Genesis 3:1-5
Three Lies that Ruined the World
To help set the stage for the message , let me give you a New
Testament Bible verse. In \\#John 8:44\\, Jesus was speaking of the
devil and said of him,
John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil….
He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode
not in the truth, because there is no truth in
him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his
own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Notice three things about that New Testament verse:
1. Jesus was speaking about the devil.
2. Jesus was speaking about the beginning.
3. Then Jesus connected the devil to the beginning by telling us
that the devil was the father (or the originator, the
beginner, the progenitor) of lies.
Who told the first lie? The devil did. I content that he not only
told the first lie, but has he told the biggest lies. There is no
doubt about the fact that the devil’s lies have had the biggest
effect, separating the entire human race from God and casting us
into a bottomless pit of suffering, pain, and death.
The Bible does not tell us the first lie the devil ever told, but our
text recorded the first lie that the devil ever told a human being.
By that time, the devil was already a proficient and prolific liar,
having perfected the art on others. Some of his first victims were
the fallen angels. We don’t know what lie he told them, but it had to
be a whopper to get them to follow him over God. But even before
that, Satan has been practicing lying on himself for of all the
deceived in God’s creation, he is by far the most deceived.
Let’s see what Satan’s first lies to mankind were. These would have
to be some of his best work. After all, he got some of his best
results with them. I see "Three Lies that Ruined the World."
I. Satan’s first lie is that God wasn’t good.
A. You ask, "Preached, when did the devil say that God wasn’t
good? I don’t see him saying that in the text."
1. That is the art of being a good liar.
a. A good liar tells you a lie without you ever knowing
that you have been lied to.
b. Satan is not just a good liar.
c. Satan is a master liar!
2. If the liar told you an obvious lie (or as we used to say
it in Alabama, "a bald-faced lie"), no one would believe
it; but if you lie in a subtle way, you have still lied,
but no one knows it.
3. So the devil’s lie is there.
4. It’s just hidden in plain sight.
B. When did the devil lie about God not being good?
1. When he asked Eve the question,
Ge 3:1 …Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat
of every tree of the garden?
2. That question implied that God was not good, by implying
that God was holding SOMETHING back.
3. Let me translate the devil’s question:
a. "So God is keeping a tree away from you? I guess He
decided that you just don’t need that."
b. Isn’t it interesting that you can say the truth and
still be lying?
(1) Do you know why that is possible?
(2) Because it is not just the words you use.
(3) It is also the way you say the words.
c. And Eve’s pure, albeit naive, brain started thinking,
"I wonder what God is holding back from us?"
(1) You ask, "Preacher, how do you know that?"
(2) Because that is he same way our sinful, albeit
naive, brain starts thinking.
d. The implication for both brains is the same!
e. If God were a good God, He would not be holding
SOMETHING back from us.
C. Do you realize that with this one lie, the devil can trick
most people into sinning?
1. All the devil has to do is to "hint" to them that there
is something out there that God doesn’t want you to have,
and people will run toward it like thirsty horse run to
water in a dessert.
2. The truth was that God was holding something back from
Adam and Eve.
a. He was holding back sin, hell and damnation, eternal
separation from God.
b. He was holding back pain, suffering, death, and
misery.
c. He was holding back regret, sorrow, remorse, and heart
break.
d. He was holding back failure, toil with no reward,
accidents, bad luck, circumstances, and setbacks.
e. All of the things in this life that we hate and
despise but cannot remove or overcome God was holding
them back!
D. Get this: Anytime God puts a boundary up, it is not to keep
us in but to keep sin and suffering out.
1. It has been a long, long time since the devil USED A
PESON to do this to me, but I know he has done it to
everyone in this church at one time or another.
2. I had forgotten about it until listening to a sermon along
these lines, but I remember when I was a young Christian,
people inviting me to go do things that I did not feel I
should do as a Christian.
a. When I tried to explain, I remember some of their
replies.
(1) So you don’t do that anymore? (As if I were
missing out on something good.)
(2) You don’t smoke.
(3) You don’t chew.
(4) You don’t cuss.
(5) You don’t drink.
(6) You don’t do drugs.
(7) You don’t kick the neighbor’s cat.
(8) You can’t do anything, can you?
b. Do you know what they were saying?
c. They were saying God’s not good. God is holding
something back from you.
3. And my answer is, "Yes, sir. He was!"
a. Because I stayed away from tobacco, I had one less
bad habit to break.
b. Because I didn’t cuss like a sailor, I got into a few
less fights and kept a few more teeth.
c. Because I didn’t drink, I’m not an alcoholic like some
in my family were.
d. Because I didn’t do drugs, I haven’t wasted my money,
my health, and my life.
e. I because I didn’t kick the neighbor’s cat, they don’t
kick my dog.
f. I’d say that all in all, I came out better than most.
4. Anytime God puts a boundary up, it is not to keep us in
but to keep sin and suffering out.
5. To be honest, there are few things in this world that
look as good without the devil’s make up.
a. The Marlboro man died of cancer.
b. The Budweiser man spend a lot of mornings hungover then
died of cirrhosis of the liver.
c. The druggie has been in and out of jails, courtrooms,
and rehabs. He most likely won’t see his 50th
birthday.
d. The lose woman got pregnant when she was 17 and had to
drop out of school.
e. The lose man got a sexually transmitted disease.
f. All of them are on at least their third marriage.
g. Most of them only get visitation rights to their kids
and none of them have figured out that God’s
boundaries are not to keep us in but to keep sin and
suffering out.
E. God is not good. It was the devil’s lie to mankind, and it
still works today.
II. Satan’s second lie is that God can not be trusted..
A. Again, you may not see the lie because he did not come right
out with it.
1. He is more bold with this lie than he was the last, but he
still did not come right out and say, "You cannot trust
God."
2. Instead, he virtually called God a Liar.
3. You say, "When did the devil say that God was a Liar?"
4. When he said in \\#Ge 3:4\\,
Ge 3:4 …"Ye shall not surely die."
B. Did Satan call God a Liar?
1. God DID say that Adam and Eve would die, didn’t He?
a. He sure did.
Ge 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man,
saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest
freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
b. And the devil did say that what God said was not true,
didn’t he?
(1) \\#Ge 3:4\\
(2) He sure did.
2. Then the devil just said that God was a Liar, didn’t he?
3. He sure did.
C. The devil stepped up his game a notch or maybe two, with this
lie, and showed his goal.
1. What is Satan’s goal?
a. Some might say to get us to sin, but that is not it.
b. That is one tool that he uses to accomplish his goal,
but if Satan could accomplish his goal with making
great sinners of us all, he probably would.
c. What is Satan’s goal? His goal is to turn people from
God.
(1) He might do that by putting tempting trinkets to
lure us away from God (i.e. a hook with bait on
it).
(2) He might do that by lying, giving false
information to direct us away from God.
(3) Or he might do that by making God look bad,
assassinating God’s character so we will choose
to walk away from God.
d. That is what he was doing here, attempting to make God
look bad.
2. In the devil’s first lie, he was hinting that God was not
good.
a. The first lie is a subtle attack on God’s character.
b. But here the devil was telling Eve that God was a
Liar.
(1) He told her, "You cannot trust what God says!"
(2) "God is not honest, reliable, and just."
(3) And, friend, that is a big step up.
D. By the way, that same attack is carried out by Satan’s earthly
henchmen every time they attack:
1. God’s existence or character
2. God’s Bible
3. God’s real and righteous church
4. God’s holy and just people
E. What is worse is when "Christian" publishers, Christian
leaders, churches give them proof by calling commentaries
Bibles and by living sinful and compromising lives.
1. I heard of another representative from God who God used
but who was living a sinful life this week.
2. It is bad when the world accuses you of living a sinful,
double life; but it is even worse when your own people
acknowledge that it was true.
3. I no longer reveal their names (Ravi Zacharias).
4. Don’t confuse the gift God gives to men with the quality
of the man.
a. Gifts are given by grace at the sovereign hand of God.
b. Character is shaped by the person, and the character
does not always correlate to the gift God gives.
F. If you let the devil’s second lie turn from God:
1. That means the devil wins.
2. You lose.
3. With just two lies, the devil herds most people into
whatever sin he desires.
III. Satan’s third lie is that God is holding YOU back.
A. That is similar to the first lie.
1. The first lie was that God was not good, and He was
holding SOMETHING back.
2. This lie is built on the belief that God is a Liar, One
you can’t trust, and God is holding YOU back.
3. It is one thing to hold something good from me.
a. I probably won’t like it.
b. I may begin to question your honesty and character
because of it.
c. But I can probably get by without it.
d. It might would have made my life easier, maybe even
noticeably better.
4. But if you are holding ME back, that is a horse of a
different color.
B. When did the devil tell that lie that God was holding Eve
back?
Ge 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat
thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
1. God knows if you eat of that tree, you shall be as GODS!
2. That is not just holding something FROM me.
3. That is holding ME back.
C. First, let’s make sure that we understand that the devil was
lying.
1. How many of you got up this morning feeling like a god?
2. How many planets and solar systems did you create last
week?
3. Isn’t it nice to heal yourself, to keep yourself young,
to create food from thin air?
4. No. You don’t have those abilities?
5. Then the devil was lying!
6. You are not like gods.
D. Second, God does not hold good things back from the righteous.
1. You say, "Preacher, I’ll have to debate you on that one."
a. "So and so was a good person, and they got sick and
died."
b. "So and so was a Christian, and had a frail, sick body
all his life."
c. "So and so was a good man, but never seemed to have
enough money to pay his bills."
2. Just to be plain, it is not me that you will have to
debate with about this.
a. It is God who said it.
Psalm 84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and
shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no
good thing will he withhold from them that walk
uprightly.
b. But I will say that you and I can only see the pre-
game show.
(1) There may be some you just could not hand too
many of their blessings in this world.
(a) They might puff with pride, get side-
tracked, and move off center.
(b) To keep that from happening, God limits the
blessings He gives to them.
(2) And then I wonder if maybe God is giving less to
some here so that they might receive more there.
(a) Among the saved, God has given some talents,
abilities, and privileges that far exceed
the rest; and to others God has given
crosses, burdens, and sorrows that far
exceed the rest.
(b) I wonder if God may be preparing those to
receive greater talents, abilities, and
privileges when they get home.
(c) Remember what Abraham told the rich man:
Luke 16:25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that
thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things,
and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is
comforted, and thou art tormented.
c. Maybe when God said that He held nothing back from
the righteous He was not just sizing up our
earthly life but our whole life.
E. I don’t know about that, but I can tell you, the devil is a
liar.
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