Multiply Protection (Part 1)

The first temptation in history still reveals how Satan works today.

In this message, Pastor Matt Shackelford begins a study of Genesis 3 and shows how sin entered the world through deception, doubt, and disobedience. More importantly, we learn why God's truth remains our greatest protection against temptation.

You'll discover:

• Why every temptation begins with questioning God's Word
• How Satan distorts truth to lead people away from God
• Why spiritual protection begins before temptation arrives
• How sin always promises more than it can deliver
• What Genesis 3 teaches about guarding our hearts against deception

Temptation has not changed since the Garden of Eden. Neither has God's answer. The question is: whose voice are you choosing to trust?

Scripture: Genesis 3:1-21

Series: Be Fruitful and Multiply

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Today on Moment of Truth, Pastor Matt Shackelford begins a message called Multiply Protection. Genesis 3 shows humanity's first temptation and first fall into sin. As we study this familiar passage, we'll discover how Satan still attacks God's people today and how God's truth protects us from deception. Every temptation begins with a question about God's word.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

We're looking at a series that I've entitled To Be Fruitful and Multiply. That's what I want for all of us, really. Not just in gender, not just in manhood and womanhood. We've already seen that, but now we're going to expand it. We're going to see the first couple. We're going to see the first home. We're going to see the first fight. We're going to see the first blame game. We're going to see the first biblical counseling session. And what we're going to see is that we've got to learn protection. We've got to learn to multiply protection. And that's the title of our sermon today. We're going to multiply. We're going to be multiplying protection in Genesis chapter 3. We've got to have protection in our relationship because there's always a snake lurking. There's always a temptation coming. There's always a fallen condition that we exist in. We're in Genesis chapter 3, starting in verse 1. It's a big text. I'm going to read it, but this may take a second, but I just want to encourage you. Let's give attention to the public reading of Scripture as we're commanded in the New Testament. Enjoy this. Take this in. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. 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. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, 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. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. They sowed fig leaves together, made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me. She gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and the dust you shall eat, all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman, he said, But I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain shot you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. And to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them. This is one of the low points of the Old Testament. This is the fall narrative. And what we're seeing here is a story of really protection and caution. And the whole big idea of the sermon today, I would say, is as dangers multiply, the protections of our life must also multiply. You and I are called to live on guard. This is not an unusual theme. We see it in Ephesians chapter 6. Put on the full armor of God. You need to be aware, acutely aware of the dangers that you're walking in in this life. And we see three of them in this passage. And so from that, I get three lessons of protection. We see that we need protection from a snake, we need protection from a temptation, and we need protection from a curse. We see three movements in the text. There are snakes in your garden. There are enemies that want to lead you. And you've got to be on guard against that. There are temptations to guard against. There's something within us, our own desires that work against us. And then lastly, there's a curse that covers all of humanity. One for the serpent, that makes him dangerous. One for the woman, she is her own enemy. One for the man, he is his own worst enemy. And we have to be aware of the curses, the temptations, and the snakes. So may God bless his holy word. May God protect his church. You may be seated. Let's walk through these three very simple thoughts this morning. There's a snake in every garden. We need to beware a snake leading your home. Now, snakes are the enemy of humanity. We see it, we feel it. If you were to ask your children how do you feel about snakes, most of them in general are going to say they creep me out. Most people, now there's some of you who are like, no, you're talking about my pet snake, not your pet snake. Just every other snake in the world deserves to die. Amen? It's not your pet snake, but all the rest of them. And that's why they're used in movies. That's why Jurassic Park, these scaly lizard creatures, uh, that's why they make such uh great aliens in movies. They're always reptilian, they're always looking a little snaky. Um that's why humanity has something inside of us that fears snakes. I I let's just get into it just for a minute. What is this snake? Who is this snake? You might even ask questions, as I've read this week in some commentators, the questions like, uh, did all animals talk back then? You know, I mean, we know of another animal that talked, a donkey, but uh that's that's kind of strange. It's strange that Adam and Eve don't think that this is unusual. Now, they were born yesterday, all right? Uh they don't know much at this point. But uh the Bible doesn't say anything about that, and we all we can do is speculate. When I was growing up, my mom would always say, uh, we had a cat, and she was always saying, I was, I would say, you know, uh, you know, wonder what the cat would say if it could talk. And she would always say, I don't think you want to know what the cat would say if it talks. Something about cats. I think they would they would not have good language, I think. Um but notice this this, I think, the Bible directs us to see this as the devil himself. And I believe that that's probably what's going on here, that this serpent is actually the devil. In 2 Corinthians 11, the title is used, the serpent deceived Eve. It's the same title in Revelation 12 for the devil. Revelation 12, verse 9, the great dragon was thrown down. That ancient serpent. That's the imagery of Satan. That's the imagery of the devil. He's called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. It seems to be that they were thrown down to the earth, and there's some connection to him, to this snake. And I think that's the best interpretation of who this is. Now, now, as we think about the devil, as we speak of the devil, for just a minute, I like to set up uh who he is in three thoughts. Who the devil is he? What the devil does he want, and how the devil does he do it? I think there's three thoughts for us. First, what does he want? What does Satan want? It's very simple. Satan hates the works of God, he hates you, he hates your marriage, and he wants to destroy you. He fell, he was thrown down, he wants to see the downfall of other people who are in God's creation. That's what he wants for you. Satan wants to destroy your life, Satan wants to destroy you, he wants to take you down, he wants your fall. Notice with me in verse one the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field. Now, now you might circle this word. He's crafty. And I think that what this is pointing us to is that he's very good at his job. He's very good at being evil, he's very good at deceiving people, he's very good at destroying lives. And here's what I want to say to every one of you this morning: he's smarter than you. He's more experienced than you. He knows his Bible better than you do. Do you realize you have an enemy that is well practiced, well experienced? Many have fallen under his attacks. Some in this room have fallen under the under his attacks, and you're rebuilding your life. Satan wants to destroy you, and he is ancient, he is practiced, he is patient, he will wait until it will do the most damage for your life. I mean, you look at some guys, I get sad every time I see a moral failing of a leader in a church, and I get broken, and I say, that guy had everything going for them. The marriage, the kids, the ministry, and you just ask yourself, what happened? Why now? Why at this point in their life? Why at this point in their ministry? Satan knows how to wait for just the right time to do the maximum damage. He knows how to do that. How does he do it? How the devil does he do it? Well, write this word down. Leadership. It's all about leadership. He wants to lead us. He wants to take the reins of your life. Satan is looking out and he's scanning the world at all times for a vacuum of godly leadership, and he's willing to jump in and take the leadership. He wants the wheel of your life. It might take the form of another man befriending your wife when you should be leading your wife. It might take the form of the device in your home, teaching your children. They're taking leadership, the discipleship of your children. It might be a TV show of our modern era trying to give morals to your children, to your family, and you're not leading in that area. If you don't take the leadership, someone else will. It may be a friend of your children saying, Here, let me teach you. Let me tell you how what's good. Let me help disciple you. Let me drink this. Like, let's drink this. Let's let's smoke this. Let's go there. Let's do this. Let's, it's all those things. Satan, through a variety of methods, is offering his leadership instead of godly leadership. And by the way, please write this down. This is Adam's primary sin. We'll see it in this point and the next point. Adam's primary sin is abdicating his role as a leader. That's Adam's primary sin. That's where everything goes upside down. Adam gives up the role that God gives to him, that headship role. And Satan is using that moment in Adam's life where Adam is coasting. And so Satan has offered to take the lead.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

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SPEAKER_03 13:05

Now, what does Satan lead us to do? What does he want us to do? Several thoughts, four thoughts. Write these down. First of all, he wants you to question God's word. He leads us into a questioning of God's word. That's how he leads us. Satan leads us to question God's word. Notice in verse 1. Did God actually say? That's the question of the devil. That's the question of the serpent. Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? Now, I think I and I want to be sympathetic to Eve just for a moment. I understand, like she wasn't there when the word was given. And in the same way, you weren't there when the word of God was given either. Right? But this is the original question. And Satan wants to produce doubt in your life. To doubt the Bible, to doubt the existence of God, to doubt that your faith is real? To doubt the gospel? To doubt Jesus. Eve wasn't there. She was still a rib at this point when that word was given. Adam has to tell her Satan is the author of doubt. And he's always looking to create doubt in your life. And when doubt and suspicion creep into your life, it can destroy you. Derek Kidner says this the pathway to sin is paved by doubt and suspicion. I found that to be true. When you doubt motive, you sin against the person that you love. Satan is the author of doubt. Number two, write this one down. A second sub point. How does he lead us? How does he want to lead us? Satan wants us to believe that God's ways are restrictive and unloving. Out of date. Impossible. Notice in verse 2, the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said in verse 3, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Just, I mean, this seems pretty wide open. This seems like a pretty freeing experience. God says, any tree. Except that one. But that actually seems pretty freeing, doesn't it? When I was a kid, and this movie came out called, you may have heard of it, The Matrix. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? A couple of you? Yeah, everybody does. We had a rule in my house, and it was no rated R movies. In fact, say it like this, keep it PG 13. All right. And that was great. Any movie you want to watch, except one. The one that's rated R. And you know what that does to a high schooler's heart? I really want to see that movie. What are they keeping from me? You know, what is it? What's the thing that they're keeping? And it's like, that is still in mankind. That's still inside of us. All the goodness that's been given to us. And yet there is this temptation to believe that you're actually being kept from something that's good. That's still inside of us. What happens is we justify those desires. And we say to ourselves, well, God wouldn't want me to be unhappy. This is unfair. We are so, humanity is so quick to say, I'm being abused, I'm being mistreated. This is the victimhood error. Can we agree with that? You might even write that word down. Victimhood is everywhere today. In fact, there's this whole hashtag going on, there's this whole social media trend of church hurt. How many of you have heard of that? I've been hurt by the church. And what that probably means is some pastor, some leader said, don't do that. That's against the Bible, and now you feel bad. That's not church hurt. That's discipleship, right? That's not church hurt, that's discipleship. And there's this temptation in this passage where Eve is looking out and she's feeling the victimhoodness, right? She's like, I am caught up in victimhood. Now, if anyone's guilty of being restrictive, it's Eve. Actually, we could say that Eve was the first legalist. She was the first religious legalist. Notice what she says. Neither shall you eat of it, neither shall you touch it, I should say. Now, when did God say this? Never. God didn't say that. Eve said that. This is what religion does. This is what legalism does. Legalism takes the commandments of God and builds more commandments and a fence around those commandments. And so I want you to see this. Satan will use two methods to make you believe that you're being mistreated by God, that something good is being kept from you by God. He will certainly use the sinful desires of your heart. Absolutely. But he'll also use legalism. He'll use the legalism that others erect as religion because religion loves laws, and Satan is fine using either method to say you're being mistreated. So we need to be on guard. Satan wants us to believe that God is unloving. He will use the desires of your heart. He will use religious legalism to try and convince you that God is unloving. Number three, a third sub point. How does Satan want to lead you? He wants to lead you to believe there's no consequences. Verse 4, you shall not surely die. That's what the snake says. You're not going to die. There's no consequences. You're never going to pay for this. My old pastor used to say, sin will take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and make you pay more than you ever thought you would have to pay. The truth is you get away with nothing. Tim Keller talks about this. He says that someone who comes out and they're deconstructing their faith, they're saying, I never, I don't really believe the gospel anymore. What happens in that person is when you dig into that, you start asking questions. What happened in your life? When did this happen? When did you deconstruct your faith? And you ask them those questions, and then they say, Well, it was about the same time that I moved in with my boyfriend, or it's about the same time I moved in with my girlfriend. And there's inextricably this connection between some great sin. What's that about? Well, it's whenever you walk in darkness, you're hoping that there's no accountability. And that's one of the things that Satan tries to do in our life. And so you walk in pornography, you walk in adultery, you walk in whatever sin it is. Satan will try to enter in and say to you, There's no consequences. You don't have to believe the Bible. You never get away with anything. It will torture you the rest of your life. Number four. What does he want to lead us to do? He wants to lead you by offering you the things that you already have in Christ. He's offering you things that Christ has already given you. I mean, that's the craziest part of this whole story. Everything that he offers up, they've already been given. It's like look at verse five. He's offering them things they already have. Your eyes will be opened. Their eyes were already open. They could see the difference between good and evil. It's just they hadn't experienced it. You'll be like God. Wasn't that the very point of my first sermon in chapter one? Remember that phrase? Imago Day? Made in the image of God? The whole point of chapter one is that this creature is in God's image. They're like God. They're not God, but they're like God. Knowing good and evil. God is outside of time. We are bound in time. We know good and evil in a different way today, having experienced it. It's kind of like um it's kind of like the first time someone that you really love, that you're really close to dies. I remember I met my friends when I was young, my friends had relatives of theirs that would pass away, and I knew death was something when I was a child, but then the older I got, I started having people in my family that would pass away. And it's like that experience is different. It's personal. That's what's happening here. They had already an understanding of good and evil, but the thing that they fell into was an experience of it. What's the point of all this? Each of you have snakes in your garden. Each of you have this voice of Satan trying to take the leadership of your home. That's what Satan wants to do. He wants to lead you, he wants to deceive you. He wants you to neglect your Bible, to not believe your Bible. He wants to hurt you. And so here's the questions that I want to ask. Who's leading your home? Who's setting the agenda for your children? Are they being led by an iPad? Are they being led by a TV show on what morality is? Are they how are your children being led? Who's teaching them? Who's leading them? Who's influencing them? And here's the warning of this passage. If you're not leading in your home, Satan is looking for a vacuum of leadership. He's looking to deceive you. He's looking to step in and take the leadership role. I'll step up. That's what he says. That's our first point. Number two, if you're taking notes, not only is there a snake in every garden trying to lead your home, you need to beware a temptation to deceive your home. You see, there's a temptation, and really, we have three enemies. We have, of course, the devil, we of course have the world, but we also have ourselves. We have the desires inside of us, and this is a little bit harder to know. Uh, two weeks ago, my my youngest child um did what I'm starting to call a rite of passage in our household. She decided to give herself a haircut. Alright, be honest. How many of you this has happened in your home? Yeah, it's like all of my kids, I don't know what it is. They find scissors, and it's like a rite of passage. Here's what happened in our house. Um not only did she give herself a haircut and she's walking around the house like nothing happened, she hid the evidence. Like she took her pile of hair and put it in the piano. Like where all this all the strings are, like in the piano, not like not in the bench, but like in the piano. There's this pile of hair in the piano, and we're looking around, like, what'd you do with the hair? And she's walking around, there's no evidence? There's no evidence that anything happened in this household. You got nothing on me. Where's the weapon? Where's the evidence? There's nothing. And she's walking around, she has she has hidden the evidence, and and and I I look at that and I'm like, my goodness, Genesis 3 is playing out in my house this week. And that's, friends, that that nature is inside of all of us. Like that nature is in you. It doesn't go away when you turn four, it doesn't go away when you turn 18. It's inside of you right now to cover and to hide. It's in you. Somewhere in your life, you're hiding a pile of hair, right? You're putting it the piano.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

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