EDITOR’S NOTE: The audio quality on this first recording is a bit poor due to technical issues. Sessions 2-7 have much better quality, I promise!
If you have your Bibles with you, feel free to turn to Psalm 78. We will begin reading in verse 5:
[The LORD] established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children,
that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn,
and arise and tell them to their children,
so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God,
but keep his commandments;
and that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.
The Importance of Being Conflicted
How many of you love a good story? I know I do. Stories are powerful things. They captivate us and engage us like nothing else. The moment somebody starts telling a story, my ears perk up. Sometimes I even turn my head to one side and raise an eyebrow as if to say, “Do tell! Go on! Let me hear it!” Why? Because I’m human, and all humans love a good story.
But what makes a good story? What’s the difference between a captivating page-turner and a boring slog? While there are a number of possible answers to that question, there is one in particular that I want to talk about today. And I think the best way to illustrate how essential it is is with a story. This story was originally told by an obscure British comedian from the 1960s, with some slight editing here and there by me. It’s called, “The Coal Miner.”
“This is a story about a coal miner, who mines coal. Professionally. And one day he goes down into a coal mine. And sees a lump of coal, quite near him. ‘Aha!’ he says. ‘The very thing I’m looking for!’ So he grabs hold of it and places it on a trolley, which disappears down a long dark tunnel, and he never sees it again. THE END.”
Now I know what you’re thinking. It’s a very short story, but it is extremely boring. Right? SO BORING. How can such a short story be so boring and pointless? Because something is missing, a key ingredient as essential to storytelling as flour is to cake or meat is to meatloaf. Can you guess what it is?
It’s conflict! Think about our coal miner story. It’s completely devoid of conflict, whether internal or external. What does the main character want? He wants coal. What stands in his way of achieving this goal? Nothing at all. In fact, he achieves his goal immediately. There is no tension, no resolution because there is nothing to resolve. And when it ends, we feel nothing because there is nothing to feel.
But a good story is one with a deep and meaningful conflict. Even in stories where there is no fighting or battles, conflict is always there in some form or another, either internal or external. Why? Because conflict is the heart of what stories are all about. A story without conflict isn’t a story, it’s just a series of events. There’s nothing to overcome, no victory to win, no glory to gain for God, and often no point in being told because it has nothing to say.
What about the Bible? Isn’t the Bible just a meaningless series of boring events that has no reason for existing? I would argue that anyone who thinks this way about the Bible has not spent enough time reading it. Because even a ten year old can tell you that the Bible is essentially a story. Sure, not all of it is composed in historical narrative—it’s full of poetry and letters and laws and proverbs and even some weird, apocalyptic stuff. But all of it together tells a story—the most true and important story that has ever been told. It’s not random; it has a point.
And unlike other stories, reading the Bible can help us in ways that no other stories can. Look again at our passage from Psalm 78.
[The LORD] established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel.
This “testimony,” this “law,” is not just a bunch of commandments and rules and regulations. It’s the story of creation, fall and redemption! Sure, the narrative wasn’t complete yet—Christ had not yet come, so the redemption of Israel and the rest of humanity was still unfinished. But it’s a story nonetheless!
Note also that God doesn’t just ENCOURAGE fathers to teach the holy Scriptures to their children, He COMMANDS it. And what are the children to do with the Word once they’ve received it? Throw it in a dusty corner and forget about it? No, verse Six says they are to teach THEIR children, and those children are to teach THEIR children! Why? Because of tradition, or obligation, or legalism? No! “So that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God.” It’s so each generation might hear the story again, learn from the mistakes of the previous generations, and have their hearts changed. It’s so humanity might grow in holiness and grace, and be more faithful than those who came before them.
And as a side note, let me just say this to all you teenagers and twenty-somethings out there. I know that in many ways, the world you are inheriting is darker, more dangerous, and more lost than the world I grew up in. I’m sure some of you—maybe even most of you—are tempted at times to lose heart when you see how messed up the world truly is. But this story—the story of creation, fall, and redemption—makes all the difference. This story changes you. It can help you to set your hope in God, remember His works, and keep his commandments. It can make you faithful. And there’s no telling what God might choose to do through you if you let Him do His work. Amen?
Ok, let’s get back to the story of Scripture. As you know, at the heart of the Bible is a grand cosmic conflict that spans millennia and encompasses the entire universe. And it all begins with a tree.
The Story of Creation
If you have your Bible, turn to Genesis 3.
As many of you know from reading and re-reading this passage time and time again, there is no conflict at all in the first two chapters of Genesis. God creates light and matter and energy and the universe and everything. He creates the earth, bringing dry ground out of the primordial waters, forming the heavens and the stars and the great lights in the sky. He creates plants and animals of every kind, both on the land as well as in the seas. And last of all, as his crowning achievement, his pièce de résistance, he creates humankind.
And all throughout this entire process, there is no conflict at all. In the grand symphony of creation, there are no clashing notes or dissonant intervals. God creates a good world, and it was good with a capital “G.” Hooray!
Now. Have you ever been watching a movie or reading a book where a happy scene goes on for what feels like a bit too long? You know, you have this long montage of a smiling, laughing family making sweet memories and basking in the warm sunlight, and it goes on for three or maybe four minutes. How does it make you feel? You feel antsy, right? You’re like, “Oh no, something bad is going to happen. I just know it.” And then sure enough, a group of biker aliens from Mars crash lands in the middle of the party and wrecks the house and steals their birthday cake or whatever. And now there’s a giant hole in the roof of their dream house, and little Johnny is crying because they melted his Nintendo and he lost all his save game data. And that makes perfect sense to us! You say to yourself, “I knew something bad was going to happen to that family. Happiness like that just doesn’t last.”
I think the reason we can see this kind of stuff coming is that we are fallen people living in a fallen world. We know all too well this world is not a place of perfect happiness where nothing bad ever happens. And whenever things start looking a little too perfect, we rightly deduce that things won’t go on like that forever, because they can’t. Sooner or later, that perfect little bubble will pop. Even when we read about a perfect world where everything is good, we think to ourselves, “This can’t go on forever.” Sooner or later we’ll be right back in the thick of our misery and ruin. (Wow, what an uplifting message this is so far! Bear with me; it gets worse before it gets better.)
And then we get to Genesis 3, verse one, which says,
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.” (v1)
Uh-oh. We know we’re in trouble from the first word, “Now.” It sets us up for an expectation of something big, some massive change that is about to occur in the created order. And sure enough, a new character enters the scene—the serpent, which is more “crafty” than any other being in the garden. Adam and Eve did not know this at the time, but this is no ordinary reptile. This is Satan himself, the most evil, most corrupt, and most dangerous creature in the entire universe. We’ll talk more about Satan in a future message, but for now just know that of all the enemies that could have invaded the garden, Satan is the most powerful, the most cunning, and by far the deadliest. And he wastes no time in spreading his corrupting influence to Eve:
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” (v1-3)
This is the very first conflict that we find anywhere in recorded history. And it has to do with what is true and what is not true. Let’s look at the first question that Satan asks: “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” Satan isn’t asking with good intentions here. He isn’t asking because he wants to know God’s word better, or because he wants to have the record set straight. He’s asking because he’s trying to sow the seeds of doubt in Adam and Eve’s heart. Adam remains silent, which is a red flag, but Eve seems to hold strong, repeating God’s word back to the serpent (with one minor addition that we’ll hopefully be able to discuss in our Bible study time tomorrow).
Then, Satan goes for the throat.
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.” (v4-5)
In other words, Satan says to Adam and Eve, God is lying to you! God doesn’t want you to be happy! He doesn’t want you to reach your full potential. He wants to keep you small, stunted, impoverished, immature. Maybe God’s afraid of what might happen if you were to become like him, knowing good and evil. In any case, God cannot be trusted to choose what is best for you. You need to make your OWN choices, regardless of what God says!
Brothers and sisters, these words that were spoken in the garden—“You will not surely die”—still echo across the widest expanses of God’s creation even today. We still doubt His goodness, His love, His provision, His desire to bless us and see us reach our full potential. We still want to call the shots and make our own choices, regardless of what the truth is. We not only want to be like God, we want to depose Him and reign in His place. And Satan knows this! The natural inclinations of our hearts haven’t changed all these millenia later. The Devil is still using the same playbook on us, because it still works.
So what do Adam and Eve do?
“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. Then the eyes of both were opened…” (v6-7)
And just like that, the perfect world that God made is broken. God’s creatures violate His holy word in an attempt to steal that which belongs to Him alone. Brothers and sisters, this is a cosmos-altering violation. Well might God say as he does in Jeremiah 2:12-13
“Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord,
for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
So God does exactly that. He curses His good creation, bringing death and disease and futility and decay to every corner of the earth. He curses the woman and the man individually, making their existences hard and painful in ways that correspond to who they are. But I want us to pay careful attention to what He says to the serpent. To Satan He says,
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Enmity. It means hostility. Ill will. Antagonism. And yes, conflict. This is, in a sense, the beginning of a great heavenly war between Satan and the offspring of Eve. This offspring—which is singular, by the way—will one day be victorious in this conquest, even at the cost of His own blood.
Even so, ever since that day, conflict has permeated the world we live in. This is why our lives are full of conflict, both internal and external. This is why we can’t have nice things or be happy all the time. Conflict is a permanent, perpetual part of living in a sin-stained world, and there’s nothing that any of us can do to fix it.
Hope of Restoration
Now, if that were where the story ended, none of us would be able to bear it. Have you ever watched a movie or read a book that ended in a way that didn’t resolve anything? Have you ever groaned as the credits started rolling because the story you were watching left a bunch of important conflicts dangling and forgotten? I have. I’ve watched some movies where a bunch of bad stuff happens and then the story just abruptly ends. I’ve even shouted at my TV, as if the writers could hear me, “Come on! You can’t end it THERE!!! What kind of an ending is THAT???”
Again, I think the reason we respond this way is because all of us as fallen human beings hunger and thirst deep down for resolution, for reconciliation, for redemption. We don’t want to live in a world of perpetual, ongoing conflict forever. We want peace and restoration. We want the crooked to be made straight again, the broken to be fixed. Just like fish long for water and plants long for sunlight, human beings long to live in a world where conflict has ended and we can be happy forever. That is what we were made for, after all!
And guess what? That reconciliation, that resolution is what the Bible is ultimately all about! As we already saw, Genesis 3 hints at a future time where Satan would be crushed once and for all by the seed of the woman. But in God’s wisdom and providence, it would be ages until that plan was fully realized. Thousands of years, in fact. So long that some people forgot about His promises, or doubted that He would ever make good on what He said He would do.
But God didn’t forget. God doesn’t write unresolved storylines. His plans are perfect, and one day, every single loose end will be tied up, every plot hole filled, every cliffhanger settled. We’ll do what we can in our time together this week to find those answers, but we won’t be able to experience perfect resolution until God comes back to remake the heavens and the earth. In that day, His story will have the happiest of happy endings. And through the miracle of His grace and mercy, we have opportunity to share in that happiness! That’s why the Psalmist can say in Psalm 130:
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
Amen? Let’s pray.
Other Messages In This Series:
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