Derek Prince - Questioning God's Word Is Opening The Way To Satan
This is a clip from the full sermon: Do You Realize How Valuable You Are?
So Adam and Eve were created for one supreme purpose to have fellowship with God. And the record makes it clear that God came each evening into the garden it says in the wind of the day, when the cool breeze sprung up in the evening, then God came to have fellowship with Adam and Eve. But, you know about the serpent and this is something I want to speak about more fully later. But God gave Adam a job. The job was to be the keeper of the garden. He was there to keep the garden, to protect it, to watch over it and he failed to do so.
You see the first failing of the human race was in a man. The first one actually recorded was in the woman, but the man was delinquent in his duty. He failed to be where he should have been. You see that’s the problem of our contemporary culture. It’s delinquent males. It’s men who have abdicated from their responsibility. Almost inevitably women have moved in to fill up the vacuum, but it’s never God’s plan. God has one plan and it works. So, let’s read the temptation that was confronted by Eve But you have to remember that it was Adam’s fault that Eve was there without his protection and the serpent got into the garden, because Adam should have been protecting the garden.
And it says in Genesis chapter 3 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? He didn’t immediately deny the word of God. He questioned it. But when Eve entertained his question she was defeated. And the moment we permit ourselves to question the word of God we’re on the way to defeat.
If we look back at the history of the last hundred years or so, toward the end of the nineteenth century, there was a movement of theologians originally I believe in Germany that questioned whether the Bible was really the accurate inspired word of God or whether it was a compilation of documents and so on. And that movement spread to other countries, to Norway, to Britain, and finally to America. But the consequences of entertaining unbelief concerning the word of God are so disastrous that each of us need to consider. This original question was raised in Germany, by German theologians. And out of Germany have come two men who have probably caused more human suffering than almost any other men in human history. The first was Karl Marx and the second was Adolph Hitler and in my opinion they were the direct product of questioning the Scripture.
When we entertain the question we have opened the way for the power of Satan. So the woman said to the serpent: The serpent had said, Has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? The woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; She didn’t want to acknowledge that there were any limits, you see. but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. You see, there are three downward steps. In the English language each of them begins with the letter D in regard to the word of God to Doubt it, to Disbelieve it, and the third step is to Disobey it. And when you begin doubt you will begin to disbelieve. And when you disbelieve, in due course, you will disobey.
We cannot afford to entertain Satan’s questions about the Scripture. It sounds very intellectual. It sounds very, what would I say, honest. We have to admit we don’t know. But it’s the way to disaster. And so, probably all of us are familiar with the tragic scene that followed Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and she gave to her husband and they both ate and their eyes were opened. And when they got knowledge, you know the first thing they knew? They knew they were naked. That’s the first knowledge that came through eating. And they were expelled from the garden. But God in his infinite mercy did not give up on the human race. He had a plan and He was determined to fulfill it.