These things that they invade our mind with are designed to affect or alter our behavior. That is what Satan did in the Garden of Eden. The reasonings are the key to understanding. God created you and me with the ability to reason. But what line of reason do we follow? The key to following the right line of reasoning is this phrase, against the knowledge of God, because the thoughts that invade our mind coming from this evil, wicked, subtle, deceitful spiritual leader are going to lead us to exalt our reasoning against the knowledge of God.
Why would he want to do that? Because we have a relationship with a person - He is a being with personality, character, and a wonderful wholesome way of life that produces every good thing. Satan tries to destroy that relationship by getting us to doubt either the Person and His goodness or the rightness and goodness of His promises and way of life.
The idea is to catch him as he is beginning to use his device, twisting us mentally to the line of reasoning that he wants us to follow. If we can catch it as it begins, we will not be entrapped by it. We know that Adam and Eve did not catch it and as a result they were led astray.
It seems pretty clear that the teaching of these false prophets, false ministers, and false apostles, is right inside the church. That is kind of mind boggling, but these people are hearing them. Paul's fear is that they might be diverted from the simplicity. His fear is well-grounded, because Satan is always there and there is therefore the possibility of attack - an attack against our single-hearted devotion to Christ.
What has been pointed out to us from God's Word is that the most obvious characteristic of Satan is his subtlety. Does it not follow then that subtlety will also be the major characteristic of the ones that he is using - wolves in sheep's clothing? We see the parallel appear in different contexts.
Satan set the pattern and he did it in the Garden of Eden, but he will use a multitude of circumstances - like the Parable of the Sower and the Seed, it does not have to be the same thing that is used all the time. But if he can create the illusions, the distractions, the ploys - whatever we might call it - to get our reasoning, our minds focused on something that is of lesser or minor concern to God than the purpose God has called us for, he has us. He at least has us going in the wrong direction. It does not mean that we cannot turn from it, but at least he has caught our attention where he has then the possibility of destroying us. It will not happen all at once. In one sense of the word, he is very patient that way. But he will, nonetheless, work to lead us step-by-step in that direction.
Satan's lies produce death through sin and they are deliberate attempts to wipe us out. Satan is a cold-blooded life destroyer and I mean life in two ways: life in terms of ending in death and life in terms of the quality. What is so sad is that he seems to have such an easy time of getting people to swallow that somehow or another it is going to be better to disobey God than obey Him.
I would like to change the word cunning here just for the sake of this sermon, because I think that it is a little closer to our English word shrewd. It means sharp, clever in a selfish way. I do not mean to say that cunning is wrong, but somehow or another shrewd has a little bit clearer connotation to me.
If we were talking about a human being, we would say that he was cunning or shrewd. But in the case of Satan the serpent, we have to think of whom it is we are dealing with. To be cunning and shrewd like Satan indicates malevolent brilliance - with the emphasis on malevolent. He is seeking to kill. His cunning is like that of a cat - I do not mean a house cat. I am talking about a tiger or a lion that is silently padding through the forest with eyes malevolently staring out looking for something to eat, to kill, to feed on.
Another well-known merism appears in the third chapter. This one is spoken by Satan, the serpent.
This comes from the chapter before about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And that tree represents all knowledge, from all the good to all the way down to all the bad. What this means is the serpent here was promising Eve that she could choose and then experience for herself anything she wanted along the whole spectrum of knowledge.
Now God was going to give her and Adam the knowledge that they needed from Him. He was the one that was going to choose what kind of knowledge that they had and that they could use. But she went around Him, took of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and she became the chooser. He would have guided them into learning the truth not mixed with anything else. But she wanted to make those decisions on her own, thinking that being in that position, she would become wise. So, God was going to limit the knowledge, but she went ahead and leapfrogged over that and took the knowledge to herself - all of it.
Well, that is quite a condemnation. Now reflect back on Genesis 3. What in the world did Satan do there? Satan promoted disbelief of God, and this lies at the root of the difference between us and them. Paul characterizes them as turning from the truth.
Let us go back there, because God clearly shows what delineates His people from the world. What Adam and Eve did was laid the foundation of the world, and so the world as we now see it, with all its cultures, all of its political, educational, economic, business and religious system, grew or was built following the same general pattern of disbelief in what God said. The same general pattern of good and evil. Some from God, some from Satan. Let us follow the pattern.
Partly true and partly false. So we see a pattern developing here. God gave clear instruction, simple instruction, to Adam and Eve. Satan entered the scene, and he deceived them into disbelieving, distrusting God's simple clear directions.
In II Corinthians 11:14, the apostle Paul warns believers that Satan, masquerading as an angel of light, has little difficulty persuading gullible, vulnerable, or unwary people as he did with our original Mom in the Garden of Eden as he asked slyly, Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'? The woman said to the serpent, From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.''' The serpent said to the woman, You certainly will not die! For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:2-5). The late Keith Thomas once described Satan as the first unscrupulous traveling salesman.
What God had done here was to let them know that there was a penalty for sin; and one of those penalties was death - the cessation of all life. And, if you take it on far enough, this means total death - no eternal life, period. And after your judgment, you are burned; and that is the end. That was the threat that God held over mankind (and still holds over mankind) that, if we continue in sin, we will die. Now notice what the devil said.
So here was the lie - the lie that, Look Adam. Look Eve. You have an immortal soul. God can't make that threat work. And, in its various forms down through the centuries (in the different types of religions that have been created on this earth), that is one of the doctrines that comes through time and time again - that man has an immortal soul.
And this is true; but he put a negative spin on it, that made them think. Well, actually, he put a positive spin on it - making them think that they would be God immediately, and that this was something desirable, and that God was keeping it away from them.
That succinctly says what I just mentioned. What it did was that it opened their eyes. They knew the good through God, because that was all that He had taught them. But now they had other avenues of pursuit - the evil side. They were no longer innocents. They had real choice - to choose, not just what God offered but what Satan offered. And He said, We've got to make sure that they don't become immortal, until they are ready. And so He closed off the way to the tree of life.
