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That's ConnectWithSkip.com. Now, let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Let's turn to Genesis chapter 3 together. Now up to this point, we have read a phrase that is used over and over again, and that is, God saw that it was good.
Seven times we read that God saw that it was good. The only thing that wasn't good, God fixed. It says in chapter 2 that the Lord said it's not good that man should be alone. So God becomes a matchmaker and provides the solution to man's aloneness in providing a woman for the man and bringing the woman to the man.
So that wasn't good that man should be alone. That's the only thing that God saw in His creation that needed the completion, and so God made the woman. God fixed it. You might say, and it would be accurate, Adam and Eve was a match made in heaven. Truly it was. Somebody once said that they had the ideal marriage, Adam and Eve, because he didn't have to hear about all the other men she could have married, and she didn't have to hear about the way his mother would have cooked the dinner. It was perfect.
It was ideal. And wouldn't it be great if we could just read, and Adam and Eve lived happily ever after. But that's not what we read. When we come to chapter 3, everything changes. In the third chapter, the third word of the chapter, we're introduced to a character called the serpent. Now, we've not been introduced to him yet.
He seemingly appears suddenly from out of nowhere, and up to this point there's not even a hint as to who he is. It simply reads, Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. Now this serpent goes for the juggler, immediately goes to work on Eve, the woman, and consequently Adam, the man, to disrupt God's creation. But the question is, what is the serpent? Who is the serpent? There are gaps if we just read through this book chronologically and we're introduced to the serpent with really no introduction as to where did he come from. What is the identity of the serpent?
Well, fortunately, like when you were going to school and the teachers would say the answer is in the back of the book, the answer to this problem is also found in the back of the book. In Revelation chapter 12, we find the identity of the serpent. So Revelation chapter 12, beginning in verse 7, I'll read it to you. War broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. Now here's the answer. So the great dragon was cast out. That serpent of old called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world, he was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him.
It's important to fill in these gaps because we would have some questions that any person, any thinking person would have. How did we get into this mess? Where did all the problems we have in the world come from? Can we really blame all of our problems on the liberal media? Is it really fair to blame all of our problems on the Democrats or the Republicans or any political agenda?
I mean, that is typically what we like to do. It's their fault. Oh, it's that person's fault. It's that party's fault. Oh, it's much deeper than that. And it goes back much further than that. And now we're introduced to the serpent.
The devil, he's called. I heard a story about a woman who was married to a miserly husband. She just had to work to get anything out of this guy.
She really had not much and to get anything at all was a real struggle. So she told her husband one day that she was going shopping, but she said window shopping. And the husband quickly said, okay, now you can go window shopping, but look only.
Don't buy anything. And so she left. She went to the store. She came home later on with a beautiful new dress. Husband got all upset.
I told you to look and not buy. What were you thinking? She said, well, I looked at it.
It was beautiful. I just decided to try it on. While I was trying it on, I felt tempted like I never felt before. In fact, I felt as if the devil was tempting me and the devil was whispering to me, you look beautiful in that dress. Husband said, well, you know what to do whenever that happens. You say to the devil, get thee behind me, Satan. She said, I tried that. And once he was behind me, the devil said, you know, it looks good from behind too.
And so I bought the dress. Now, in Revelation 12, the serpent is called the devil. He is called Satan, which means adversary. But how did he come into being?
Did God create him to be evil? Well, we have to fill in more gaps. So we need to look at a couple of passages. If you brought your Bible, and I trust that you did, and you can find Ezekiel 28 quickly enough, turn to Ezekiel chapter 28.
Now, it's a bit unfair. I've marked my Bible, so I know right where it is with my little yellow tabs. But if you can find Ezekiel 28 quickly, it'd be better. I can read it to you, but if you can find it, it's best to look at it.
And here's why. As we start reading Ezekiel 28, we're immediately confronted with the ruler of the city of Tyre. It says, the word of the Lord came to me again, saying, Son of man, say to the prince, or literally a better translation, the ruler of Tyre, thus says the Lord.
Now, if we're looking at this historically, we know that Tyre was an important ancient Mediterranean seaport in the ancient world. And judgment is pronounced upon the ruler of that city, the prince of Tyre. Obviously, it's a human being that is being spoken to, because it says, because your heart is lifted up, and you say, I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods, and in the midst of the seas, yet you are a man and not a god, though you set your heart as the heart of a god. So, it's a man, it's a human, it says so. But it's a man who thought himself to be much better than he was. He thought himself to be a god. Now, we can look in the history books and discover exactly who this is. This is none other than a ruler by the name of Etobahal II, who was the ruler of the city of Tyre. He was very proud as a ruler, and liked to be called one of the gods. A judgment is pronounced on him. Fine, good, it's a historical narrative.
Until we get down a little bit further, and the language begins to change, and we're confronted with another person. In verse 11, moreover, the word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre. The ruler was talked about first, but now the king, Melech in Hebrew, somebody higher in authority than even the earthly ruler. Is this just another earthly ruler?
Well, let's see. And say to him, Thus says the Lord, You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering, the sardius, topaz, diamond, burl, onyx, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, emerald with gold.
The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers. Okay, now we know we're not talking about an earthly ruler, because it says you were in Eden, the garden of God, and he's called a cherub, an angel, not a man, an angelic being. You were the anointed cherub who covers.
I established you. You were on the holy mountain of God. You walked back and forth in the midst of the fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created until iniquity was found in you. There's a few things we note about this character, this cherub or angelic being who was in Eden. He was the seal of perfection. He was full of wisdom, the wisest of all of God's creatures. This being in Eden, this being that we can identify as Satan, Lucifer we'll find out was his original name. He became Satan. This angelic being was wise, probably was God's prime minister, helping to administrate his creation from the angelic perspective.
There is also, if you notice, the mention of timbrels and pipes. Those are instruments, so we can connect the dots and presume that this anointed angel who helped administrate with his wisdom was also in charge of the worship of God for all of the angelic hosts. And he worshiped God and he led in the worship of God, but because it was worship directed toward God, he somehow felt left out because it talks about iniquity being found in him.
You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, misunderstandings about Jesus abound. Some see him as a prophet, others as a moral teacher, and still others as just a myth or mere historical figure.
But the Bible tells a different story about who Jesus is. We want to help you know the real Jesus of the Bible by sending you Skip Heitzig's nine-message CD series, Who Is This Jesus? In this eye-opening series, Pastor Skip addresses common misconceptions about Jesus, clarifying both Jesus' humanity and his divinity to equip you to confidently answer questions about who Jesus really is. We'll send you the Who Is This Jesus? series, as well as Skip's booklet for new believers titled Life Change as thanks for your gift of $50 or more to reach more people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give. Now, let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. Now there's another passage that helps fill in the gap and closes the gap for us. Go now back to Isaiah chapter 14. So turn left a couple blocks to the book of Isaiah, a large prophetic book, chapter 14 of Isaiah. And again, the background is the wickedness of the king of Babylon is being addressed, but the language changes again in verse 12.
Isaiah 14 verse 12, listen to this. How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How you are cut down to the ground, you who weaken the nations, for you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. Yet you shall be brought down to hell, sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit. Those who see you will gaze at you and consider you, saying, Is this the man who made the earth tremble and shook the kingdoms and made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities?
Who did not open the house of its prisoners? The language is once again difficult to ascribe to an earthly ruler, number one. Number two, another clue is something Jesus said. Quoting this, I believe, in Luke's Gospel chapter 10 verse 18, when the 70 disciples came back from their little evangelistic tour around the Sea of Galilee and were so excited that demons were cast out because of their work, Jesus said promptly, I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning, thus linking Satan to the fall of Lucifer from heaven. So we have a clue right there with that quote.
Now Lucifer, verse 12, means morning star or day star. That's what he was before the fall. He was a star. But he wanted to be the director, as a lot of movie stars love to be. They get tired of being on the other side of the camera lens. They want to direct.
They want to be in charge of the show. He was a star. He was the morning star. He was the bright star. But he exalted himself above the stars of God, that is, the other angelic beings. Five times in this passage, he says, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will.
Why the repetition? To show us now we have a problem. Up to this point, there was harmony in the universe. Up to this point, there was only one mind, perfect mind, God's mind, one will, one perfect will. But now, now there's a second will. Now there's a dissonant will.
Now there's a rogue will. And he fell from heaven. And he shows up in Eden, the garden of God, after his fall, no longer as day star, but as adversary, the deceiver, the serpent, Satan. So those passages, Revelation 12, Ezekiel 28, Isaiah 14, put together, helped connect the dots and closed the gap that otherwise we wouldn't have closed in reading up to Genesis chapter three. So go back to Genesis chapter three. We've now covered three words of the first verse.
And so we can go on. It says the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said to the woman, ah, now we're dealing with a different kind of a serpent, obviously. This is a speaking serpent. He said something, he articulated something, and his words spoken were understood by the woman.
There was a common language. Let me throw this in just so you put it, do whatever you want with it. According to rabbinic tradition or rabbinic legend, the serpent before the fall had a high intelligence and the ability to articulate words to speak before the curse, before the fall. That's one take on it. The other take is that this was a creature embodied, inhabited by Satan, that Satan used as a mouthpiece, some creature in the garden that could speak, that was attractive, the Hebrew word nachash, sometimes translated shining one rather than snake or serpent. So the serpent spoke and he comes in to further his agenda. He has failed in heaven in usurping authority with the stars or the angels of God, so now he's cast to the earth. And he quickly tries to advance his agenda with people on earth by immediately going to Adam and Eve, the first man and woman in the garden.
Now something I want you to pick up on, you'll see it. Up to this point, God's word has been very important. God said, let there be light, and there was light. God said, let there be, on and on and on. God's word was what he used to create. He spoke it into existence.
Hebrews 11 tells us, by faith we believe the worlds were framed by the word of God. So just as the word of God was important in chapters one and two, it's also important in chapter three in that his word is challenged. All that he has said is now challenged by this being the serpent, now that we know he is Satan or the devil. He said to the woman, has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Notice how that's worded, it's a wrong quote. And the woman said to the serpent, now she's going to engage in a nice little friendly conversation, just trying to be friendly, let's just talk this out. And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. The serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die.
Then the serpent, I already read that, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil. Okay, the first thing we notice as the serpent comes to the woman is he challenges God's word. The first question mark in the Bible, the first question mark in the Bible, has God indeed said? Now, if you know your Hebrew, you know that in the original Hebrew there are no punctuation marks in the original text.
When I say this is the first question mark, it's implied by the nature of the wording that it's a question. So it's safe to say this is the first question mark in the Bible. It's a question raised by Satan challenging God's word.
Now, what has changed? He still challenges God's word. Did God really say that?
Number one. Number two, he challenges God's love. He challenges God's love. What he is implying by the question is, would a good God, a God of love, keep something from you, his creation? Now, did you notice how it's worded?
Notice how it's worded. This is not what God said. Satan asked the question, has God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? God didn't say that. What God said is, you shall freely eat of all the trees of the garden, except one. So notice what Satan does. He turns a positive invitation into a negative prohibition by changing the wording. Again, implying that God must not love you because God is so strict and prohibitive, and he doesn't want you to have any fun or any enjoyment. Look what he said. The third thing Satan does is flat out denies God's word.
You won't surely die. So that whole approach is something we can still see happening today. We're not ignorant, Paul said, of Satan's devices. Now, in questioning God's word, in questioning God's love, and in denying God's word, we get to the core issue that Satan is trying to get at with Eve. Can God be trusted?
Can you really rely upon God for anything that he would say as being full of veracity and truth, and you can have confidence in? That's really the heart of it. Now, verse two, the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, which is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, nor shall you touch, lest you die. There's a lot of foolish explanations as to what this tree was. Let me just flat out say, I don't know exactly what species of tree it is, but some have tried to say it's an apple tree, thus the forbidden fruit is an apple. That's how it's often depicted in art. Others say the fruit was grapes, and that God was, the sin was making wine.
That's legalists really stretching their point. Others go a step further and say, well, the fruit really was emblematic of sexual activity, and God was looking down upon that. I doubt that, since God told the man and the woman, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
Hard to do it without sexual activity. And within the bonds of the marital union that God calls them to, that permanent marital union in chapter two, that's hardly what it could be. Whatever it was exactly is not important.
This is what's important. God had given man freedom and dominion, but that freedom and that dominion had a limitation. They were still responsible to God.
They couldn't do whatever they want, whenever they wanted, hence the restraint. You can eat anything you want, except that, except that. Now you're still responsible to me. You're still accountable to me.
There's something you can't do, and that's what you can't do, is eat the fruit of that tree. We're glad you joined us today. Before you go, remember that when you give $50 or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you Pastor Skip's series, Who Is This Jesus?, and his booklet, Life Change, to help you better understand both who Jesus is and why you can trust what the Bible says and who you are as a believer in Christ. To request your copy of these resources, call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash offer. For more from Skip, be sure to check out the many resources available at connectwithskip.com slash store. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast your burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.
