way or another. They're going to try to get you to disbelieve what Christ said by going to the Bible and twisting what was said by God. God didn't want their eyes to be opened. He said so himself when he told them not to eat of that tree. God didn't want that for his new companions. Knowledge of good and evil was not a part of his plan for them. And the serpent said unto the woman, you shall not surely die. For God, do you see why the world doesn't want you to study this? I'm not trying to be a conspiracy theorist at the moment, but this makes sense. They don't want you to see that God is very sincere in the things he says. The world wants you to think he isn't. For God doth know, this is the serpent speaking again. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

The Real Battle Happens In The Mind

SPEAKER_01 18:00

And when the woman saw that the tree was good, it's like it's working. This isn't a surprise. It's working. When she saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. You know, I I just don't think that we see that this first temptation is as bland as it could be. The inducement that eventually leads to sin to us is so minor that I just don't think we take it seriously. I mean, this is just doubt. No one's killing anyone, no one's raping anyone, no one's getting drunk, no one is using foul language, no one went to the movies. All that's happening here is disregard. Eve said, God hath said, and the devil said, Yeah, but that's it. I mean, this is just so subtle that I'm not even sure I'm making my point. Nowadays, we get so bent out of shape about the things we do, but we don't seem to take into account the things we think. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, the sin that broke the back of mankind was not the act of taking a bite out of a fruit. It's far more ephemeral than that, it's far less substantive than that. This sin, listen to me, started in the mind. Eve knew what God thought of that tree because he told her. But she decided that what she thought of that tree was more valid. She moved God's opinion down a notch. In fact, she moved it down a couple of notches. First was the serpent, then hers, bringing up the rear, was God. And by the way, nothing has changed. And that's why I'm bringing this up. This is why I'm taking so long on this one point. If you just breeze past this, you will not see the fatal flaw of all humanity that is speaking that is spoken of right here. We're still acting like Eve to this very day. Now, of course, we modern humans would feel pretty silly listening to a snake, and so we've transferred that trust to the slightly less embarrassing the follow world. But you know what? It's actually just a change in the physical form. The world is as much in the grips of the devil as that old serpent was. And to this day, Satan is applying the same constant pressure to try and alter how we think. Even in the face of, listen to me, even in the face of undeniable facts that make our positions outrageous, he's trying to get us to change what we think. She knew God's power and the strength of his word, and yet she thought she could get away with disobedience. Our minds are still playing tricks on us, our minds are still betraying us. Sins of the mind. Are as destructive as the sins of the body. And that's not John Tomasi talking, that's what Jesus said. Ye have heard it said unto you that you should not commit adultery, but I say, Jesus said, when you look at that woman with lust in your mind, you've already committed adultery with her. The sins of the body are born in the mind. But the world, the devil, and so much of the church have distracted us from that vital truth. Listen, every one of us has to think of an action before we perform it. Forget that people say, well, I just wasn't thinking when I did that. That's not possible unless you're severely mentally impaired. And even then, I'd be skeptical. And then you hear, at least I've heard people say, Oh, I was so drunk I didn't even know what I was doing. Well, my answer to that is you're not relieved of any responsibility because it was your clear thinking decision to engage in an activity that you knew, that everyone knows that drinking can lead to bad outcomes. So just because you were drunk doesn't mean you're innocent. The law says that, and I agree. Trust me, I've been drunk a few times, and not once did I do something I wasn't aware I was doing. I may have told people I wasn't, but I knew what I was doing. It's very important to us that verse six is here because this is where the real sin happened. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and thought it and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband, and he did eat. She saw that the tree was good. God saw that it wasn't good. She saw that it was pleasant to the eyes. God saw that if you mess with it, it'll close your eyes permanently. Eve saw the tree differently than God did. The original word means mental observation. Do you know what that means? It means she thought it was good. She thought it was pleasant to the eyes. She thought it was a tree to be desired to make one wise. We sin. We sin when we disregard what God thinks and replace it with what we think. And there's no way around that. There's no way around that. When we question the validity of what God says, then we sin. God says he made them male and female. We say he didn't. God said that his word is forever settled in heaven. We say it isn't. God said he created the heavens and the earth. We say he didn't. That in my notes it says that's where sin begins. That's where sin resides. I should have put that in my note. It begins in our perception. It lives in our perception of what God says. If we don't think what God said is valid and that becomes our habit, we are sinning creatures. I think you get the point. Now, someone is going to say that we don't get any indication as to what Adam thought before he took of the fruit, but do we really need to be told what he thought? It's the same point. His actions are the result of the very same thoughts that Eve had. Well, then why are we told what Eve thought and not what Adam thought? I don't know. But knowing isn't going to change anything. The sin and the sinning are the same for them both. They both knew what Eve stated out loud. They both knew that God said that they can eat of every tree except the tree of good, of knowledge of good and evil. God has said ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. They both knew that.

What God Means By “You Will Die”

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Now, one thing I want to cover before we go any further. God said, and Eve said, God said, that disobeying God's commands regarding the fruit of the tree of the good, the fruit of the tree of good and evil will result in death. Though we haven't got there yet, what happened? Or more accurately, what didn't happen immediately after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit? Well, they didn't die, did they? Most of you know that. They went on living, they had children. I mean, that's obvious since you and I are here. If Adam and Eve had died in that moment, that would have been the end of the human race. So clearly, God did not mean that they would drop dead the moment of their disobedience. A critic may want to point this fact out. He may say, see, God didn't follow through. They're both alive for quite a long time. But there's no room for that criticism since God never meant that. God never said that. In fact, given the evidence, the evidence from the Bible, none of the actual participants from that story expected that. I mean, Adam and Eve, post-disobedience, didn't proclaim, aha, the snake was right. We're not dead. God is a liar. In fact, their actions demonstrate the exact opposite. Once their eyes are really open, they really know that God is sincere, that God is true. Once they realize the evil of their disobedience, thanks to that fruit, they knew they acted in a way that God would not like. They knew what they did was evil. Once that realization hit them, they didn't arrogantly strut around as if they bested God. Instead, they were terrified and they fled. Clearly, Adam and Eve didn't act as if they had beaten the system. Their actions tell us that they never thought that God meant instant drop deadness. They may not have known what death was, but they were terrified of it. They know they weren't escaping it. And the serpent couldn't have thought God meant instant death either way, otherwise. The serpent claimed no vindication because he knows he was lying. So clearly, God was not talking about instant death. Why are you telling us, John? Why are you telling us this, John? Because someone's going to ask you, they didn't die, did they? God must be a liar. You say, no, God never said they were going to die instantly. Now the question is, what did God mean when he said, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in that day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Now, perhaps this is an unnecessary side trip. I'm fairly certain most of you already know what God meant, but let's quickly clear up the confusion if there is any. Who knows? There may be more than a few who need this little exercise. This, by the way, is a very oft-discussed topic in Bible studies and sermons and other discussions about certain things, about these things. And most of the time, the consensus is that God clearly meant spiritual death. In that day you will have spiritual death. I agree. The moment Adam and Eve ate from that tree, they committed spiritual suicide. That death was indeed immediate. That's what God meant when he said, That day you shall die. You die spiritually. That death was immediate. Now, of course, we don't mean that mankind's spirit died. In fact, the spirit can't die. For some, that's quite disheartening. For the rest of us, it's joyful. Anyways, the spirit can't die, not in the oblivion sense. In order to understand what's meant here, we have to look at death as the Bible does. In Scripture, death is regarded as a separation. For example, when the body dies, the soul is separated from it. The spiritual death mankind endured as a result of sin was likewise a separation. However, this separation, this spiritual separation, was man's soul being separated from God. Up to that point, man and God were in perfect harmony through the spirit. God is a spirit, man is a body and a spirit. It is through the spirit that man and God interacted. Man was able to interact and worship God in the spirit, but sin stood in the way. It disrupted that, and a true death resulted, a true spiritual death. Now there's so much more I want to talk about with regard to that spiritual death, but I'm going to leave that there. But I do want to make sure you also understand that there was a resulting physical death due to sin as well. God had all along, listen to me, God had all along intended mankind to live forever. He was not supposed to die. And I believe that the fact that Adam lived to be over 900 years old is proof of that. 900 years old? You believe that? I do believe it. Listen, if I don't believe this, if I abandon God on this point, where's the next place that I turn my back on him? Where does it end? At what point do we chuck the whole thing out? Because some perhaps well-meaning scientist tells me these things are impossible. Listen, if I believe that God loved me so much that he sent his only son to save me, believe me. Believing that Adam lived to 900 years is a snap. And listen, Adam isn't the only one that lived so long. He wasn't the only long-living Bible character. Seth, Adam's third son, he lived to be 912. Noah was 950 when he died. Enoch, he lived to 365. But a close reading of the Bible is going to show you something. As we get closer to our own time and further away from Adam's, the longevity seems to drop significantly. For example, Abraham was a youthful 175 when he died. Jacob, he died at 147. Joseph, his son, Jacob's son, he died when he was 110. David was only 70. Now I've always promised you that when I start to venture outside scripture, I'd let you know. Well, I'm sort of doing that here. I believe that the reason Adam and those early members of his family live so long was because they were much closer to the source of all life. Listen, if you want your green bell pepper to last until Sunday's chopsui, you better not pick it out of the garden until the last second. As soon as you remove that plant from the soil, it starts to die. As with all analogies, this one breaks down, but I think you get the point. At his creation, Adam was never meant to die, but he was likewise never meant to be outside the presence of God. Clearly, God gives life. And the further away from him we are, the less of life we have. As the years accumulate since the garden, and more specifically, the expulsion from the garden, as the years start to pick up, less and less of our original design remains. There was nothing mystical about God's declaration that mankind would die if he sinned. God is the creator and he knows our design intimately, as all designers do. He knows we need him to live. If we leave his presence or if we're expelled from his presence, we will die. It's that simple. The sin of Adam caused him to die physically eventually because he was no longer in contact with God's life-giving person. And we've been dying ever since. And that's not only true in a spiritual sense, it's also true in the physical. Now I've kept you too

Final Takeaways And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 36:56

long. There are lots more I'd like to say on this topic, but I just wanted to make sure we touched on it in order to clear up any possible uncertainty. We're still making our way through this, but we're going to stop here for tonight. More next time. See you then.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

We hope this study has blessed you. God's word is a great treasure, and it's our belief that a thorough, purposeful study of it will bring all of God's children to an understanding of his eternal plan of redemption. It is our prayer that this will be so for all of our listeners. Please join us again soon. New content is being added all the time, so make sure you check back often. For more information on Chapel Ministries, including our YouTube channel and podcasts, please visit www.chapelontheweb.com. And if God has laid it upon your heart to share materially with us, we encourage you to follow the links to our secure giving page. Please note, Chapel Ministries is not an IRS registered nonprofit organization, and your donations to this program are not tax deductible. It's our hope that you do not rely on taxing authorities to decide for you who is worthy of your generosity.