“Yea, hath God said?” was Satan’s successful weapon six thousand years ago. “Yea, hath God written?” is certainly his diligent question today.
Then he deceived the woman by asking her if God had said what He did say. Now he deceives by suggesting that God has not written what He did write! Yet God has both spoken and written, and God’s Word, whether by mouth or pen, must be supreme.
To question it is fatal, as the enemy knows to his own cost, and that of all his victims who lend a willing ear to his whisper.
May I ask you to notice how the first victim of the serpent fell, alas! under his awful fascination, and to consider the almost infinite skill he employed to compass her destruction? Read Genesis 3:11Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? (Genesis 3:1), “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Such was his question, his clever insinuation. He suggested that in keeping back even one tree, God had shown that His love and care for man were not absolute. He instilled suspicions, and generated doubt in the woman’s mind. Thus arose skepticisms.
She replied, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden. . . Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die.”
Fairly correct: only observe, God had not debarred them from touching the tree of knowledge of good and evil, neither is it written that this tree was in the midst of the garden. That place was assigned to the tree of life.
However, let that pass. “The serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die” (God had said they should): “for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof. . . ye shall be as gods” (rather as “God”), “knowing good and evil.”
Now, if God knows that, the woman should know it too; and if the tree is called the tree of knowledge, it cannot possibly be a tree of death. Hence he said, “Ye shall not surely die.”
This must have sounded very reasonable. The logic was clear and the argument unanswerable. But Satan’s logic is always too much for man. It was too much for the woman.
The proud rationalist of today, as he spurns God’s written Word, has little idea that in so doing he is giving effect to the mastery of the serpent!
Ten thousand times better be a humble, if unlettered believer in the Word of God than a learned doubter who has, all unconsciously, yielded to the superior wisdom of Satan, and has rejected the Scriptures.
When “the Word” was here in living form and lordly grace, the devil compassed His crucifixion, and man was his ready instrument in that awful, though predetermined, act; and now that the Word is written (and remember that the Scriptures are a revelation from God) the same foe of God and man is doing his utmost to destroy its credibility and authority. God hath said, and God hath written! He has not left men in the dark as to His mind. God has made Himself known.
Now we live in a day when the Scriptures are questioned on all hands. They are cast into the crucible. The learned men are increasingly hostile to them. Their learning is leading them into the barren regions of religious infidelity and consequent darkness. They are positive of nothing, and those who follow their lead are perplexed and miserable.
Whence this cloud of doubt? It arises from Satan’s skillful question, “Yea, hath God written?”
But has God written? A fair question, indeed.
First, Did man write the Scriptures? Was he their author?
If so, never did writer pen such a self-condemnatory autobiography. He was born in sin, lived in sorrow, and died in suffering. That won’t do!
Second, Was Satan their author?
If so, the same may be said of him. His first recorded act was deception, his career a lie, and his eternal doom the lake of fire. Neither will that do!
Who remains but God? The Bible, as we call our compilation of sacred Scriptures, is the Word of God. He is the Author. He tells of the power, malice, and end of Satan. He speaks of the creation (among other things) of man; the temptation and fall of Adam; and the guilt of the race. His own interposition in the gift of His Son, redemption by blood, salvation by faith, resurrection and coming glory, all on the ground of pure and precious grace.
This, and much more, is found in that book which Satan would discredit and foolish man reject, but which is, at the same time, God’s revelation of His heart and mind for the blessing and joy of everyone who believes. And to this living fact thousands upon thousands of men, once lost and guilty, but now saved and made children of God through faith in His Son, and the testimony of the Scriptures made good in their consciences and lives by God’s Spirit, can bear, and are bearing, true and unequivocal witness. To believe the written Word is wisdom; to wrest the Scriptures at your own or Satan’s instigation involves destruction.
Scripture believed as God’s revelation of His will to man is blessing.
Scripture wrested by man for his own self-will ends in judgment.
Do you believe or wrest the Scriptures?