Tuesday, January 29

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Genesis 3:1-7

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’? ”

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, or you will die.’”

“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.”

Some 40 years ago rock-n-roll legend Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones sang a song called “Sympathy for the Devil.”

Please allow me to introduce myself,

I’m a man of wealth and taste.

I’ve been around for a long, long year,

Stole many a man’s soul and faith.

And I was around when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain;

Made **** sure that Pilate washed his hands and sealed his fate.

Pleased to meet you, hope you know my name.

But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game.

Just over a month ago we all watched our TVs with horror as the tragedy of Sandy Hook elementary school unfolded. Just yesterday I saw a story on the news of a teenage boy who killed five members of his own family with an assault rifle.

I am always somewhat surprised by the reaction that so many, including those in the media, have to events like this. 

“Why?” people ask. “Why do such awful things happen?” Sometimes they even use the word “evil”: “Why is there such evil in the world?”

I’m surprised because the Bible explains the origin and nature of evil very clearly.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.

The “serpent” here is the embodiment of Satan himself, who is described in scripture as a liar (John 8:44), the deceiver (Revelation 12:9), and the “adversary” or “opposer” (translation of the Hebrew word “ha-Satan”). 

In the Book of Job, Satan is described as a spiritual being who “roams through the earth and going back and forth in it” (Job 1:7). 

In 1 Peter, we are warned that, “your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

So, simply put, Satan is a created spiritual being who rebelled against God (Isaiah 14:12-14) and who seeks to destroy all God made as good. The Bible indicates that God has granted Satan limited authority to tempt and destroy on the earth, but that, ultimately, Satan will be completely destroyed by the triumph of Christ (Revelation 20:10).

So, let’s return for a moment to the question of evil. Why do terrible things happen? Why is there evil in the world? The answer, Biblically speaking, is, because the world is a broken place, and it is broken because Satan is actively seeking to destroy everything God made as good.

Therefore, perhaps a better question, at least from the Biblical perspective, might be, “Why is there good?”

In a recent blog post, John Piper wrote:

How can God be a God of justice, yet allow so much good to happen to people who dishonor him by disbelieving in him, by giving lip service to his existence, or paying no more attention to him that the carpet in their den, or rejecting the kingship of his Son, or scorning his word, or preferring a hundred pleasures before him?

Where was God in 2012?

Where was God when nine million planes landed safely in the United States?

Where was God when American farms produced ten million bushels of corn, and 2.8 million bushels of soybeans – enough food to sell $100 billions to other nations?

Where was God when no new plague swept away a third of our race?

Good questions. The answer, of course, is that God was here all along, restraining the evil and destruction that the enemy, the opposer, the adversary, the serpent of the garden so desired to inflict on his creation.

Right at the beginning of the story God wants us to know that we have a spiritual enemy who seeks to destroy. He wants us to know that this enemy offers a kind of “counterfeit gospel”; a counterfeit gospel that lures us with the lie that there are no limits; a counterfeit gospel in which we get to be god; a counterfeit gospel that is no gospel at all.

So whether or not he was aware of it, Mick Jagger was speaking the truth when he sang:

Pleased to meet you, hope you know my name.

But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game.

God doesn’t want us to be puzzled or confused. We have an enemy who is real; and while that enemy has many names, he has only one game. In Genesis, he is called “the serpent,” and his game is question God; to lie about God; and to destroy all God made as good.

Brian Coffey