Genesis 3:4-5 “And the serpent said to the woman, you shall not surely die: For God knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes will be opened, and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
There simply isn’t any other person in ancient history with a life as well documented historically as Jesus Christ. His resurrection is evidence that what He taught about Himself and every other subject was true. He claimed to be God. C.S. Lewis rightly taught that Jesus puts us in a spiritual corner when it comes to deciding Who He is. A person’s opinion of Jesus has to fall into a few categories. Either you believe Jesus was a liar, lunatic, or Lord. If you say He is a liar he therefore cannot be a good teacher. He must therefore be a lunatic. Who in their right mind would claim to be God in the middle of Jerusalem! I’ve been to Jerusalem and if you ever go and see all the religious zealots you will understand that standing up and claiming to be God would have to be done by a crazy person or a man in his right mind that is also God. If what Jesus said was true and He really backed up those claims with His resurrection from the dead, He must be Lord of Creation. Do you believe He was a good teacher? Good teachers don’t lie about themselves or other subjects. Do you believe He was mental? Nothing in the texts of the Bible or written in secular history indicates He was mentally impaired. Too the contrary, Jesus’ life as recorded in Scripture has been analyzed by unbelieving psychologists and they admit he has all the features of a mentally healthy person. Do you not believe He rose from the dead? Why not? If not, why do you believe any other source of ancient history ever written? Why do you believe history about Alexander the Great and not the history of Jesus’ resurrection? Do you think it was written by those with bias toward the person of Christ and His mission? I’ll remind you with love today that the disciples/writers of the NT had nothing to gain but the loss of their homes, separation from their families, exile, and even loss of the lives of their family members or their own life. Not one of the disciples or writers of Scripture denied their claims even in light of severe persecution or torture. Surely if their writing was false, and then met with such opposition, surely it would have caused one of the disciples to raise their hand for a time out and said “I recant…it isn’t true.” The truth is that they saw Jesus die, a certificate of death was given and then 3 days later they saw Him alive again! He is not a liar or a lunatic, but He is Lord! Satan told Eve that God was a liar like many people are told today that Christianity is wrong. For the gospel to be wrong…Jesus has to be wrong. In Genesis 3:4 he tells Eve “you shall not surely die.” God had told Adam and thus it is believed that Adam told Eve what God had said would happen if they ate of the forbidden tree, which was death. Satan says to her, surely you won’t die! Come on! Satan told her that God was just afraid that they would learn there is more out there to learn than God wanted them to know. Even with Jesus’ birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection, Satan is still promoting the message that what Jesus said about eternal life isn’t true for everyone and thus not really true at all. Will you really go to hell (spiritually die for eternity) if you don’t trust Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins? That seems really narrow minded. Satan tells Eve that God knows that in the day they disobey Him they will find out the truth about God’s lies and will become the gods that God tried to keep them from being. As soon as we begin to deny the Bible or what it records about Jesus and His claims/teachings, we begin to form ourselves into our own gods. We decide for ourselves, often from internal feelings, what we think is right and wrong or what we believe will happen after death. Can we know truth from within our own minds or from our own emotions? Some people say we can but how do we know for sure that those inclinations or convictions are true? The Bible is full of evidence that the God that is written about in its pages is the true God of all creation. The Bible is unique enough in a good sense that any thinking person should open mindedly consider its claims. Just the prophecy alone should make one consider that the God claimed in the Bible completely knows the future as well as what happened in the past: two things we cannot know as human beings. Eve began to doubt the truth of the words God had spoken to she and Adam. Now the thought of having a life where she could set the standards of “touch…don’t touch” seemed attractive her. She knew it was wrong. I know this is insulting to many, but I think everyone on earth is given a chance to hear the gospel before they die and they all know it’s true. Most don’t accept, not because of a lack of conviction, but some preconceived intellectual or religious bias, a desire to continue in sin, or fear to let go of what they’ve always believed that will result in personal ridicule in many possible forms. Eve’s desire was to become the guide of her own life. The problem with that desire is that God is real. The problem with that desire is when we break the law of God we are truly guilty and are awaiting judgment from the true God of the Bible. The problem with people and society becoming their own standard is that anarchy will ultimately result. Of course the biggest issue is not social or personal order in life, but sin that needs to be forgiven…a perfectly loving and holy God that needs appeased. He has been offended and can only be appeased through a perfect life and righteousness found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God is not a liar. People who love you tell you the truth. That’s why He sent Jesus: “The Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Grace and understanding to us all, Pastor Kevin Boone
