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 "Those who are quick to promise are generally slow to perform. They promise mountains and perform molehills. He who gives you fair words and nothing more feeds you with an empty spoon. People don't think much of a man's piety when his promises are like pie-crust: made to be broken." - Charles Spurgeon
INTRODUCTION
Historians like to give names to various eras such as the Age of Faith or the Age of Reason. This present time can only be called the Age of Empty Promises. From politicians pledging all and delivering little to TV ads telling gullible young men they will get the girl if they wear that certain cologne, seldom are we satisfied. Expectations are hyped up but not often realized.
SO WHAT'S NEW?
As the book of Ecclesiastes says, there's nothing new under the sun. Back in Genesis 3:4-5, God warns Eve that death would come by touching one particular tree in the middle of the garden. The serpent contradicts God's warnings by saying, "You will 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."
BAIT AND SWITCH!
The knowledge of good and evil separates us from the rest of the animal world. Animals only know instinct and impulse. But the devil, knowing full well that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would result in
 death, tried to convince Eve otherwise. He deceived her into thinking that such knowledge would grant immortality. However, a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous! Humanity paid a heavy price for this self-awareness. Death invaded creation and upset God's intentions!
NIGHT AND DAY
Knowing good and evil awakens us to morality and immortality, something that animal innocence cannot comprehend. We could say that good and evil are the day and night of the spiritual realm. If fish exist in the element of water and we correspondingly move in air, then the element of the spiritual realm is morality. This is the 'air' that spirits breathe. Satan has always tried his best to reverse God's order in the natural and the spiritual realms. In the land of the living, day is now being called night and night is being called day.
Dr. Earl H. Tilford comments, "From Hitler’s vision for a Thousand Year Reich and Lenin’s promise to use the dictatorship of the proletariat to build a workers' paradise, to abortion depicted as a 'women’s health issue' and homosexual behavior justified as an 'alternative lifestyle,' evil always comes to humanity disguised as good. The results are just as invariably consistent - destruction, suffering and death. Beware the Serpent’s promises."
THE DEVIL'S DEATH WISH
The serpent has always promised everything and delivered nothing. Even Jesus, in a weakened state after a 40 day fast, understood that the devil had no intention of keeping his word after tempting Him with all that this world had to offer. He wanted Jesus to worship him so that God's plan of redemption would be negated and, as such, we would be still be 'dead' in our sins! Just as he lied to Eve, he secretly wants us all to die before we can take advantage of God's second chance. We ate the 'forbidden fruit' and we died. So God gave us another chance by making it possible to be 'born again.'
THE LORD'S LIFE WISH
God's plan is always life through multiplication. A million homosexual acts will not result in one offspring. What is being presented as 'life' today is really a culture of death. Each one of us is called to stand in the face of any opposition against God's plan and for righteousness. Why should we continue to be swayed by the serpent's false promises when we can put our full and absolute trust in God's word that He has conquered death and grants eternal life to all who would believe in Him.
"For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." (1 John 3:8)
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