S.O.S. – In Need of Rescue: The Lifeguard Series (Week 2) – Episode 479

Jesus Saves us from Deception.

What does it mean to deceive? 

• ✦ Oxford Dictionary – (of a person) cause (someone) to believe something that is not true, typically in order to gain some personal advantage.
• ✦ What’s the difference between deceiving and lying?
  • 🞂 Vocabulary.com 
    • ▪ Deceive is the trickier cousin of lie.
    • ▪ Deceive carries with it a feeling of both craftiness and betrayal. 
• ✦ Story of Jacob & Esau in Genesis 27. 
  • 🞂 Jacob could have just lied to his dad, walked in and said “I’m Esau – bless me with the blessing for the first-born son.” 
  • 🞂 Instead – he set out to deceive him, trick him – he didn’t flat out say who he was or was pretending to be at first … he cooked food, changed clothes, put animal skin on his arms to TRICK his dad. 

Who is a deceiver? 

• ✦ The person or being who sets out to deceive.
• ✦ Can you be deceived by someone who isn’t trying to deceive you? 
  • 🞂 Yes! 
  • 🞂 Someone who believes a lie and then shares that lie with you – means you have been deceived but they weren’t trying to deceive you.
• ✦ Does someone have to be trying to deceive us for us to be deceived?
  • 🞂 No.

With all that in mind – let’s look at the first time we see deception written about in the Bible. We don’t have to go far!

Garden of Eden 

GOOD. GOOD. GOOD. 

• ✦ Genesis 1-2 
• ✦ God created and it was GOOD. GOOD. GOOD. 

DIRECTIONS. 

• ✦ Genesis 2:15 
  • 🞂 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
• ✦ What were God’s INTENTIONS here?
  • 🞂 What did we say the BOTTOM LINE goal of a lifeguard was earlier?
    • ▪ It’s to SAVE YOUR LIFE. 
  • 🞂 What was God’s goal? His intention?
    • ▪ He wanted them to stay FREE. 
    • ▪ He wanted them to CHOOSE to do the right thing.
    • ▪ He wanted them to LIVE.

DECEPTION. 

• ✦ Genesis 3:1 
  • 🞂 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’?”
• ✦ ESV says
  • 🞂 …He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
• ✦ Who was speaking thru the serpent?
  • 🞂 Satan
  • 🞂 Lucifer 
  • 🞂 Masquerades as an Angel of Light
  • 🞂 His INTENTION was to deceive her.

Notice how crafty… the language changes 

• ✦ God says – YOU ARE FREE!!! Positive. 
• ✦ Satan says thru the serpent – “Did God say… ‘YOU MUST NOT’ …”

Changed the positive to a negative. Tried to make her question God’s intentions (and succeeded). Changed the focus from everything she DID have to make her curious about what she DIDN’T have. 

What she DID have

• ✦ Food EVERYWHERE 
• ✦ Freedom
• ✦ Eternal Life 
• ✦ Relationship with God 
• ✦ Relationship with her husband 

She didn’t know evil. 

So what else did the serpent say?

• ‭‭✦ Genesis‬ ‭3‬:‭4‬-‭5‬ ‭ESV‬‬
• ✦ “But the serpent said to the woman, “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.””

So he took something that WASN’T true and joined it with something that WAS true. 

She fell for the lie. She was deceived.

“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.”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭3‬:‭6‬ ‭ESV‬‬

https://bible.com/bible/59/gen.3.6.ESV

We’re going to take a look at more parts of this throughout the weekend but let’s hit pause on the story at this point for now.

The sequence:

• ✦ He cast doubt on God’s intentions.
• ✦ He lied to her.
• ✦ He told her something true.
• ✦ She was deceived into believing something about God that wasn’t true and the lie about not dying.
• ✦ Her actions followed her belief.

What’s necessary for someone to deceive us?

• ✦ Trust. 

Why did Eve trust this serpent talking to her?

• ✦ Location? It was in the garden.
• ✦ Maybe all the animals talked?
• ✦ It seemed to know about “rules of the garden”.
• ✦ It seemed to know more than she knew.
• ✦ She was curious.
• ✦ Maybe she wanted what it said to be true.

Why should Eve have trusted what God had said?

• ✦ God created her – handcrafted.
• ✦ God had breathed LIFE into Adam – creating him from the dust of the earth. 
• ✦ God had spoken everything into existence around her. 
  • 🞂 Even though it happened before she was created – the creation itself spoke of God.
• ✦ God made the Garden. God made the rules. 
• ✦ God had more authority than the serpent.

Why shouldn’t Eve have trusted the serpent?

• ✦ It didn’t have a proven track record.
• ✦ It was a created being just like Eve.
• ✦ It didn’t have the authority to change what God said.

How do we fall for lies? How do we get deceived?

• ✦ We don’t know the truth. 
  • 🞂 John 14:6 ESV
  • 🞂 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
• ✦ Repetition.
  • 🞂 If you hear something enough – it’s easy to start believing it even if it isn’t true. 
  • 🞂 My story.
• ✦ Something that God calls sin is celebrated so it doesn’t “seem” bad anymore.
• ✦ We start to laugh at it.

Where do we see deception in our culture?

• ✦ Gender (Male/Female)
• ✦ Sexual Identity
• ✦ Work
• ✦ $$$$$$$
• ✦ Outward appearance
• ✦ Clothes
• ✦ Vehicle

In order to not fall for the deception that we face each day, we have to Learn to Discern the Truth! We’ll talk about how to do just that on next week’s episode of The She’s Making an Impact Series – SOS: In Need of Rescue – The Lifeguard Series.