We will limit our discussion here to just Genesis 3:7…
Satan promised their eyes would be open and Moses says, “the eyes of them both were opened.” But what was all the other good that Satan promised? That they would be like God? But now they knew they were naked and they felt ashamed in that state and did not feel like they could be in God’s presence anymore. They took fig leaves and sewed them together and made some form of an apron to cover their waist. These were two married people – the only human beings on this entire planet, and they felt ashamed to be in God’s presence naked.
And then they were afraid and hid from God and, of course, God expelled them from His presence and excluded them from the tree of life from which they would be able to eat from it and live forever (3:22).
The devil wears subtlety. Even today…
You recall that the apostle Paul wrote that people who speak for the devil speak with smooth and flattering speech (Rom. 16:17).
You recall that the apostle Paul wrote that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14).
We have created a caricature of Satan that looks more like a cartoon character than how the Bible describes Satan. And yet Satan works through human beings, too. He works on our hearts, our vanity, our feelings and emotions through people who look just like us, whom we know, love, and respect. But they are speaking the words of Satan when they challenge us to ignore the word of God.
SO HOW DO WE FIGHT AGAINST SATAN?
The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 2:11 that Satan does not have to take advantage of us because we are not ignorant of his “schemes.” That word is also translated as: minds” or “thought.” We are not ignorant of Satan’s mind. We are not ignorant of his thoughts! That’s why God gave us 2,000 years worth of divine, inspired history! So we would know how Satan operates.
What did Eve do and what should she have done? What should Adam have done? They should have gone back to Scripture, quoted Scripture, and lived by Scripture. God tells Israel in Leviticus 18:5: “You shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.” If they had said, “No, Satan, God said in Genesis 2:16-17 that if we eat of this fruit, we will certainly die,” and then walked away, they would not have sinned against God, offended His holiness, and been driven out of His presence.
We will spend more time studying Jesus’ contrasting behavior in May in His own temptations. In Luke’s account, Luke 3 ends with Jesus’ genealogy which ends in 3:36 with the statement that Jesus was the “son of Adam, the son of God.” Immediately after that statement, we have the temptations of Jesus. That is as if the Holy Spirit through Luke wants us to contrast Jesus’ temptations by Satan with Adam and Eve’s temptation. But how did Jesus meet those temptations?
You know the answer to that question, right? Jesus quoted Scripture, just like Eve did. But with Jesus, quoting Scripture was enough. In Luke’s account, in 4:4, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3. Why do you and I need to study Deuteronomy? Because Jesus found strength in His fight against Satan from Deuteronomy! In 4:8, Jesus quoted from Deut. 6:13. And in 4:12, Jesus quoted Deut. 6:16.
BCV – book, chapter, verse. How do you win your battles against Satan? Book, chapter, verse. “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).
The heart of man is more deceitful than all else and desperately sick. How can we make sure our hearts are not deceiving us (Jer. 17:9)?
Psalm 119 has 176 verses; it is the longest chapter in the Bible. But I find it interesting that this long chapter is not written about the love of God. It is written about the law of God. It is a poem that is written as an acrostic. What that means is that it is divided into 22 sections with each section beginning with each letter of the Hebrew alphabet in order.
And out of those 176 verses, I have counted 177 references to the law of God through various synonyms like “commandments” and “ordinances” and “judgments.”
How can we avoid the temptations that Satan throws at us? How can we avoid Satan taken advantage of our deceitful heart that is desperately sick? By keeping God’s word in our hearts and meditating on that word and understanding that word and obeying that word. It worked for Jesus. It will work for us too.
We can win our battles against Satan if we will examine our heart and submit it to the word of God.
Paul Holland
