Over the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about how important it is for us to realize that we don’t have the right, or the need, to make up things about who God is or what God wants, because He has already told us everything we need to know. All through scripture, we are taught that God didn’t leave us to try to figure out most things on our own, but instead chose to tell people what He wanted and then required us to obey.

And more than that, whenever people did start making things up, changing ideas about His will or His person, they were condemned and punished. Think about it.

God created the universe, designed the earth, populated it with everything necessary for an enjoyable and fruitful life, and then put Adam and Even in the middle of a garden. They were in perfect relationship with God and each other. They had meaningful work and a mission to carry out: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” God was the King of all, and had made Adam and Eve rulers of the earth. They had “dominion” over everything, and God had dominion over them.  Everything was “very good” until Adam and Eve decided to believe false things about God and go against how God said they should live. (Genesis 1:28-31)

Satan’s argument started, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?’”. Of course not, and he knew it, but this opened up a dialogue with Eve based on challenging what God had revealed about how they should live. Eve answered, “…God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” Already we see Eve giving God’s word a little alteration. God didn’t say that they couldn’t touch it. Either she or Adam had added that little bit to God’s instructions.

Now that the dialogue was open, and God’s Word was getting more pliable as the conversation went on, Satan continued with, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” He implies that God is holding out on them, that He can’t be trusted, that there is something better that God doesn’t want them to have, that His current revelation wasn’t good enough, and all they had to do was go outside of what God had revealed to them and they’d find something better than God wanted to give them. “God lied, Eve. He’s keeping you from the good stuff.”

Good for Food

The story continues, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” (Gen 3:6)

We see that both Adam and Eve were standing there, and both were complicit in this sin – but where did the temptation come from? It came from wanting to know more than God had revealed to them, and disobeying what God had told them to do.

In a very real sense, Adam and Eve had looked at the one, true religion – or way of relating to God – that God had designed and said:

“It’s not enough. It doesn’t meet my needs. It doesn’t give me what I want. It doesn’t explain enough. It doesn’t feel the way I want it to feel. So let’s invent our own version of this religion. One where we are still in the Garden, still able to walk with God in the cool of the day (Gen 3:8), but doesn’t have all the restrictions that this one does. After all, God is a God of love, right? Therefore, I’m sure it will be fine if we bend what He says. He wouldn’t just kill us, would he? There’s no death in this world! I could never worship a God who would kill someone just for eating a piece of fruit. I’ll invent my own version of God that is more open to other people’s opinions and isn’t so restrictive. Our god will be one that allows people to worship in a way that feels right to them. And if they want to worship God by getting to know Him better through eating that fruit, then they should be allowed! Let us throw off the shackles of the old rules, and embrace a new way of knowing God!”

Sound familiar? This is the world’s way of connecting to God. They come to a god of their own design, on their own terms. That thinking goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

In their own human wisdom they looked at the tree and thought, “Wow, that looks tasty, and safe, and not poisonous at all. Why would God prevent us from eating a tree that was “good for food”? God invented food, and God invented trees, and this tree looks “good for food”, so God must be ok with it, right? That’s called self-justification, or self-deception. If it looks good, feels good, tastes good, and makes sense to us, then it must be ok, right?

We do this all the time, even with Christianity: I like this song, so it must be a good worship song that God likes too. I like this church, so it must be one that God likes too. I felt a tingle during that worship service, so that means the Holy Spirit was there. I don’t like those verses in the Bible, so God must not like them either. Those people are the kind of people I like, so they must be closer to God. Worshipping at home feels better than organized religion, so God must be ok with me rejecting the church and inventing my own version of Christianity. I like how this preacher sounds, so I’ll listen to him. This book agrees with me and tells me what I want to here, so it must be right.

It’s all very tempting, isn’t it? It all looks “good for food”, and tastes right to us, so we believe it must be good. God had declared the whole world “very good”, and had declared that one tree bad. But Eve’s eyes looked upon it and declared it “good”. Self-deception.

A Delight to the Eyes

Eve also saw that the tree was a “delight to the eyes”. Notice how quickly she went from, “God said that tree will kill us if we touch it” to “my, what a delightful tree that I definitely want to touch and eat from.” What happened? James 1:14-15 describes it best,

“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

Something inside of her, and Adam, had changed. The tree was exactly the same tree as it was before she had started listening to the serpent, but her perception of it had changed. It now contained something she wanted, and in order to make it okay with herself, she altered her perception of it.

“Well, that tree’s not so bad. It’s actually a pretty tree. It’s quite delightful, actually. It’s a beautiful tree with beautiful fruit and it would be a shame for me not to take one. God provided this beautiful tree. He invented it. He makes all things beautiful, so why shouldn’t I take it? It’s not wrong to appreciate something that’s beautiful, is it. If God had wanted me to stay away, then He should have made the tree ugly and the fruit disgusting. It’s actually God’s fault that I’m even near this tree. He made it so nice. He made it make me feel good. He’s the one who is at fault here. Why say something is wrong, but make something so delightful?”

Remind you of anything?

We do this all the time with various sins – whether it’s addiction to drugs and alcohol, pornography and lust, money and possessions, gluttony, wrathful anger, or almost anything else. God tells us it’s wrong, and our conscience follows up in agreement. But then we find ourselves thinking it over in our mind and trying to justify how great it will be, and how it’s actually a good idea, and how it’s someone else’s fault that we’re doing it anyway. It’s the same every time.

But we also do this with our relationship with God. The One, True God, and all His revelations aren’t “delighting” us enough. Instead, God has us living through a time of trial, discipline, suffering, or even just plain boredom. God’s not being entertaining enough, He refuses to remove pain and discomfort, or distract us with pleasures, so we go off to find something that will. And those things are delightful. But God’s Word says that we need to be careful with them, to not idolize them, or to avoid them altogether… so what do we do?

A lot of people simply change or dismiss God’s Word. They don’t like what God has revealed, so they re-write part of the Bible, declare it irrelevant, or simply remove that part from the Book. Or, they go find – or even write – another book that will tell them that they want to hear. It happens all the time. God’s revealed truth isn’t delightful enough, so they go to Oprah’s book list and buy something there that will tell them what they want to hear.

God’s not giving them what they want, so they go read “The Secret” which tells them that there is no God, but instead there’s a universal energy force that they can manipulate to attract things to them that they like. They don’t like that Jesus said He’s the only way to be saved, and that Christians sometimes suffer, so they find a new age guru like Deepak Chopra who says that happiness isn’t found in any kind of god, but found inside ourselves through introspection and meditation. They don’t like that people go to hell, so they go read Rob Bell who says that everyone gets to go to heaven.

These books seem “good for food” and are a “delight to their eyes”, but they are a trap. They go against what God has revealed and lead us to temptation and sin.

Make One Wise

As Eve stood back and looked at the tree, her perception changing, her heart deceiving itself so she could take and eat, she came up with one more reason that it was a good idea. It would “make one wise”. Notice this wasn’t just a physical attraction anymore. And see how the poison of the temptation sinks deeper into the soul.

It started out merely looking “good for food”, it continued to become a “delight to the eyes”, but here we see that it wasn’t just tasty and pretty – it would give her something that God wouldn’t or couldn’t: special wisdom; knowledge God didn’t want her to have.

The implication here is that God had withheld something from her and Adam that she felt she needed to be complete. Yes, God had kept her in the dark about something, but it was to protect her. As it stood she only knew good – this tree would give her the knowledge of evil. But now she desperately wanted to know and all she had to do was reach out her hand and take a bit to see what God was withholding from her.

She felt God had refused an experience to her, but this would fill that gap and make her a more whole person. She had a curiosity that needed to be fulfilled, but God wasn’t giving her an answer. God’s revelation wasn’t enough for her. She needed wisdom and experience that was outside of what God had planned for her and Adam.

One commentary I have says that the fruit “appeared to her as a means for spiritual advancement.”[i] This tree was no longer just one of the many trees in the Garden, it was now, for her, the best tree in the Garden; there was more to be gained from this tree and its fruit than anything else the Lord God had provided.[ii]

Patterned Through Scripture

We see this pattern all the way through scripture, and it continues today. God tells us what He’s like, what He wants, and what He wants from humanity. We listen and follow for a little while, but then come up with our own ideas of what God’s like, what God wants, and what He wants from us – and then we forget about God and go after we like and want. We aren’t satisfied with what He has revealed so we invent something that sounds better to us.

Consider the story of Nabad and Abihu found in Leviticus 10. God had just spent a whole lot of time declaring exactly how He wants things to go when it comes to worshipping Him and offering sacrifices in the Tabernacle. He went into incredible detail, and after Aaron, Moses and the priests had followed every instruction, God showed up in power and consumed their offering, showing they did it right

But at the beginning of Leviticus 10 it says this:

“Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.”

What happened there was that they hadn’t followed what God had said about how to worship Him. This was a huge deal because this was the very infancy of the Jewish religion, the very beginning of learning how God wants to be worshipped. They needed to know how seriously God takes His Worship and His Word and what the penalty was for disobeying. It wasn’t just about getting the religion right, but showing that when they disobey God’s Word, they are sinning, and that sin leads to death.

To disobey God’s Word leads to the corruption of the individual soul, and if you are leader, the corruption of others. Some people think that they took the fire from the wrong place, burnt a different kind of incense, or even showed up drunk. Whatever the case, God demonstrated in no uncertain terms that He doesn’t mess around when it comes to disobeying what He says to do.

God wants His people to be holy as He is holy, and that means holding to the highest standards of conduct (Lev 19:2; Matthew 5:48). All through the Old Testament Law God reminds His people that they aren’t merely to obey the Law because it is right and good, but because they are His representatives to the world and are a reflection of Him.

Just as Adam and Eve were created to bear the image of God, so Israel would bear God’s image, and so do Christians today. All humanity bears God’s image, but we, God’s people, are meant to be the ones who do it best.

In the New Testament, we see that God hasn’t changed how He deals with humanity since the Garden of Eden. He created Adam and Eve to be His image bearers, gave them a place to meet Him in worship, gave them what they needed to be fruitful forever, and a mission to spread that message to the whole world, but they chose to reject Him and His Word, and it caused their destruction. Then He raised up the people of Israel to be His chose people, gave them the Temple as a place to worship, told them how to be fruitful forever, and told them to spread that message to the whole world, and they rejected Him and His Word, and it caused their destruction.

Today God is doing the same thing. After Jesus came to be the final sacrifice under the old system, He changed how things would look, but didn’t change God’s plan. Look at 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” That’s no different than the story of Nabad and Abihu, is it? And it’s not much different than the message given to Adam and Eve, or Israel: “This land is holy and you are holy. I will walk with you here if you follow my word and don’t eat of the tree. But if you sin, you will destroy God’s temple and will also be destroyed.”

Except now, the temple isn’t made of stone, it’s made of flesh. God’s temple is the people of His church – but He has the same standards and gives the same warning to us.

God’s Plan of Salvation

Listen to what is written among the final words in the final chapter of the final book of the Bible, because it shows how God’s message has been consistent from the start:

“The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.” (Revelation 22:18-19)

The whole Bible is an invitation to be saved through Jesus Christ. The healing water is free for everyone. All who are thirsty for grace, peace, forgiveness, and life, the payment has been made for you by the blood of Jesus. And the Spirit of God and the Bride of Christ, the Church, extends the invitation to all to “Come!”

But, when you “come”, you must come God’s way. Don’t change God’s Word. Don’t invent new ways of coming. When Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

 How Can We Know the Difference?

This is the crux of the problem that Paul is trying to address in the opening chapters of 1^st Corinthians. This church had their beliefs all messed up and had imported all kinds of foreign, wrong, teachings about God and His will for their lives, and Paul was warning them that the path they had chosen didn’t bring more life, but death. They had fallen for the same demonic deception that Eve had.

They had looked at the teachings from other religions, philosophers, and things that just felt right to them, and saw they were “good for food”, “a delight to the eyes” and “was to be desired to make one wise”, and had taken a big old bite. Their pursuit of wisdom and knowledge had lead them to destruction because it had lead them away from the revelation of God.

But the question comes, how can we know the difference between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God? If all these things look good, feel good, and seem like wisdom, then how can we be sure which one is of God and which one is not? How do we keep from being deceived?

The Bible gives the answer in the passage we’ve been studying.

“…these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ‘For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:10-16)

Jesus Christ, it said before in 1:30, is the “wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” If we want to know the mind of God, we must be connected to Jesus. A “natural person” is someone who is trying to figure out God, the Universe, Eternity  and Life, using their human wisdom and human strength, driven by their bodily appetites, their carnal knowledge, thinking the way an animal would, preferring the things that bring them the most pleasure. They will naturally go towards things that look “good for food”, and “delight the eyes”, and will be deceived by their own appetites.

But in contrast, a “spiritual person” – meaning one who has given their heart, soul, mind and strength over to Jesus to be redeemed, sanctified, renewed and made righteous – is listening to God’s voice, God’s Spirit, God’s Word, and God’s truth – and will see things differently.

Conclusion

Therefore I close with two encouragements. To those who are Christians here today, don’t succumb to the temptation to seek things outside of God’s Will and God’s Word, no matter how “good” and “delightful” they seem to you.

Instead, seek the “mind of Christ” by seeking the counsel of the Spirt of God and the Word of God. Read the living Word of God, the Bible, every day, praying as the Lord taught you, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done…. lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:9-13) As you do so, your natural self will wither and you will be able to “understand” the things that “are spiritually discerned”. Then you will be able to teach others.

I encourage you to go and pray the words of Psalm 51,

“God… you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart…. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.”

To those who are not Christians today, or who are not seeking the mind of Christ – those who are racked with doubt, fear, shame, anger, lust, and who’s faith is either dead or dying – those who have invented their own God, their own religion, and have rejected what God has revealed – I implore you to “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.” (Isa 55:6) for “…now is the favorable time… now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor 6:2) It profits you nothing to invent your own god and your own religion. Come to God as He has said you must come: humbly and on His terms.

[i] Lange, J. P., Schaff, P., Lewis, T., & Gosman, A. (2008). A commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Genesis (p. 230).

[ii] Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: (p. 12). Peabody: Hendrickson.