- At the close of chapter two in Genesis, we see a picture of the world where everything is very good. It's where we left off last time. No pain, no suffering, no disharmony, no struggle for survival,
no sin, and no death. God looks at what He's done, and Hhe sees that it's very good. But if we look at the world today, we see that that's not the situation. Things wear down, and
they wear out, even stars. Animals and people age and die. Civilizations rise and fall. People are more easily
drawn to evil than to good. That's why we have law and
law enforcement in society, not to get rid of evil,
just to keep it down, just to mitigate the
evil that's in the world. We can never wipe it out. We can never eliminate
thievery or cheating or murder in any society. But we can mitigate it. We can keep it down and punish those who disobey the laws. So the situation in the present world is vastly different than it
was in Genesis chapter two when God said, He looked
at what He had made and said this is very good. This problem of evil and death has been the subject
of endless speculation by philosophers and theologians. Here's the question that they have asked. They ask the question,
if God is omnipotent, meaning He's all powerful,
He can do everything, and He's holy, why does He
permit such evil in the world? Why did that plane fall out of the sky with those hundreds of
innocent people, so to speak? They didn't do anything to deserve having their plane fall out of the sky. Why do things like that happen? How could evil have
entered a perfect world? So a lot of books have been written to try to answer that question, and there have been a
lot of theories given to try to answer this
question, as I mentioned, through the years. For example, atheism. Atheism, a system of thought, atheism is not simply a belief that there is no Higher Being. It's not that simple. Atheism says that if there is a God, He is either evil or unable to stop evil, therefore, He is not Almighty God. So there may be a Higher Power, but He's not that high. Maybe there's something above us, but whoever is above us,
if there is such a thing, they don't have the power to
stop the evil in the world so therefore, can't be almighty. 'Course, some atheists believe there's absolutely zero, nothing, nada. There's nothing, there's us
and then there's nothing else. Another type of thinking process or idea, philosophy, is dualism. Dualism is a philosophy that is contained in a lot of Eastern religions. It says that good and evil are dual forces that have always existed and
that battle for domination. Okay. A lot of philosophy, a lot of philosophical ideas, Greek philosophical ideas include this idea of dualism, the battle of good and evil. In a modern sense, I'm lookin' around here and everybody here's old
enough to remember Star Wars. Remember the movies that
came out, Star Wars? Well, the Star War movies
use this idea of dualism where the Force of good
through Luke Skywalker battle the dark side,
represented by Darth Vader. And people say, young people
at the time, teenagers, wow, man, what a concept, so new. We've never heard this. You gotta be kiddin' me. I mean, that's just the
old idea of dualism, the force of evil, the force of good. Sometimes the bad guys are winning, sometimes the good guys are
winning, they go back and forth. That's dualism. Try to explain why is
there evil in the world. Well, it's always existed,
but good's always been there, and the battle goes back and forth. Another concept, well,
all the other -isms, and that's why we're studying
Genesis and not philosophy, but all the other -isms,
materialism and secularism and humanism and existentialism,
and so on and so forth. These are more modern ideas, and they say that life
is what you make it, good or evil, or a mixture of both. Some say there is no such
thing as good or evil. You are the one who makes
something good for yourself or bad for yourself. There's another -ism here, pragmatism. Pragmatism says, well, if it's
good for you, then it's good. And if it's bad for you,
well, then it's bad. In other words, you're
the one that decides if it's good or bad. That's pragmatism, the idea that if something works, you know, gets the job done,
then it's a good thing. And if it doesn't work
to get the job done, well, then it's not such a good thing. A way to decide, give value to ideas, give value to systems. Now we could go on and on because each culture and generation comes up with a different idea to try to explain the origin
and the existence of evil. But thanks be to God that He provided us with the true and original source for evil and the manner in which
it effected the creation. In Romans, chapter five,
verse 12, Paul says, "Therefore, just as through one man "sin entered into the world, "and death through sin, and
so death spread to all men, "because all sinned." That's the Bible's answer to
how evil came into the world. Now it's not the only
place that mentions it, but, boy, as far as a
summary is considered, it's hard to beat Romans,
chapter five, verse 12. This is the answer. Someone says to you, a nonbeliever, someone not familiar with Christianity, "What do you people believe
about good and evil?" Romans 5:12. Explains it all. Death comes through evil,
evil comes through sin, and sin comes through humanity, man. But before man could sin, he had to be persuaded by an outside agent since there was nothing
in him to lead him to sin. Remember when God looked at everything and He says it's good, that included man. There's nothing inside of man that would lead him to do something wrong. So it means that the allurement
to do something wrong came from outside of man. Okay? It came from outside of man. This is why in Genesis,
chapter three, verse one we have a description of Satan in disguise as a serpent. Remember I said the allurement
to do what was wrong, to disobey, didn't come from within man. It comes from without of him. Well, who on the outside allured him? Who seduced him? The answer, the Bible said, Satan did. And the original story for that is in Genesis, chapter three, one. Let's look at that. It says, "Now the serpent was more crafty "than any beast of the field,
which the Lord God had made." Again, I'm lookin' at this crowd and I think a lot of you
remember Johnny Carson. Remember Johnny Carson, Late
Night with Johnny Carson? It was a talk show, if you
didn't happen to see that, if you're like from Canada or something. [congregation members laugh] But Johnny Carson had a
sidekick named Ed McMahon, and they used to patter back and forth, joke back and forth on his show. And one of their shticks, one of the little routines
they used to do was who was smarter, a chicken or a pig. And they used to go back and forth. What was smarter, a chicken or a pig? And the point was that, well, some animals seem smarter than other animals, m'kay. Well, the Bible says that
in the pre-sin world, the serpent was the most
intelligent of creatures, animal world. It says here crafty. The word subtle here or
crafty means cunning, cunning. Now this is the first appearance
of Satan in the Scripture. We don't know this right away, but in Revelation 12:9, the Bible says that the
serpent was the devil himself. Now not very much is written
directly about Satan. There is no narrative in the Bible that describes step by step. Like, in Genesis, you
have a day-by-day account of how God and when God created
the world, the universe. Day one, day two, you know
there's a step by step. But there's no chapter
and verse that says, you know, description of Satan, well, once upon a time, there was this, there's no place in Scripture where you have three or
four chapters in a row that gives you all the
information about Satan. You've kinda gotta go here and there and kinda find it on your
own and bring it together. So we learn about him through references actually from the prophets who compared human situations to things that Satan did or things that happened to
Satan in the spiritual world. For example, one of the
prophets was Isaiah, and Isaiah wrote the following in chapter 14, verses 12 to 15, and I'll read it and read along with me. He says, "How you have fallen from heaven, "O star of the morning, son of the dawn. "You have been cut down to the earth, "you who have weakened the nations. "But you said in your heart,
I will ascend to heaven. "I will raise my throne
above the stars of God, "and I will sit on the
mount of the assembly "in the recesses of the north. "I will ascend above the
heights of the clouds. "I will make myself like the Most High. "Nevertheless, you will
be thrust down to Sheol "to the recesses of the pit." Now here, the prophet Isaiah is talking in a literal sense about
the king of Babylon. In a literal sense, in a historical sense, at the time when Isaiah wrote these words, he was referring to the king of Babylon, the king of Babylon who had become proud thinking that he had conquered the world on his own strength, and Isaiah warns that
God will bring him down because of his pride. And, of course, if we read in the Bible, we find out that historically God did bring the king of Babylon down. The king went mad and he ran around thinking he was an
animal for several years until he repented, and then
God reestablished his throne and God put Nebuchadnezzar
back on the throne. So that's in a literal
sense and historical sense. But in a spiritual sense, Isaiah is comparing what
happened to this earthly prince to what happened to the prince
of the heavens, Lucifer. His name Lucifer meant day star. Apparently, Lucifer had become
proud as the chief of angels and he desired to rise above God. Now some say his sin was to disbelieve that God had actually created him and he assumed that he
had evolved to this height and now he could go higher
in the evolutionary chain in the spirit world to become
the first, even beyond God. And so Isaiah says that this sin of pride caused his downfall from his lead position and ultimately brought
him to the pit of hell created specifically for him
and for those who followed him, Revelation 20:10. On a side note, we note
that hell, this place, was created after the Earth. Some people say, you know,
when was hell created? It's gotta be after the Earth because when God looked at His creation, what did He say? He said it's all good. Hell is not good. So hell's a created thing, right? So it was created after the Earth since there was no need for it before. So there's an example of what's called the dual nature of prophecy. There's the literal meaning of it, what it meant right away
in the historical context, and then there's the
meaning of it in the future, same story, same words referring
to two different things. Sometimes it can refer to
three different things, what's going on right now
or in the immediate future, what's going on in the intermediate future maybe a hundred years from now or so, and what will happen at the end of time. And the context is what actually helps you understand what's going on, okay? So in Isaiah, we understand the context, Isaiah's time, when he
lived who was the king. We know he's talking
about the king of Babylon. But we also know because we know Genesis that he is also making another reference to the spirit world. Let me give you another example of this, and this is in Ezekiel, Chapter 28. Little longer passage. Ezekiel says, "Son of man, "take up a lamentation
over the king of Tyre "and say to him, thus says the Lord, "you had the seal of perfection, "full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. "You were in Eden, the garden of God. "Every precious stone was your covering, "the ruby, the topaz, the diamond, "the beryl, the onyx, the
jasper, the lapis lazuli, "the turquoise, and the
emerald, and the gold. "The workmanship of your
settings and sockets was in you. "On the day that you were
created, they were prepared. "You were the anointed cherub who covers "and I placed you there. "You were on the holy mountain of God. "You walked in the midst
of the stones of fire. "You were blameless in your ways "from the day you were created "until unrighteousness was found in you. "By the abundance of your trade, "you were internally filled with violence "and you sinned. "Therefore, I have cast you as profane "from the mountain of God,
and I have destroyed you, "O covering cherub from the
midst of the stones of fire. "Your heart was lifted up
because of your beauty. "You corrupted your wisdom
by reason of your splendor. "I cast you to the ground. "I put you before kings
that they may see you. "By the multitude of your iniquities, "in the unrighteousness of your trade, "you profaned your sanctuaries. "Therefore, I have brought
fire from the midst of you. "It has consumed you, and
I have turned you to ashes "on the earth in the
eyes of all who see you. "All who know you among the
peoples are appalled at you. "You have become terrified, "and you will cease to be forever." Ezekiel, chapter 28. So in the same way, Ezekiel now, he makes a prophecy against
many kingdoms in his book around Israel, and he warns them about what is to befall
them because of their sin, so one after, this
kingdom and that kingdom. This is what's gonna happen to you, and this is what the Lord said
that's gonna happen to you, and so and so forth. And then eventually, one of the
kings in one of the kingdoms that he is prophesying
against is the king of Tyre. He says it in the very first verse. Tyre at the time was a very wealthy nation based on its trade and
its shipping ability. Modern day Tyre is Lebanon. We call it the country of Lebanon. As its king rather, excuse me, its king thought that his island city, and at the same time, it was
an island city in capital, was impenetrable and
he scoffed at the idea that this nation, which
was at its height of power for almost 600 years, from the 12th century
to the 6th century BC, Tyre, in one form or another, was a powerful shipping nation, very powerful and very wealthy. So at its height, okay, Ezekiel says, you're coming down. God is taking you down, basically. Now Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king that
he just prophesied against, that particular king? Well, that particular king, he destroyed Jerusalem. And true to Ezekiel's prophecy, he also laid siege to Tyre as well. And listen to this, after
13 years of warfare, he eventually conquered the city, thus ending its dominance. And so Ezekiel said it would
be reduced to a bare rock, and that has been so because
it really never again regained its prominent throughout,
I mean, it became a city and there are people that live there, but it was no longer a power
in any sense of the word. So in a spiritual sense, Ezekiel is also referring to another fall that he compares the king of Tyre to and that seems to be the fall of Satan. In other words, Ezekiel's
writings mirror very much Isaiah's writing in describing the fall of a human king or prince, okay, that mirrors the fall of Satan. So here's some insights that we gain from Ezekiel's writing concerning Satan. First of all, he is a created being. When I say he, we're
talking about a spirit being when usually we refer
to spirit beings as he. He was created in verse 13b, it says. He was wise and beautiful. We always see Satan as
something very ugly, but originally Lucifer, angel, day star, very, very beautiful. It says he was in Eden and
was part of the pre-sin world. Think of it, think of it. He was part of the pre-sin world. Also says he was a guardian. What was he doing in Eden? It says he was a guardian. He covered. Perhaps what he was guarding was the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil and had access to the throne of God, which is the holy mountain. Because where did Eve meet the serpent? Well, at the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, and it says that Lucifer, okay, day star, most beautiful of angels, his
task was to cover, to guard. What was the most precious that existed? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil because it had the power
to give one eternal life. And he had access to the throne of God. Number five, he was created perfect. Like man, there was nothing, you know, when God saw
everything that he had created, he said it was good. Number six, his sin was from within. He was not subject to external temptation like Eve was or Adam was. And the source of his sin, Ezekiel says, was pride in his beauty. Now when we think of beauty, we think, oh, good looking, handsome guy. She's hot. We think beauty like that. But in the Hebrew, the word is brightness, which is translated beauty. It's brightness, intensity. Okay? Verse 17a. Also we learned that
the result of this sin was to try to lift himself up, in other words, to change
his position beneath God to be equal with God or
even greater than God. And when I say that the passage in Isaiah and Ezekiel are complementary, they both talk about the same kind of sin. And in Jude, the New
Testament, in Jude, verse six, Jude also confirms that
the sin of the angels, the reason they were cast down was that they left their position. You see what I'm saying? So you're wanting to know,
what did he do wrong? He was given a position and he
wanted to leave his position. There's all kinds of speculation about the angels that came
on Earth and had women, we'll talk about that. When we get there, we'll talk about that. But at the moment, these two prophets suggest to us that the sin was pride, not to go down to the Earth, apparently, it says he was already there, but rather to consider himself greater. And you know, what's the cardinal sin? What's the number one
sin that's happening? Pride, don't we say, I mean, so many other evil
things come from pride. Why do wars happen? We're only speculating,
I'm no political pundit. But I would suffice to say
that a lot that's going on with Mr. Putin, you
know, in this day and age has a lot to do with his hurt pride and the hurt national pride
of that particular country that once was great and feels
now set aside and ridiculed. We can't imagine how many wars started just because of hurt pride. It's amazing. How many people have been killed just because of hurt pride. Number nine, it says that this
sin caused his destruction, verse 17 to 19. Now the prophets in the Old Testament and John in the Book of
Revelation speak in terms that this has already been done. In other words, they say,
and you're destroyed, like it's already happened. But remember, when prophets speak about what God is gonna do, they always talk about it as a, in French, we say 'Fait Accompli', a done thing. So when God says this happened, even if the actual thing
is only gonna happen in a thousand years, the prophets talk like it's already happened because if God says it's gonna happen, it's like a sure thing. It's 100% sure. So that's why it's confusing to figure out the timeline there. Suffice to say, when the prophet said, you're destroyed, you're done, well, they say, well, how come? Satan's still here,
he's still doing things. It's because it's a sure thing. Okay? And then finally, he no longer has his position as one who stands as first before God or guards or covers. He lost that position. Now his spiritual abode is the. His place in the world is no
longer as guardian of the tree but as an enemy, as an adversary. As a matter of fact,
the word Satan in Hebrew means adversary. When Peter says your adversary,
the devil, well, adversary, how'd you like to have
that to be your name? My name, yeah, Adversary
Smith, or whatever. That's his name, adversary. And what do they say? He's lurking about in a
serpent's body, so to speak, ready to attack those who come by the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So it kind of sets the scene for what's taking place in Genesis. What's the serpent doing there? Why is he there? What's going on? Well, these two prophets give us an idea of what may have transpired before and why Satan is there
and so on and so forth. All right, let's talk
about Satan and the serpent 'cause we gotta move. Now that we've done Genesis,
chapter three, verse 1a, let's move to Genesis,
chapter three, verse 1b at lightning speed. It says, "And he said
to the women, indeed, "has God said, you shall not eat "from any tree of the garden?" The question is, why a serpent's body and
how a serpent's body. Hmm? Now let's not get confused. Two trees here, two significant
trees in the garden of evil. One tree, the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. The other tree is of the
forbidden fruit, okay. So let's not get confused here. We said before he may
have been the guardian of the knowledge of good and evil tree, but now he meets Eve where? In front of the tree
of the forbidden fruit. Again, who knows the proximity of these places here in the Bible. So the question is, why a serpent's body and how a serpent's body? We arrive at an area where the Bible really doesn't give a lot of information. You just have to kinda deduce
based on what you know. So what do we know? Well, we know that Satan has fallen. He's no longer in the presence of God. Perhaps because of this,
he no longer is beautiful. He's no longer bright. In 2 Corinthians, it says that Satan only disguises himself as an angel of light, not that he is one, and it may be why Paul uses that term, that he disguises himself
as an angel of light, because maybe that's what he
was once but he no longer is. He takes the body of an earthly creature to hide his true identity, which might've been a warning to Eve. 'Member, she's no dummy. She knows the creation. She understands what God
has made, what's what, who the animals are. So Adam and Eve were intelligent and they were spiritually
discerning people. They may have known who he
was if he appeared as himself. Again, we're speculating here, I always wanna make sure, but that's fine. We're allowed to say we're
guessing, we're thinking, we're trying to come to conclusions. Number two, the serpent is naturally
a wise and crafty animal superior to the others
in the animal kingdom. The word serpent actually,
again, in the Hebrew, means to hiss, to hiss. It also meant to whisper. So how a spirit inhabits a
physical body is unknown to us. The Bible tells us that it
happens for both evil and good. The interesting thing
is that evil spirits, they possess people in
order to control them, and the Holy Spirit indwells people in order to live with them. Spirit beings, but very different in their relationship with human beings when they come together. There's always a debate
about whether or not Satan or an evil spirit can
still possess people today. There are good arguments on both sides, but one thing is sure, and this is what I want you to
remember about that argument, Satan and his angels cannot inhabit one in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. M'kay? And the reason we know that is because the Bible tells us in I John,
chapter four, verse four, John says, He who is in you is great than he who is in the world. The he that is in the world
he's referring to is Satan, and the He that is in
you is the Holy Spirit that we receive at baptism, and so he's assuring Christians, hey, the spirit of evil may be out there, maybe still has power
over others, nonbelievers, to possess them, to manipulate them, but does not have the
power to overcome you, to posses you, the Christian. Number four, another point that
a lot of people speculate on was who was doing the talking? Because the serpent talks to the woman. Who's doing the talking here? So there are three possibilities, okay? Number one, the devil
spoke through the serpent. That's one possibility. Number two, the serpent spoke and Satan guided and
controlled its speech. We'll talk about that in a minute. And number three, the snake
telepathically communicated to Eve's mind these
thoughts and these words. I mean, you know, we're presented with a scenario
that is so bizarre to us, a snake talking to a person. And the spirit of God
doesn't break it down for us and say, well, let me, God doesn't say to us, well, let me explain how that could happen here. He doesn't. He just said, this is what happened, and we're going, okay. I get the idea that there's a snake and I get the idea that there's a person and I get the idea that
there's conversation, but I don't get the idea of
how the conversation took place between a human being and a snake, this I don't get. And he's left us wondering about it. So we're wondering here. This is part of the class. We've got a few minutes left, okay? So let's take the A part, the devil speaks through the serpent. If Satan possessed the snake, then it's certainly possible for him to speak through a creature
that didn't normally speak. Satan had, after all, a lot of power. I mean, 'member Balaam in Numbers 22, the Old Testament book
Numbers 22, verse 28, Balaam, this false
prophet, this evil prophet. His donkey spoke to him. God rebuked this false prophet Balaam by talking to him through his donkey. And when you read that, we won't read it, but when you read that
story, it's almost comical. The donkey sees an angel, and he's afraid, he doesn't wanna go far 'cause the angel's gonna kill 'em both. So he stops, and the way
he stops is he moves over and he crushes the guy's
leg against the wall. And the guy's, what is wrong with you? He's pullin' that mule, that donkey, and he's whippin' him, and
then the donkey is still afraid and throws him off and the guy
is just beatin' that animal. And then finally, the animal
talks to him and said, hey, why are you beatin' on me? Haven't I been obedient all these years? Haven't I don't everything you want me, you know what I'm saying? They're having a conversation. So I'm thinking, well, if the spirit of God can
talk through a donkey, I figure maybe the spirit of
Satan can talk through a snake. I mean, maybe it's possible. So the argument against this, however, playing both sides, five
minutes left, we gotta run, is that Eve who, like Adam,
ruled over the animal kingdom, would have seen something
unusual about a snake talking. I don't know about you, but if a snake started to talk to me, I'd take a hard, long look at my medicine and call Dr. Cary. I said, I don't know what
you're giving me, man, but I may have taken too much of it. All right, so let's look at number B. If Satan guided the snake's speech, then it seems some animals
perhaps could talk, perhaps could communicate
with human beings. We don't know the pre-sin
world, we don't know. The snake, it says, was the smartest, perhaps this denoted speech capability. This might be possible in a pre-sin world and scientists found
traces of speech mechanisms and patterns in animals,
in various animals. This would explain why Eve was not alarmed at the snake's speech. Again, we're speculating. Then there's the Hollywood POV where Eve is thinking
these things in her mind, a kind of a self-talk with
the devil in her heart, with the devil truly present
in the form of a snake. This, of course, sidesteps
the tricky problems of a snake actually speaking somehow, but the words of the Bible do say that somehow they were
communicating together. Exactly how and why, we're not quite sure. In any event, we have the woman
in the presence of the tree, in presence of the tree
with the forbidden fruit. We have a serpent possessed
by Satan in some way who will lure her into using
her free will to disobey God. This, we know. This is not up for debate. I just wanted to chase
these little rabbits here 'cause we don't normally
take the time to do this. But, again, it's just speculation and we're just speculating about it. One day, we'll know. And I don't know about you, but that may not be the
first question that I will, maybe, is OJ guilty? Maybe that one might be
the question I'll ask, but, you know, who knows? All right, so next week, all right, next week, the serpent and the woman. Next week, we'll stop chasing the rabbits and we'll get into the actual
context and the text itself and we'll see the fall of the woman, what took place in this dialogue. All right, that's it for tonight's lesson. Thank you for your attention.
