The Fall of Man

Man and sin and after finishing a several week study of the biblical doctrine of man, we've been looking at what the Bible teaches about sin. Basically just introducing that to this point where we've talked about the different biblical words for sin, and then we talked about the different concepts of sin, how to define it, some of the improper wrong definitions, some of the incomplete definitions, and then we came to a biblical conclusion on a definition of sin, what it really is, and the awfulness, the horror of it, we ended up talking about last week. Now tonight, the very next step, obviously, the next logical step, once you've kind of given an introduction to sin, what it is, the biblical words for it, how the Bible views sin, the next logical step is, okay, where did it start? How did sin come into the world anyway? And so that's where we pick up tonight with Genesis chapter 3. So let's open our Bibles to Genesis 3 this evening. We're going to look at the fall of man. The fall of man is the term that is often used for Adam and Eve's sin, the first sin which introduced sin and death into the human race. And that is often spoken of as the fall because man did fall from an originally innocent state, a state of moral perfection, if you will, fell from that lofty state into sin. And so it's the reason it's called the fall of man. Before we jump into Genesis 3, let me just say a few things about the importance of understanding the fall. The whole Christian faith rests on the fact that there was a fall. It really, you cannot understand anything in the Bible apart from what the Bible teaches about the fall. It is that foundational. It is, it is that basic. Everything from why we die to what death means to the very purpose of salvation and what is required in God redeeming us and saving us. And all of that is based on what happened in the fall. And so this is foundational. It's basic. One of those basic doctrines in all of the Bible. But beyond that, something that I think is fascinating is that the importance of the fall can be seen in a second way. And that is that it, and underscores the truthfulness of the Bible. And the fact that the Bible truly is a divine book. It comes from God. And here's the reason why I would say that. It is contrary to human nature to say about itself what the Bible says about us in the fall. That's contrary to human nature. Our human tendency is to deny sin, explain it away, rationalize it, whatever, and see evil people as exceptions to the rule. Our natural tendency, apart from an understanding of the Bible, mind you. But our natural tendency is to think that there's a little spark of goodness in everybody. It just needs to be directed and, you know, corralled and channeled in the right direction. And people turn out, okay, people that are really evil are the exception to that rule. Well, that's, that's more based in evolution than it is biblical theology. You see, it is evolution that basically teaches humanity is on this upward progression, including an upward moral progression. We're actually getting better and better. So the idea of sin to the world's way of looking at things is just, you know, a human explanation of some of the unpleasant facts of reality. Really is not to be taken seriously. If, if this book were just a human book, just a product of the natural state of man's mind, that's what we would expect to hear. But the Bible does not start that way. The Bible starts with man falling drastically, tragically into sin and dragging the whole human race along with Adam and Eve. So that's not very complimentary. Well, that's not a very complimentary view of us as a human race. It's very unflattering and it's, but it's honest. And so it establishes the fact that this is God's word. No man would typically write that of mankind. We would typically put some kind of rosy better look on it. So this is the importance of understanding the fall is not just to understand all the rest of Bible doctrine, but also to establishes the reality, the truthfulness, the divine origin of the Word of God. It underscores that. Highlights it. So the fall is extremely important for us to understand. So we're going to spend probably two, maybe three weeks understanding Genesis 3 and the implications, the results of the fall and so forth. So before we dive into Genesis questions, comments, anything you want to say or ask. All right, you ready to jump into Genesis 3. Let me first of all kind of introduce that with the approach to Genesis 3. I want you to understand for sure the approach that we take here at Johnson Chapel that I believe the Bible demands of us, but there are different ways of approaching Genesis 3. And sometimes you'll hear some of these ideas if you talk to people. First of all, the liberal view of Genesis 3. This is promoted by theologians and seminary professors and preachers that don't really believe the Bibles of Word of God. Their view of the fall is that the fall is a legend. There's no fact to it and there's no history to it. That's what liberals believe about Genesis 3. It's not a fact and there's no truth to it anyway. If there were such a thing, the way the liberals would see it would be that it would be seen as a positive step in the evolutionary process. When an ape-like creature finally began to have some guilt and that's a moral progression. The liberals basically teach that view of mankind so they don't have any use for the Genesis account. It's not history to them. It's not real. It didn't happen to them. It's just a myth. It's a legend. But the way they would see some type of first awareness of sin would be as a progression in the evolutionary cycle of man. So the liberals have got it all wrong, don't they? They've got everything wrong about this concept of the fall. But that's the liberal view. Let me just mention the next view, the neo-orthodox view. In our studies on Wednesday nights, when we've talked about Bible doctrine or theology and the way different people see things, we've talked a little bit about neo-orthodoxy. Let me just explain real simply once again what that was. The liberal view in theology came into prominence in Europe in the late 1800s. It came into prominence in the United States in the early 1900s, particularly the teens and 20s. Well, after World War I and particularly after World War II, there were some German theologians that said liberalism in its rosy view of how good man is. Just look at Europe and you can see that's not true. And so they began to kind of rethink things. And they were still pretty liberal in their view of the Bible and so forth, but they wanted to try to give the Bible some credence. And so they wanted to at least sound like they were orthodox, which means to believe the right view of things or the biblical view of things. So they came up with kind of a twist on liberalism. Basically, they made their theology feeling centered, experienced centered. It didn't really matter that the Bible was history or not. They didn't believe the Bible was true in the sense of being historical and accurate account of things. But the Bible taught such good lessons. And those are lessons we can learn to live by. And so they made everything experience-based. Doesn't matter if the Bible is true or not. Doesn't matter if it's historically correct. That really doesn't matter because we can learn such valuable lessons from it. See, the liberals basically just threw out the Bible and said it was a legend and a myth, including the story of the fall. Well, the way neo-orthodox theologians saw the fall was that it was a myth, yes, but it was a true myth. The liberals said there was no fact to it, no history. But the neo-orthodox, in their uncanny way of combining liberalism with some semblance of looking like they believed the Bible, basically said, yeah, it's a myth, there's no historical fact to what Genesis says, but it's a true myth. In other words, there are so many wonderful truths we can learn from it. And here's basically the way they explain the fall. It's a story which teaches great truths like we all are tempted, we all yield, we all are separated from God, and that story is found in Genesis in this myth, in this legend. And so we can learn some great lessons from it, but there's no history to it. It didn't really happen. In other words, this is like Esauff's fables. Esauff's fables are myths, they're legends, they're not true historical stories, but boy, they teach such great lessons that we can find great value in them. Well, that's the way the neo-orthodox people saw Genesis, and particularly the fall of man. Well, I think you can probably tell that we do not subscribe to either the liberal or neo-orthodox view. So what is the conservative view, the conservative view, another way of saying, if you really take the Bible seriously, what do you believe about Genesis 3? We see it as an actual historical event. It really happened. There were two literal people called Adam and Eve living on a literal planet earth created by God. It literally happened. It's historical. We believe that. We believe it was in real time and space, just as Genesis describes. Yes, the story does teach us great lessons. There are wonderful things we can learn from, but the story actually happened too. It's real. It's history. And so that's what we would believe about Genesis 3. Just kind of make sure that we all understand how we approach this. If you ever hear some of those other things being said, be careful because we take the view about the whole Bible that it is historical, correct and accurate and it really happened. I think it's important to reinforce that because even in evangelical circles, churches that claim to be Bible believing there's a raging debate today about whether or not Adam and Eve were historical figures. I put out several articles in Christianity today, magazine that I get regularly debating this very issue among so-called Bible believing theologians. Does it really matter whether or not Adam and Eve were literal historical people? Yes, it does. Yes, it does. If we really take the Bible seriously and literally it does matter. I'm not going to be one to try to explain that away and dance around it to look, you know, swab and intellectual and invoke with the current way of thinking. Who cares about that? I just care about being faithful to this book. I just believe it literally. There was a literal Adam and Eve. They lived on planet Earth. They sinned, like God said. Let's just leave it at that. We take a literal conservative view of Genesis 3 and that's how we're going to approach this passage. It is God's truth. True. Literally happened. Questions, comments about just how we're going to approach Genesis 3. Okay? No comments tonight so far. You're either with me, you're overfed from Christmas or you're watching the West Virginia game on your phone. Okay, let's jump into the Genesis account then. First of all, the first thing we have to deal with when you come to Genesis 3 is the divine prohibition. Sometime after Adam was created and placed in the garden, God gave him a prohibition forbade him to eat from one of the trees in the garden. I want you to look and see exactly what God said in chapter 2. Look at verse 16. Well, the start and verse 15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man. Now notice what he says here very carefully. You are free to eat from any tree in the garden. Now hang on to that because it's going to be important to remember in a little bit the way God said that. You're free to eat from any tree in the garden for 17. But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat from it, you will certainly die. So God gave them one prohibition, but everything else in the garden is theirs to enjoy. So there's no deprivation in that prohibition. They're not being deprived of anything. Everything they need and everything they wanted was abundantly supplied in the garden with everything else at their fingertips. So to go against God's command was not in any way a need to add to their experience some pleasure that God was keeping from them or to satisfy a need that was unmet. No, no, all of their needs were met in the garden. They had everything that could possibly need or want. And there was no injustice or no pleasure being denied them. All of that was obtained from everything else in the garden that was available to them. That's important to recognize because to go against that prohibition would be a simple act of rebellion with nothing to gain. There's nothing to gain from that tree that could not be gained in any other place in the garden with the exception of something that was wrong, with the exception of something that would have introduced them to a world of knowing by experience evil and the difference between that and good. Now that God does try to prohibit us from and wanted to prohibit Adam and Eve from but they went ahead and went there anyway. So given the fact that God is not really withholding anything beneficial from them, there is no pleasure, need or legitimate desire that God is withholding from them. Given that, it's no surprise that some trickery, some deception is going to be needed in order for Satan to pull this off. In order for him to pull the temptation off, he's going to have to use some deception. He's going to have to be very tricky about how he approaches them. So comments, questions about the divine prohibition, Bill? Yes. To both. I think Bill's got a great question. Why was the tree there to begin with? Well, to test them, yes. I think that would be the main reason it was there. When God created us, remember we talked about when we looked at the doctrine of man that God created us in his image, which means we had freedom of choice. Now remember we saw, we looked at how sin has affected that and how even predestination interacts with that. But God created us in his image to be free moral beings who could choose. Well, if there's no alternative, there's no freedom to choose. And so that one tree acted as the test of whether or not man would accept what would experience and choose good or to rebel against God. Without that one prohibition, there's no real test of freedom. And so you can't really be free if there's not the option to choose either way. So I think that's the main reason why the tree is there. It is a test. Now obviously God knew what was going to happen in his omniscience. He knew it was going to happen. And he had already in his divine counsel before before man was ever created, provided for man's redemption. He was already taking care of that. So yes, I think you're right on both cases, Bill. Okay. Other questions, comments? Okay. When you get to chapter three in verse one, we've just kind of set up the stage for the fact that God's not withholding anything good from them or anything they needed. So obviously Satan's going to be very crafty, very tricky with the way he tempts them. And that's exactly how Genesis three one starts. You see it there. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals. The Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? Let's talk about the snake for a little bit. Don't you love talking about snakes? I know my wife doesn't. So honey, if you want to leave at this point, that's okay. Let's talk about the identity of the serpent. First of all, it's important to see the serpent was a literal snake. There was a literal snake in the garden. Why would Satan use a literal snake? Why didn't he appear some other way? Any thoughts? Why wouldn't he come at them some other way? Okay. Snake is very crafty. Let's hang on to that thought. That's a good thought. Why didn't he just come? You remember he was created in angel? Why didn't he just appear to them as an angel? That probably would have been fearful, wouldn't it? Angelic beings, I mean obviously Adam and Eve would recognize this does not look anything like them, at least if he appeared like an angel did at the resurrection. You know, glowing, powerful, Roman soldiers are fearful. Yeah, probably, probably that for that reason. Bill, through the serpent? Yes. Okay. Perhaps, and that's part of the craftiness, isn't it? To use something that kind of cloaks who it is. Yeah. Okay. The snake probably, at this point, was more of an upright creature, walked in some fashion because part of the curse, as he will now crawl on his belly and eat the dust of the earth. So it's possible the snake was even a more beautiful, elegant, crafty creature than what we even know today. Well, why wouldn't Satan appear as a person, as a man, or a woman to tempt them? Why wouldn't he do that? Okay, they would have been looking around thinking, where did he come from? Adam would have been counting ribs, right? I have another one missing here. I mean, obviously they would have recognized, where did he come from? They would have been suspicious. But the serpent? It's not an angel be afraid of. It's not a person to be suspicious of. The serpent is a creature they're used to seeing. A very beautiful, evidently creature, crafty, may imply also not just sly, slick, but beautiful. And so it would, it would quite possibly be a creature they were familiar with and would not be as threatened by. Now, yes, angel. I was just going to say something about that. That's the real issue that we don't really know about here. There's no indication in the Bible that other animals ever talked except for a donkey one time, Bailems, doggy, talked. But there's no indication of that. We don't really know. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it is, it is, it is hard to understand. If the animals did not speak, why were they not suspicious of a snake that spoke? If the other animals did speak, why don't they speak today? There was that part of the curse. I mean, there are just some unanswered questions here that we don't really know because it's not revealed to us. The Bible doesn't really say. But the Bible does say the serpent spoke. Now, actually it is Satan speaking through the serpent, but you would think. Wouldn't they recognize that? Here's another factor here. We don't know how long it was after they were created before they fell. Maybe they haven't had enough experience with all the animal kingdom to know. So, to recognize that as being something they shouldn't expect. Maybe that's part of the answer. I don't know. No, no, no. Before the fall, you wouldn't have thought of no. No, no. Women would not have had the same perspective on snakes that you do today or even some of us men. It wouldn't have been the fear of it, drawing back, wanting to kill it, that kind of thing. Because that was unknown. Animals and people got along perfectly well before the fall. There was no animosity, no attacking, no threat from either side. So that wouldn't have been a factor. You're right. Maybe there were some other animals that might have been good choices, but the Bible does say the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. So evidently, there was something about the snake that was the perfect choice for Satan to use. Something about its appearance, its movements, how crafty it was, and what all is involved in that word crafty is hard to know. But something about it made it the perfect choice for Satan. So you've got a literal snake. There are some issues about the snake. We can't fully understand or explain, but the obvious truth is that Satan did use the snake. So Satan, using this, you've got a literal snake, but you've got Satan using the snake. It's a very real snake, literal snake, but Satan is working and speaking through this snake. And so throughout the rest of the Bible, Satan is kind of synonymous with a serpent, right, with a snake. And maybe that's part of why we are typically fearful of snakes. Maybe that's an inborn fear because of this, but certainly in the Bible, Satan is identified with the serpent. Now, it's, it's, there was a real serpent. This wasn't just Satan. There was a real serpent. Satan was speaking through it. But throughout the rest of the Bible, sometimes Satan is referred to as a serpent. It becomes his characteristic and that, that description, harkens back to the fall. For instance, look at a couple of verses on the screen in Revelation, Revelation 12, that the great dragon was hurled down that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan. So he's described here as a serpent again in Revelation 20 and verse two when Christ comes to set up his kingdom. The angel that comes down ceases the dragon that ancient serpent who is the devil or Satan and bound him for a thousand years. Then there's some other passages too where Satan is seen as a snake or a serpent. And certainly he's described in the New Testament as being very crafty. You know, we are to be alert to the wilds or the strategies of the devil. You know, the Bible says in the New Testament. So, so there's a real snake in the garden, but actually it is Satan operating through that speaking through that serpent. So much so that the two become somewhat synonymous in New Testament terminology. Okay, any more questions about the snake? Pardon me? Exactly. Yeah, and we'll see that if not next week, the week after when we talk about the results of the fall and all that happened to nature to the snake, the snake is singled out as being judged because of the fall. Satan himself is judged man and woman are both judged. So there's a lot of ramifications of this and part of it is the snake will never be the same. No, the world's not going to be the same either. We'll get into that in some detail here in a week or two. Bear. That's an interesting thought. Yeah, yeah, we don't know for sure, but that's certainly a possibility that this is this is not the moment at which Satan starts working through the snake. Maybe. He's been kind of cultivating and working up to this through the craftiness, the snake manifests. Could be could be. Did I see another hand over here? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, they really didn't. And so if the snake speaks, even if it isn't surprised to them because they've never heard an animal speak, they have no reason to be suspicious. You're right of anything an animal would do because there's perfect harmony between. Man kind and the animals. So I had quite thought of it that way before, but I think there's a lot to be said for that. Okay. Anybody else? Yes, sir. I think she did. You know, we just saw in first, Timothy, too, a couple of Sundays ago about Adam was deceived and that's not indicating that that Eve. Did I say Adam? Eve was deceived. Adam sin. That is not to suggest that Eve was more gullible or naive, which some people have taught that women by nature are more gullible and naive than men. Well, I'm not going to go there. And I don't think it's wise for anybody to. I don't think that's what the scriptures are saying, though. I think I think she was deceived. Yes, she was led astray and tricked. But I think she knew the prohibition about the garden because it would have been Adam's responsibility as the leader of his family to make sure she knew what God said. And I think in a perfect world before sin, that would have happened for sure. There would have been no lack of communication between the two of them. Well, we'll see the very words that Satan uses and he is very clever in the way he presents that. Yeah. He does. He does eventually presented as God's hiding some secret knowledge from you. Yeah. And that's very tempting. Okay. All right. Let's take a few minutes then to talk about the strategy of the temptation to get beyond to finish up verse one and get beyond that. It's very important. Again, this is so foundational. It's worth spending some time just on these concepts in Genesis 3 because the strategy that Satan uses on Eve is a basic strategy that he continually repeats. And when you see it unfold, if you've never seen this before, you're going to recognize it. Oh, yeah. Does he ever use this all the time on me and everybody else for that matter to the first thing he does. Now notice notice how crafty this is. Notice how clever this is the first thing he does is perversion of the word of God or you know the perversion that word literally means to twist. Okay. So he twists the word of God. Notice how he does this first one. He said to the woman, did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? Now notice those first four words. Did God really say that is a challenge, a very subtle one, a challenge to the simple fact that God had indeed spoken on this issue. But the challenge from Satan is to create a little bit of doubt as to whether or not God really gave that command. Did God really say that? Now the very phrasing of that and questioning of that creates a little bit of doubt in the mind as to whether or not. Well, when I was at did God really make me rethink this, let me read did God really say this? The way he phrases it would cause Eve to question whether or not God really said that. So it's a planting of a doubt in her mind which anytime you begin to doubt whether or not God said something, your resolve to submit to his word is weakened just a little bit. And that's the way he starts. Okay. Very clever because anytime you start doubting what God has said, your resolve to submit to what God has said is weakened just a little, maybe just a little, but it is definitely taking a hit. So that's where he starts, but notice notice how he asks the question. Did God really say and his intent now is to state what God told them about the tree? You must not eat from any tree in the garden. Now wait a second. Is that the way God said it? Look back at chapter two verse 16. The Lord God commanded you are free to eat from any tree in the garden. Now notice that's very positive. That opens up a world of possibilities to them. All of your needs I'm providing for. I'm not withholding anything good from you. You are free to eat. I mean, but the way Satan twists that is he makes it sound like God is saying you can't eat from every tree in the garden. You know that you can't eat from every tree in the garden. And that's the negative in a sense a twisting of what God has really said. God's original command is twisted and distorted. So that the whole issue now has a cloud over it. It becomes negative rather than positive. God's given you the freedom to eat from any tree in the garden. One exception, but that does not withhold anything good from you. So now Satan twists it to make it sound like God's command is excessively strict. You know you can't eat from any tree in the garden. You don't have really have a choice as to any tree. That's negative and it sounds overly strict. It even sounds irrational. So it makes disobedience seem justified. Why would God not allow me to eat of any tree I want to? So it makes it makes disobedience sound a little bit reasonable, justified. And it will lead to Eve's response, which adds to the command of God with a little tinge of resentment. You can almost sense. Look at her response in verse two. The woman said to the serpent, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. And you must not touch it. God didn't say that, did he? God didn't say you can't touch it, but there's a little bit of a sense in which you know God is probably withholding something from us. His command is a little bit excessive. We can't eat from that or touch it even. There's a little bit of a caving end to this satanic suggestion that God is being excessively restrictive on you, Eve. And so she actually adds to God's command a further restriction that God never proposed. So you see where this is heading? She's got plenty of doubt in her mind now about what's going on and what God's doing. And maybe even a touch of resentment. We can't even touch that tree. Wow, Satan is really leading her along. So the first thing he does is he perverts or twists the word of God. He actually twists God's very positive, freeing statement to a negative, restricting statement. You can't eat from any tree you want to. Can you? Well, that's not at all the way God said it and not at all what the allowance was for the garden. So that that's how he begins. Whenever you find yourself a turning God statements to the negative like this is what I can't do. I God is so restricted. God is so harsh. God watch out. You're in for the kind of resentment that will lead you to out and out rebellious God. Be careful. That's how Satan always begins temptation. Then secondly, there is a denial of the word of God. Now this is more blatant more in your face. Verse four, you will not certainly die. The serpent said to the woman, you will not certainly die. That is a blatant denial of God's word. The first question was to plan a little bit about doubt. Did God say this and even twists what God said to make it sound more restrictive? But the first is just a suggestion of doubt. Did God really say that? And now that he realizes he's got even the ropes, she's a little bit shaken. He goes in for the kill. Even if God did say that, it's not going to happen. You won't die. And can you see what Satan is playing on there? He's playing on the fact that they will not die immediately. He knows that if he can get him to take that first bite to go against what God has said, he knows they will not die immediately. And so they will think that Satan was right. God said we would die. Look at us. We're not dying. The way Satan works is he tries to convince us that we can get away with sin. When we disobey God and nothing immediately happens, we think, well, I got away with that. Maybe God isn't upset with that. Maybe God didn't really mean that there would be judgment for this sin. And we begin to accept the illusion that nothing will happen and that promotes further disobedience. That's the way Satan works. He's counting on the fact that they will take it. They will not immediately die physically. And he's got him hooked then. That's what he's counting on. So once Satan creates a little bit of doubt about God's word and has us a little bit shaken in our view of what God has clearly said, then he moves in for the kill to deny what God says. And basically on the basis is, go ahead, try it. You'll see, nothing's going to happen to you. God's not going to judge you. And what Satan does not tell you is that you have started down a path which will lead to ultimate destruction and certain judgment in the future. But you just don't see it yet. Now that's where his denial of the word gets. Guets us. Okay. So there's a perversion of the word. There's a denial of the word. And then lastly, before we have to stop here, there's an attack on the goodness of God. Now this is even a step further. He's denied God's word. Now he's going to have to go out. Now he's going to go after God's character. And this, this is the most blatant part of the temptation of all verse five. For God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. God knows, in other words, he knows something you don't want you to know. He's hiding something from you. He's withholding something good. He knows he knows that when you eat your eyes will be opened. You'll gain this secret knowledge. And you'll know something that he doesn't want you to know. Because he knows it and he doesn't want you to know it. That's basically what Satan's doing. So it's an attack on the goodness of God. God's cheating you. So if you do what I say, you will actually experience some knowledge or pleasure or whatever it may be that Satan tempts us with. You'll be experiencing something that God's trying to hide from you. That God doesn't want you to enjoy. So he's now convincing her that God is a tyrant who is depriving his creatures from you. His creatures of things that would make them happy. Boy, have you ever heard that before? Wow. I mean, you hear that in the culture all the time. Those restrictions in the Bible about premarital sex or about living outside of marriage with people. God's just that doesn't mean anything. God's just trying to keep you from something that you would enjoy. I mean, that's just one example. There are multitudes of examples of how Satan does this about the commands of God. He attacks the goodness of God, the character of God. And that encourages you to be emboldened to break his law. Because after all, God's tyrant. He's a dictator that's trying to hide pleasure, joy, happiness, a meaningful life from you. Boy, is that ever a lie of the devil? Because once you start down that path, all you find increasingly is more pain, more hopelessness, more despair. And you realize Satan has sold you a bill of goods. You know, it's about the whole book of ecclesiasties is about right? Few years ago, we preached and preached through the book of ecclesiasties. The whole book is about Solomon in his old age, warning, writing as a missionary track to the Gentiles at the height of his power that nothing you can pursue in this life apart from a relationship with God will bring you any ultimate sense of fulfillment or purpose in life. It will destroy you. And he lists all these things that he tried in the first two chapters. Remember that he tried education, knowledge, he tried pleasure. He tried everything, work, riches, everything. He had it all. And he said it was all like soap bubbles, it was all vanity. And then he ends chapter two of ecclesiasties by talking about seeking God. And if God gives you joy in life, then it's real joy. You see, Satan wants to convince us of the opposite. That's exactly what it did with Adam and Eve. So the strategy he used in the garden, he has been using ever since. And he uses it on all of us. And amazingly, we still fall to it. We still get tricked by it. Twisting God's word to make it sound restrictive, then out not denying it like God is trying to hold something back from us. And if he's that kind of God, you don't want a God like that attacking his character, attacking his goodness. Same strategy he's used down through the ages. So be alert. You know, remember what Peter said, be sober, be vigilant. For your adversary, the devil walks about his eroding lion seeking whom he may devour. First person he devoured was in the garden and he's been trying to devour ever since. And so that's why Peter says be sober. It would be clear-minded, be vigilant, be alert because he's tricky. He'll use the same strategy on you, he'll use it over and over and over again. And the amazing thing is we're not vigilant enough to recognize it. That's the reason why this is so foundational, you see, because Satan's doing the same thing now, he's always done. No different. Okay, our time's up. Yes sir. Is it hard to know the text seems to indicate he was, I think he abandoned his role of leadership. The reason he was held responsible. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's not real clear, but the implication is that Adam was there. And the reason he's held responsible, he was not deceived. He fell. He took the bait, no one ever bit of what he was doing. Okay, let's pray we've got to go.