John 18:37b-38 CSB – Jesus said, I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
38 “What is truth?” said Pilate.
John 14:6 CSB – I am the Truth
John 4:24 CSB – …. those who worship [God] must worship in Spirit and in truth.
Proverbs 28:26 CSB – The one who trusts in himself is a fool
1 Corinthians 13:6 CSB – Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth.
Proverbs 23:7 NASB – For as he thinks within himself, so he is.
Proverbs 28:26 CSB – The one who trusts in himself is a fool…
God Created the World True
Genesis 1:1 CSB – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth
John 17:3 CSB – Jesus prayed, This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent —Jesus Christ.
Psalm 14:1 CSB – The fool says in his heart, “There’s no God.”
God Gave Adam and Eve Truth to Live by
Genesis 1:27-28 CSB – So God created man
in his own image;
he created him in the image of God;
he created them male and female.
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”
Genesis 2:15-17 CSB – The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”
Genesis 2:24 CSB – This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh
Genesis 2:25 CSB – Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.
1 John 5:3 CSB – For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
1 John 3:24 CSB – The one who keeps His commandments remains in Him, and He in him.
1 John 5:3 CSB – For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
Exodus 20:2-3 CSB – I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. 3 Do not have other gods besides me
2 Corinthians 10:12 Amplified – When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they lack wisdom and behave like fools.
Hebrews 13:8-9a CSB – Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and forever. 9 Do not be misled by varied and strange teachings;
Satan Lures Adam & Eve w/ Lies
1) Satan Doubts God’s Word
Genesis 3:1b. CSB – He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”
Genesis 3:2-3 CSB – Eve responds, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’”
2) Satan Denies God’s Word
Genesis 3:4 CSB – “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman.
3) Satan Reverses God’s Word
Genesis 3:5 CSB – “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Satan’s strategy:
- Doubt God’s word
- Deny God’s word
- Reverse God’s word
John 8:44b CSB – Jesus said, [Satan] was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies.
Adam & Eve Reject God’s Truth
Genesis 3:6 CSB – The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it;
1) Satan’s lie appeals to the appetite: the tree was good for food
Galatians 5:24-25 CSB – Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
2) Satan’s lie appealed to Eve’s pride: it was desirable for obtaining wisdom
Genesis 3:6 CSB – she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
1 Corinthians 1:18-21 CSB – For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved. 19 For it is written,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and I will set aside the intelligence of the intelligent.
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish? 21 For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of what is preached.
Adam & Eve Reject God’s Truth. Everything falls into chaos
Genesis 3:7 CSB – Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Genesis 3:11-12 CSB – Then He asked him, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”
Chaos We See Today b/c Truth is Rejected
- Communication chaos
John 1:1 CSB – In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God.
- Family chaos
- Governing chaos
Romans 1:21-22 CSB – For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools
- Education chaos
2 Timothy 5:6-7 CSB – describes people who are overwhelmed by sins and led astray by a variety of passions, 7 always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.
Malcolm Muggeridge warned us over 50 yrs ago, we educate ourselves into imbecility.
“So the final conclusion would surely be that whereas other civilizations have been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions, and then providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense.
Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over–a weary, battered old brontosaurus–and became extinct.”
There is Hope! God is Not Done Yet!
Genesis 3:15 CSB – I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.
“This text embraces and comprehends within itself everything noble and glorious that is to be found anywhere in the Scriptures” – Martin Luther
Matthew 28:18-20 CSB – “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Psalm 11:3 CSB – When the foundations are destroyed,
what can the righteous do?”
- Stand Firm: God is at always work!
Ephesians 6:10 CSB – Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength.
- Stand Firm in the Truth of God
Ephesians 6:14 CSB – Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest,
