Genesis 3:1-15
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’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 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, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
Fact or Fiction: “God Wants You to Be Happy”
Can you imagine being Adam and Eve? The world is newly minted. It has that “new earth” smell. You’re still delighting in discovering all the different trees and colors and waterfalls and each other, when one day a snake stops you within sight of the one tree that God forbade you to use for food, and he asks you a question, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”[1]
At this point, alarm bells should be going off. Red alert flashing across the screen. There are no talking animals anywhere on earth. Adam knows this because he named all the animals. He’s seen this snake before and it wasn’t talking then. Why would it be talking now?
And not only that, but why would it be questioning God’s goodness? Why would it suggest that God is depriving Adam and Eve of the necessities of life? Adam was there when God said, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden…”[2] except for one. They had options and they were good options. Everything about the world they lived in spoke to the goodness and generosity of God. Everything that they experienced told of his matchless love for them.
To hear an animal 1) talking, and 2) questioning God’s goodness, should have sent Adam and Eve packing. But they took the bait and they engaged him.
Martin Luther has a famous quote about temptation. He once said, “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” Adam and Eve were not responsible for running into Satan in disguise as a snake on that day. They’re not to blame for the questions and insinuations that the devil was making. But they didn’t listen to their better instincts. They let that bird land on their heads and didn’t bother shooing him away when he started gathering sticks for a nest.
To her credit, Eve did respond the way that God’s children should if they are compelled to respond at all. She used God’s own word as her shield and weapon. She quoted God’s command faithfully. She defended God’s goodness admirably. She said, “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, or your will die.’”[4]
At that point, while he has Adam and Eve re-evaluating God’s command to them, the devil drops all subtlety and flat-out lies: “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”[5]
The devil is good. He knows better than to come right out and say, “Let me show you how to sin and stick it in God’s eye.” No, he makes sin sound so good. “Let me help you to a happier, more exciting life. God wants you to be happy, doesn’t he? Why would he put this beautiful tree in the garden and this desire in your heart, if he didn’t want you to satisfy it?”
The devil makes sin sound so good, and he makes God sound so bad, as if God is withholding pleasures and privileges from you. He makes God sound so petty: “God knows that you would be like him if you ate this fruit, but you can be your own god. Listen to your heart. No one can tell you what is right or wrong for you but you.”
Does that sound familiar? It’s the same box of lies that Satan sells us today, isn’t it? Why would God put this desire in your heart if he doesn’t want you to satisfy it? Trust your instincts. Don’t let a religion led by old, white men and a genocidal God tell you how to live your life. Why have one sexual partner when you can have twelve? Why stay faithful to your wife, or wait until you get married, when pornography promises you immediate satisfaction? Why deny your desire for someone of the same sex when you were clearly born that way? If God put it in the world, it must be good.
And of course, the devil isn’t a one trick pony. He can whisper these same lies to you about material wealth, mental health, business ethics, relationships, the speed limit. God wants you to be happy, doesn’t he? That may be Satan’s greatest lie.
But the devil is crafty and cunning and the lie worked: When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.[6]
The devil had succeeded in planting the seed of doubt in Adam and Eve’s hearts. He succeeded in tempting them to disobey the one command that God had given them. He succeeded in turning the crown of God’s creation into the leaders of a rebellion against God. The devil must have felt so good at that moment. So smug as he watched Adam and Eve fumble around with fig leaves as loin cloths and scatter like roaches when God came for his walk in the garden in the cool of the day.
But then God does something amazing. It starts so small. The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking.[7] Is God so clumsy that you can hear him walking from a mile away? No, he wanted to be heard. The Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”[8] Is God so blind that he didn’t know where they were or what they had done? No, he wanted them to answer.
Adam and Eve had just committed the greatest sin of human history. By eating that fruit, they corrupted creation itself. They introduced pain and suffering and frustration and destruction into this world. As Paul said to the Romans, “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.”[9] Every generation of people from that moment on were cursed to be born into sin and to die because of sin. And what does God do?
“Where are you?”[10]
If I were God, I would have kept my promise, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”[11] I would have killed them right there. I would have rained down fire from heaven. I would have shaken the core of the earth and put the fear of God in their hearts. I would have wiped the slate clean and started all over.
But not our God. His love is greater than that. He came to them slowly and gently. He gave them every opportunity to own up to their mistake and confess their sin and ask him for forgiveness. And even when they shifted the blame and shirked their responsibility, God still didn’t strike them dead. Instead, he promised that his Son would strike Satan dead.
He said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”[12]
Satan must have thought that he had won. The devil must have been gloating that he had won Adam and Eve over to the rebellion and put them at odds with God. But God promised to reverse the curse. God promised to restore enmity to where it rightfully belonged. God didn’t want to be enemies with us, he is and wants to be acknowledged as our Father. He wants us to be enemies with Satan, and he promised to be the one to make that happen.
As amazing as it is that God would be so patient with Adam and Eve and not immediately end their lives, it’s just as amazing that he didn’t demand that they make it up to him. He took it under his own initiative to right their wrong. He promised to send his own Son to be the son of a woman and to crush the serpent’s head.
And that’s just what Jesus did on the cross. While the snake was striking Jesus’ heel – torturing and taking Jesus’ life – Jesus’ foot was coming down on his head. The cross was the greatest pain the devil could inflict on God, but it also marked the devil’s ultimate defeat, because there Jesus paid for the sins of the world. On that cross, Jesus died for your sins and fulfilled the promise that God made all the way back in the Garden of Eden.
No matter what we do, regardless of how often we buy Satan’s box of lies, God is patient with us and remains faithful to us even though we cannot remain faithful to him. That’s the kind of God we have, whose first instinct is love and whose final promise is our salvation, which he won for us when Jesus died.
I wish I could say that the cross means that the devil will never bother us again, but that’s not true. That snake still slithers in and out of our lives. To use Luther’s terminology, that bird still flies overhead. But we don’t have to make room for his nest in our hair. The more we learn of his tactics, the better equipped we can be to respond to them.
When he tempts us to believe that obedience to God deprives us of freedom, we can remember that true freedom is not the right to do as we please. The freedom God gives us by faith is the strength to do God’s will – not because we have to, but because we’re happy to as we trust in God’s generosity.
It’s not better to have 12 sexual partners than 1. Innocence and intimacy are lost when we disobey God’s Sixth Commandment. The reverse is also true – love grows deeper and stronger and more meaningful as we remain true to God’s will for our lives.
There are many metaphorical trees on this earth. More than enough within our reach and within God’s will to keep us happy forever. We don’t need to taste the forbidden fruit to be free. We just need to trust that God is good – to hear the record of his goodness in His Word and to recognize it and rejoice over it in our lives.
Satan’s biggest lie may be that God wants us to be happy, but, like the best lies, there is an element of truth to it. God does want you to be happy, but not to seek happiness apart from him. God does want you to be happy, which is why he gave his Son for you – to live and die for you – so that you can be happy with him forever in heaven. Listen to him. Treasure his Word and will for your life as the freedom and happiness that can’t be found anywhere else on earth. I promise that you won’t be disappointed if you do.
God wants you to be happy.That’s the gospel truth.Repent, rejoice and be happy for all that God has done for you in Christ.Amen.
[1] Genesis 3:1
[2] Genesis 2:16,17
[4] Genesis 3:2,3
[5] Genesis 3:4,5
[6] Genesis 3:6
[7] Genesis 3:8
[8] Genesis 3:9
[9] Romans 5:12
[10] Genesis 3:9
[11] Genesis 2:17
[12] Genesis 3:15