The Greatest Lie Ever Told

Open your Bibles with me to Genesis chapter 2:15

Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not [n]eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

·       -  That word cultivate there in the Hebrew is the same word used when it talks about keeping the commandments.

·       -  but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not [n]eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper [o]suitable for him.” 19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the [p]sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the [q]sky, and to every beast of the field, but for [r]Adam there was not found a helper [s]suitable for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The LORD God [t]fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man and brought her to the man. 23 The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
[u]She shall be called [v]Woman, Because [w]she was taken out of [x]Man.”

24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from [a]any tree of the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 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.’” 4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 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 desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves [b]loin coverings.

Let’s examine what Satan said to Eve. I have heard it said many times that Satan lied to Eve. Satan didn’t say anything that wasn’t untrue. But he also didn’t say all of the truth.

Re-read red letters in Scripture above

Satan cast doubt by speaking half-truths. He never outright lied, in fact, it was Eve who misquoted God. Now did she intentionally misquote God, was that how the message was relayed to her by Adam? We don’t really know. We do know, however, that a lot of times miscommunications happen is retelling the story, the command, the directions.

Yet here Satan cast doubt that God had given the command for a pure reason. That he withheld information that he shouldn’t have. So I believe that Eve ate the fruit because she felt God has misled them, with this new piece of information she was no longer worried about eating it.

SIDE NOTE HERE- A lot has been said about women over time and how they were the ones who fell, they were the ones who disobeyed God. Yet she was created out of Adam, if it had been Adam fully formed would he have done the same thing? I believe he would have. I mean he was obviously standing there and did nothing to stop it.

Another interesting point here is that many believe it was the Fig Tree by which they ate. The Fig Tree is commonly seen as a symbol of judgment.

8 They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the [c]cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14

Even after breaking the commandment, the woman told the truth and the man blamed the woman. The man was present, it was his responsibility to make sure Eve didn’t eat of it and to protect her and the garden he failed and then blamed someone else.

Can I give you some modern Midwest context here? Do we not do this very thing today. In marital disagreements, in relationships, in our relationships with God? Do we not blame someone else, if they hadn’t done this we wouldn’t have done that.

Let’s Go Back to the Garden. Today one of the most prevalent statements out of Messianic believers mouths is the church lied to me, first it was the Catholic church, Constantine, our former Pastors, our family members, we even go so far as to say they were deceived.

This is the greatest lie ever told. To get you to believe that someone didn’t give you all the proper information and somehow misled you by using half-truths. The same way the Serpent in the garden got Adam and Eve to believe God hadn’t been totally honest with them. Are we not repeating the same pattern?

Sometimes the greatest lies that are ever told are the ones you do not know are lies.

They are the ones where you were only given partial information, they are the ones where you repeated what you were taught, what you heard. You had no intention of lying, deceiving, you simply repeated information you were told. You repeated information that had enough truth.

It’s not new, it’s the original lie. The one that leaves us where we are today. Yet we continue to profess this lie and cause doubt, division and continue the punishment of the curse Adam and Eve had. We continue to attempt to seek out why God instructed us to do something. Rather than just doing it. We add and take away from the words of God in an attempt to fill in the pieces we believe weren’t shared with us, just like Satan did. We don’t take God at his word.

God didn’t lie to Adam, he gave him a commandment for his good, it was Adam’s inability to understand the wisdom of the commandment that caused him to transgress God. It was Adam’s inability to trust God, to trust he didn’t have to understand everything but just obey. It was Adam, Adam should have protected his wife, his garden, his relationship with God.

Whenever God withholds something it is always for our benefit, and yet whenever we withhold something it is almost always for our own benefit.

God has and is always looking out for us, and yet we are almost always looking out for ourselves as well.

Let me leave you with this. Are you repeating the greatest lie ever told? Are you unable to fully trust why God told us to do something and so you struggle with obeying? Obeying is pretty simple when you fully trust God.