How to escape the trap of temptation

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Good morning. Let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, please help us now to have ears open to hear your word, and give us hearts that don’t want to evade it, but to believe it, and to delight in it, and to learn from it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

So, we come to Genesis 3.1-13, and I want to speak about ‘How to escape the trap of temptation’. Last week we ended with the beautiful partnership of man and woman that God gave us. Genesis 2.23:

This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…

And Genesis 2.25:

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

But then we come to that dreadful and ominous little word ‘Now’ at the start of Genesis 3. I turned on the TV and it came on in the middle of a programme. I have no idea what it was. But there was a woman – her face drawn, full of silent anguish. In her hand was a photograph. The photo was a picture of a smiling, happy couple, arm in arm. The woman in the photo was her. She took a pair of scissors, and cut through the picture, cutting it right in half, and cutting precisely between the man and herself, separating the two of them. Then she threw the pieces down and picked up another photo. Same happy couple on a different occasion. And again she cut between herself and her man, and threw the pieces down. And another picture got the treatment. And another. That’s all I saw. I switched over at that point. But that stayed with me. We don’t know the details but we don’t really need to. We understand the situation. Another devastated relationship with the bitterness, guilt, rage, suffering and despair with which we’re familiar.

What went wrong? It all goes back to Genesis 3. It all goes back to sin. To sin is to revolt against God. We’ve seen how God had blessed Adam and Eve. He’d given them a good and delightful garden to live in. A productive purpose. Commands to obey that both protected and liberated them. He’d given each of them a person to love. They had no cause for complaint against the God who made them. God is a good, gracious, generous, loving God towards them. God’s rule is that God rules. And that’s for our good. Like a father who tells his child: “Don’t step out in front of an oncoming car.” So when Adam and Eve eat that piece of fruit that their Creator and Lord has told them not to eat on pain of death, then it’s a wholesale act of defiance and rejection of his rule. Such arrogance and hatred in response to such grace and blessing would be unbelievable if it wasn’t so familiar from our own hearts. We’ll see more of the consequences of this revolution when we look at the second half of this chapter in a couple of weeks. But we can sum it up by saying that we all live under a great black blanket of death. Everything we do, everything we have, all our relationships end in death. But it did not have to be so. Our ancestors Adam and Eve chose that fate. And we’re like them. We need to understand that their temptation and fall is the prototype of all sin. The apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11.3, as he warns the Corinthians about the spiritual danger they’re in:

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

In other words, the equivalent of what happened to Eve can happen to us, all too easily, as we allow ourselves to be turned away from Jesus. And James puts the same point in a different way (James 1.14-15):

But each person [man or woman] is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

So what we need desperately to know is how to escape the trap of temptation. Here then is a three point plan for escaping devastation and death.

1. Be Aware of Satan’s Strategy

I heard a woman talking about the years she’d spent in Africa, and showing some slides. One of her pictures was of a very evil looking Black Mamba. She said that if it manages to get a good bite of you, you’re dead within a few minutes. She said their policy had been to kill any snake they came across first, and identify whether it was poisonous later. Adam and Eve should have had the same policy. The snake they encountered was poisonous indeed.

Why? Because this snake speaks with the voice of Satan. Satan speaks through the serpent. Satan is God’s great adversary. It’s clear that this snake that Eve meets represents him. The identification is confirmed in the Book of Revelation at the other end of the Bible. So in Revelation 12.9 the defeat of Satan is described in these terms:

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world…

Here’s what we need to know about him:

He’s a creature. Genesis 3.1:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

The snake was made by God. Satan is a creature gone to the bad. He does not have any existence independent of God’s creation, like some eternal dark side. He’s powerful, but though he tries, he cannot compete with God. He is ultimately always under God’s power.

He’s in revolt. Jesus said (Luke 10.18):

I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

The closest we can get to understanding his nature is to say that he’s a powerful angel leading a revolution against God. He’s been cast out of heaven. His final end will be to be thrown into the eternal fire. But until then he fights on against God and his people with every weapon of mass destruction at his disposal. And there’s no let up. He is implacably and irredeemably evil. He is hell bent on the destruction of humanity. He is powerful. And he’s clever. Satan’s strategy is subtle. He doesn’t just launch in with a full frontal attack. I think you can see a seven step process by which he seduces Eve into sin. And he’s still doing exactly the same today. You can see all of these different stages of seduction going on all around us, in the hearts of men and women, both in the unbelieving world and also in the church. Believers are not immune to Satan’s attacks. He knows our weak points and he goes for them. So as we go through these, ask yourself where you’ve seen these things going on. And ask yourself whether you are in danger of succumbing to these attacks yourself.

(i) There’s a subtle denigration of God’s right to rule.

Genesis 3.1:

[The serpent] said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Even before we look at the substance of what’s being said, there’s an assumption here: that it’s appropriate for God and what he’s said to be subject to judgement by his creatures.

(ii) There’s a distancing from God.

By the way, if you don’t like alliteration in sermons, this’ll be a bad morning for you. Bear with me. There’s one little thing here that it’s easy not even to notice. All through Genesis 2 and 3 God is referred to as the Lord God – using his personal, covenant name. But the serpent just calls him God. Not ‘God my Lord’. Just God. Distant. And Eve follows the snake and uses the same form of address as he does.

(iii) Doubt about revelation is raised.

Did God actually say? What a powerful weapon in Satan’s armoury that is today. Does God really speak? Is the Bible really God’s word? Did God actually say? Questions that are not seeking the truth but that are intended to undermine the word of God need to be seen for what they are. And to add to the confusion, there is built into that question a:

(iv) Distortion of God’s word of command.

Genesis 3.1:

Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?

‘What does God want us to do? Starve to death? He’s a cruel God, isn’t he?’ But of course, he never said any such thing. In fact what he said was almost the exact opposite (this is Genesis 2.16):

You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but…

Then, once that distortion has got behind Eve’s defences, hard on the heels of that comes:

(v) A bold denial of God’s warning of judgement.

Genesis 3.4:

You will not surely die.

The reality of judgement and the loving nature of God’s warning about judgement is always Satan’s target. He tells us what we want to hear - that we’re not in any danger. And that quickly leads on to:

(vi) The discrediting of God’s character.

This has already begun with the distortion of his command, but now the knife is twisted. “What kind of God would threaten the death penalty? He’s just trying to protect himself and his despotic rule. He doesn’t want to be challenged.” So, Genesis 3.5:

For God knows that when you eat of [the fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Satan always sweetens the pill of his lies with half-truths that let the lie slip down almost unnoticed. And the result:

(vii) Deception about the outcome of sin.

Do you see how reality has been turned on its head? The life of blessing that Adam and Eve enjoy has been painted as an existence constrained by a mean-spirited, not to say cruel, God. And in place of the Lord God’s warning that disobedience will result in death, Satan has now sown the idea that disobedience will effectively bring more blessing than they’ve ever known. I saw on TV some half-crazy Aussie trying to have a conversation with a huge spitting cobra out on the African plains. At one point he thought he had it soothed and under his influence. But suddenly it reared up and shot a great stream of venom several metres straight into his face. A direct hit. He ran. He had at least taken the precaution of wearing sun-glasses. They saved his sight. Snakes can be deadly things. This snake that Eve encountered is more deadly than them all. The venom that it shoots straight into the face of Eve consists of words more deadly than any poison. Satan is a frighteningly effective tempter. However, what Genesis 3 does in a few short verses is to expose his methods for all to see who have eyes to see.

In the Second World War the Allies were able to read Nazi signals because they broke their code at Bletchley Park. Genesis 3 is like the key to everything that Satan is up to amongst God’s people. Be aware of Satan’s strategy. That’s point one of the three point plan for escaping the trap of temptation. Point two is this. So:

2. Be Aware of Our Vulnerability to Satan’s Subtle Strategy

Look at what happens to Eve.

(i) She gets drawn into debate.

Genesis 3.2:

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden…”

Secondly, and as a result of listening to Satan and taking him seriously she immediately starts:

(ii) Discussing on Satan’s terms.

She seems to start to see God’s law as imprisoning and not liberating as in fact it is. Genesis 3.3:

…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.’

And with this new mind set, full of negativity about God, she’s started to:

(iii) Exaggerate the restrictions of God’s rule.

The Lord God had said nothing about touching the tree – just eating the fruit. And she listens with new respect to Satan’s lies, and now she:

(iv) Sees in sin the promise of satisfaction, pleasure and profit.

Genesis 3.6:

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise…

The whole garden is stocked full of trees that are pleasing to the eye and good for food that Eve is free to enjoy. But now, with all resistance to Satan’s lies gone, she:

(v) Decides to disobey her Lord God.

Genesis 3.6 again:

…she took of its fruit and ate…

Then sixthly and lastly, so as not to be alone in her revolution, she:

(vi) Invites Adam to join her

Genesis 3.6 again:

…and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

They rebel to get what they’ve already got, and lose everything. The one thing they gain is a painful insight into they shameful plight. And that kind of wisdom is just a terrible shameful burden. Genesis 3.7:

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Adam is absolutely no better than Eve. If anything, he is even more to blame. We’re told he was with her. The God given order of headship and helpership is turned upside down. He abdicates his responsibility. He ignores God’s direct command. He too decides to disobey. So when the Lord God asks his probing questions to get them to admit what they’ve done, it’s Adam he calls to account. Genesis 3.8-11:

And they heard the sound of the Lord God 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 that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

Then first Adam and then Eve both begin what is now a long-hallowed human tradition of denying responsibility and passing the buck – even attempting to gas-light God and to lay the blame on him. Genesis 3.12-13:

The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

“It’s the woman’s fault. It’s your fault. It’s the snake’s fault. It’s not my fault.” What about us? Before we become believers, Satan can afford to leave us fairly well alone, because as a result of the switch of sides that Adam and Eve decided on, we’re firmly in his camp from birth. We are born outside Eden. We do Satan’s work for him even without realising that’s what we’re doing. But when we’ve turned back to the Lord God in repentance and put our faith in Christ, that all changes. We become prime targets. And we need to be realistic about how very susceptible we are to Satan’s seductions. Because we live after The Fall, we’re even more vulnerable than Adam and Eve. So, how are we to escape the trap of temptation? Point 1: Be aware of Satan’s strategy. Point 2: Be aware of our vulnerability to that strategy. That’s so important, because it’s only when realise that we need help that we’ll ask God for it. He’s always ready with it. And it comes in the person of Jesus. That’s essentially what the New Testament is all about – Jesus rescuing us from the clutches of Satan, sin and death. So Point 3 is this:

3. Take God’s Escape Route

1 Corinthians 10.13:

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

What is that way of escape? It’s simple and direct. Listen to God’s word. Believe it. And act on it. That, of course, is what our parents Adam and Eve should have done, but didn’t. Thank God, Jesus makes this possible for us. By his death and resurrection he frees us from the guilt of sin. So when we fall, it’s not the end. Jesus has died for us. And he frees us too from the power of sin. He releases us from Satan’s grip and breaks his hold on our lives. By his Spirit within us he redirects our wills and our desires so that in our heart of hearts we want what he wants. Then what we have to do is listen to him, believe what he says, and act on it. In what way, then, is Satan trying his subtle strategies on us? In your own mind, expose the lying serpent. And don’t think you go it alone. Lean on Jesus. Find forgiveness and freedom in him. The freedom we were made for. The freedom that we lost all those years ago in the Garden of Eden. Let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, thank you for Jesus. We praise you that though sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. Teach us to turn from sin and to flee temptation. And help us to find in him forgiveness when we fall, and freedom to live in his service and for his glory. In his precious name we pray, Amen.
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