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March 27th, 2011
The secret of victory over temptation
Genesis 3:1-7
Key Verses John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life."
Through the first two chapters of Genesis we have learned that God created
everything for his pleasure and for the happiness of the men. Men could live
there with boundless satisfaction in the happy fellowship with God.
Unfortunately we live now in a lost paradise, in a world where natural
disaster, war, injustice and suffering prevail. But nothing and no one can
thwart good intentions of God, for God has prepared for us a second paradise
that is much better than the first one. With the confidence of victory today we
want to know the secret of victory over temptation of the devil.
1. The secret of victory over temptation (1-5)
The verse 1 introduces us to the tempter. In the form of the serpent, the Satan
pins that man rebelled against God.
The verse 1 says that the serpent was more crafty than any beast on the field.
With the cunning, the snake asked the woman, "Did God said, Ye shall not
eat of every tree of the garden?"
With this question, the snake put a big question mark about God's word. The
tempter wanted to sow in the human heart doubt in God's word and his love. The
woman replied, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but
God hath said about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden: You
shall neither eat of it nor touch it; if you do, you shall die"
The woman believe that she could talk with the snake. Once Caleb Lee wanted to
sell his car to one African. The two have agreed the price of the car and
signed the purchase contract. But that was not the end of the purchase contract.
After the purchase contract the African tried to reduce the purchase price of
the car. The UN Security Council decided the combat against Kadafi by aircraft
on 17 March. Since Kadafi agreed the cease-fire, he let his soldiers continue
to shoot against the rebel positions.
These events show us that the Africans have very different culture with respect
to the promise from Europeans. I do not mean that all African culture is worse
than European.
But I will say that for Satan the truth has no value, even though the Satan
himself was behaving as if he appreciated the truth.
This scripture teaches us how we triumph over temptation of the devil:
First, we should firmly believe in God's love.
The Devil tried to arouse in us doubts to God's love. The Devil behaved as if
he appreciated the truth high and therefore telling to the people the truth.
But that's just his appearance. He has no interest in the truth. He just wants
to sow doubt in our hearts to God's love. Exchange of opinion with other people
- that's good. But to have the conversation with Satan - this serves only to
purpose of the Evil to deceive us to doubt God's love. That is why we should
not get involved in the conversation with Satan.
We need absolute trust in God's love and goodness. On one hand, we should
accept God as God and accept us as God's creature. On other hand, we should
accept God's great love for us from the heart. These two points are the
teachings of the first two chapters of the Bible and the core teaching of the
whole Bible. The Devil always tries to seduce us not to recognize the
sovereignty of God as Creator and to doubt his love. But we should not let
ourselves into the conversation with the Devil, because the Devil never loves
the truth nor obeys her. Rather, he wants to seduce us to be God's enemies. If
we believe in the lie of the devil, we must die and be damned. Therefore, we
are to admit no conversation with the Devil. And we should firmly believe in
the love of God.
Satan tempts us in different ways, depending on the situation. Therefore, it is
difficult to determine it, if Satan tempts us or not. But there is a universal
key to understand the intent of the Devil: When a call or our consideration
leads us to doubt God's love, we should stop our consideration immediately
which leads us to doubt God's love. We should remind ourselves of God's love,
as John 3:16 says, ""For God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.”
From time to time, something painful things happen to us, so that we have a lot of pain. But we should remember that God loves us and has sacrificed his son for us to give us eternal life and the new paradise. There is no greater love than that God sacrificed his son for us because he wants to save us from the power of death and give us the new paradise. Therefore, we must never allow doubt in God's love. Rather, we should always accept God's love and thank him for his love.
Second, we should believe in God's word absolutely.
God is absolutely true. Therefore, he keeps his word, absolutely, if he says something.
But Satan tried to arouse doubts against the word of God in the human heart.
These snake twisted the word of God, and asked the woman, "Did God have
said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?"
In reality, God
had said to the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat."
Satan twisted the word of God cunningly, saying that God had forbidden to eat
of every tree of the garden. That was a nasty twist! In truth, God has said,
that man may eat of all trees in the Garden of Eden and must not eat only from
the tree of knowledge of good and evil. With this cunning change the Devil made
out of good God a tyrant.
It is important for us to know at least some important words of God properly
and to stick to it firmly.
Matthew chapter 4 tells us of Jesus' temptation by the Devil. When the Devil
said to Jesus: "Are you the Son of God, command that these stones be made
bread!"
Jesus answered
him according to the word of God, "It is written, Man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God"(Mt 4.3
to 4).
Because Jesus believed firmly in God's Word and met the temptations with the
word of God, he was able to triumph over all temptations of the Devil and
accomplish his task as Christ. Also, we should believe in God's Word firmly and
overcome every diabolical temptations through our faith in God's word. For this,
we should understand God's Word correctly and believe in this word firmly. If
we believe in God Word, we have victory, confidence and joy despite all the
problems. We can work as manager of Paradise good.
Third, we should cultivate the love relation well in our marriage and in the
relationship to other people.
We should remind us that God created marriage, so that man and woman love each
other and work together for God with a loving heart. The love relation is thus
one of the basic relationship of the first paradise. But the Devil wanted to
destroy this love relationship between God and man and between Adam and his
wife. If the love relationship of a person to God breaks, his love-relationship
in his marriage lose its ground. The sin is in the first instance against God.
But sin destroys the love relationship between man and woman. In fact, the love
relationship between Adam and Eve suffered much damage through the fall, so one
blamed the other.
Therefore we must maintain our love relationship with God well, if we want to
have a happy marriage or a good relationship with other man.
God loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son for us then. And God
has given us through Jesus Christ, a new, happy world. We should accept God's
love with thanks, and should love God, his family and other people. When we
serve God with a heart and love our family, we can enjoy the bliss of paradise
well. We can then work as paradise administrator well.
2. God teaches us the secret of victory as paradise manager
The Bible teaches us that Satan can never cross the good will of God. Although
Satan could seduce the first people, Satan can’t cross God's good will. The
great God had prepared a new paradise for us, which is much better than the
first, as we can learn in verse 15.
Satan is cunning. But our God is perfect and is the absolute Ruler of the
universe. He is absolutely wise and perfect. Because God loves us, he has prepared
a better paradise in heaven that the first and gives us, who believe in Jesus
Christ, the new paradise and eternal life.
We are appointed as new administrators of the paradise. The error of the first
married couple teaches us that we believe in God's word and his love firmly and
should not doubt of God’s love. Out of faith and love to God, we should think,
talk and live. Therefore, we should take care of our love relationship good with
spouse, family members and other people. This enables us to manage the kingdom
of God well.
Up to the middle of the first round of the football team VFL Bochum lost often.
But the Bochum coach found out the cause of the defeat and changed the game
accordingly. Since Bochum has never lost in 14 times.
The story in this chapter showed us that the error of the first people and
teaches us the secret of victory over the temptation of the Devil, so that we
can win always over the temptation and work as paradise administrators. God's
will is perfect, because He loves us and does best for us.
We should trust in God and live a victorious Christian life as paradise
administrators.
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