Happy were the human pair amid this delightful paradise, until a certain preacher endeavored to convince them that they could sin without suffering IMMEDIATE punishment, without being punished on the DAY of transgression.
We may attend to the character of the preacher; to the doctrine inculcated; to the hearers addressed; to the mediums or instruments of the preaching.
I. As to the PREACHER, I would observe, he is said by the Bible, to be the lust of the flesh. “Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, but man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed.” James i. 13, 14. He is also called the carnal mind, and that is ever at enmity against God. Read the seventh and eighth chapters of Romans carefully. In Genesis, lust—the carnal mind—is personified and called a serpent, and in other parts of the Bible termed satan, devil and adversary, for those terms mean a deceiver, an opposer, and that is the character of the tempter in the human breast. This was the tempter that led the first pair astray.
But to be a little more particular, let it be observed,
1. He is an old preacher. He lived about one thousand seven hundred years before Abraham—about two thousand four hundred and thirty years before Moses—four thousand and four years before Christ. It is now five thousand eight hundred and fifty-four years since he commenced preaching. By this time he must have acquired great skill in the art.
2. He is a very cunning, artful preacher. The serpent, his prototype, is said to possess much wisdom and cunning. When Elymus, the sorcerer, came to turn away people from the faith, he is said to be full of all subtlety, not only because he was an enemy of all righteousness, but on account of his cunning and craftiness. He manifests his cunning by preaching to the world, that they shall not surely be punished on the DAY of transgression. That is a very pleasing doctrine to the wicked. They love to be told that the time of retribution is FAR IN THE DISTANCE, especially as that future punishment can all be escaped by taking the benefit of a spiritual bankruptcy, any hour before they die. Yes, he is a cunning preacher.
3. He is a very laborious, unwearied preacher. He has been in the ministry almost six thousand years, and yet his zeal is not in the least abated. The apostle Peter compares him to a roaring lion, roaming about seeking whom he may devour. He is far from being circumscribed within the narrow limits of parish, state or continental lines; but his haunts and travels are very large and extensive. Wherever the doctrine prevails that the wicked are not punished WHEN and WHERE they sin, the tempter is preaching the same sermon he preached to mother Eve.
4. He is a heterogeneous preacher, if I may so express myself. He mixes truth with error, in order to make it go well, or to carry his point. Nobody would bite at his hook if there was no truth on it. He quotes fluently from the Bible, but then we must receive his interpretation. If we dissent from it, all hell is in an uproar, and we must be kicked out of his church, and out of the world, if possible. Thousands have been burned at the stake, because they would not receive his interpretation of the Bible. He admits we have reason, but then it is carnal and not to be trusted; we must believe without the reason why. He admits there is one God, but there are three persons in the Godhead; that is, one makes three, and three one. Christ is the Son of God, and at the same time the Father; God is infinite in wisdom, power and goodness, but Christ came to reconcile him to us; God wishes to save all mankind but cannot; God can save all mankind, but wishes to damn some to glorify his justice; God’s justice requires the endless damnation of all men, but his mercy pleads for the salvation of all, and yet God’s attributes all harmonize. Men are born totally depraved, and utterly incapable of doing anything acceptable to God, yet it is the duty of men to repent and turn to God; Christ has made an atonement for the sins of the whole world, but half of the world will be damned eternally for their sins; God is a universal Father, God is love, and yet will mock and laugh at the eternal groans and pains of his children; heaven is the perfection of love, but the saints will shout glory, when they see their fathers, and mothers, and children, damned. Yes, he preaches truth as well as error.
5. He is a very presumptuous preacher. Notwithstanding God had declared on one occasion, in the most plain and positive manner, “On the DAY thou eatest thereof, shall thou surely die,” yet this audacious wretch had the impudence to confront Omnipotence, and say, “ye shall not surely die”—on the DAY of transgression—and he is still repeating the old sermon through the length and breadth of the land.
6. He is a very successful preacher. He draws a great number after him. No preacher can command hearers like him. He was successful with our first parents—with the old world. Noah once preached to the world that the judgments of heaven would shortly come on wicked men, but the tempter repeated his old sermon, and he made more converts than Noah did. So it was with the cities of the plains. Lot preached to them; the substance of which was, “Up, get out of this place: for the Lord will destroy this city.” Gen. xix. 14. But the old declaimer told them, no danger, no danger; God will not punish men in this world, and therefore will not destroy this city, to which they generally gave heed, and Lot seemed as one who mocked. They believed the Orthodox preacher and were consumed. The father of lies is a very successful preacher. He not only made converts of Adam and Eve, the Antediluvians and Sodomites, but he has proselyted most of the world. Nearly all mankind contend that God’s judgments are not in the earth. Dr. Franklin was about right when he said a lie would travel all over the country, while truth was putting on his boots.