Tag: Garden of Eden

What is the Deceitfulness of Sin?

The writer of the Book of Hebrews in the Bible warns us of the following:

Take care, brothers and sisters, that there will not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another every day, as long as it is still called “today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.  Hebrews 3:12-13

Drawing from the history of the Jewish people, the writer exhorts us not to be like those who had unbelieving hearts, fell away from the living God and died in the wilderness.

The Holy Spirit is speaking through the writer to warn us about our heart [our inner man- who we truly are] becoming hard [unbelieving] toward God and His Word [the Bible] because of the deceitfulness of sin.

What is this that hardens our heart toward God? How does our old sinful nature deceive us into believing it is better to obey our evil cravings instead of obeying God? Here is how:

Offers False Promises of Pleasure – sin acts as bait, dangling immediate, fleeting satisfaction or gain while hiding the inevitable pain and ruin it produces. Sin will cost you more than you’re willing to pay and sin will keep you longer than you’re willing to stay.

Progressive Hardening of the Heart – sin dulls spiritual sensitivity over time, moving a person toward apathy, disobedience, and an inability to recognize evil.

Self-Deception – The Bible warns that our own hearts are deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), prompting us to rationalize wrongful behavior and believe we can escape consequences. Our sin flatters us in our heart into believing we are “special” and “different”. We lose any fear of God we once had.

Distortion of Truth – Sin mask itself as wisdom or enlightenment, just as it did in the Garden of Eden, causing us to doubt God’s word. It makes us forget that God said you would reap what you sow.

Misleading About God – It makes God’s commands seem unreasonable or restrictive, trying to make us believe that God is against our best interests.

Did you recognize any of sins tactics? Unfortunately, I recognize them all. They have tricked me at times into forsaking church attendance, not reading/studying my Bible, not praying, being prideful and arrogant, thinking I’m special when I was just sinful, not loving my fellow Christian and the unbeliever, being consumed with my agenda and not God’s, lying, lusting, rebellious, unloving, stubborn….and we could go on all day.

What should we do if we find ourselves with a hard, unbelieving heart today? We need to confess our sins and pride to God the Father. He already knows them and they are not a surprise to Him. He has promised the following:

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. I John 2: 1-2

and

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9

In Proverbs there is a Scripture that says a righteous man falls seven times but he always gets back up. So lets all get back up, turn from and confess our sins, receive God’s forgiveness, believe God’s Word, live smarter by the power of the Holy Spirit and go do the good works God saved us to do. Be a blessing to someone.

May He richly bless you in your obedience.

Carl

Satellite Imagery & The Garden of Eden

…. there are currently no archaeological data for the garden of Eden. However, scholars have attempted to deduce its location from the evidence in the biblical account, which names four rivers associated with the river flowing through Eden (Genesis 2: 10-14).

Two of those rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, are presumed to be the same as those known to us today, as is the location of the country (Assyria) identified with the Tigris. The identity of the other two is less certain. One, the Pishon, is said to wind through the land of Havilah, where there is gold, aromatic resin, and onyx. The other is the Gihon, said to flow through the land of Cush.

Many different locations for these rivers and of Eden have been proposed. Astronomer Hughes Ross has made a suggestion informed by satellite imagery:

“The details here point in the direction of the Hejaz, a mountainous region in the west central part of Saudi Arabia. This 6,000-foot range contains the only known source of workable gold in the region. The land of Cush has long been identified with Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Given that the Bab el Mandeb strait and much of the Red Sea were dry near the end of the last ice age (between 20,000 and 7,000 BC), Cush would have included the mountains in Arabia’s southwest corner…. Satellite imagery reveals the dry beds of two major rivers that once flowed from west-central and southwestern Arabia into the Persian Gulf region. (Ross, NG, 97-8)”

Ross notes that the one location where these two rivers could come together with the Tigris and Euphrates is in the Persian Gulf region.  (Ross, NG, 99) Archaeological finds on the northern coast of the Arabian Peninsula and on islands in the Persian Gulf, notably the island of al-Bahrain, are associated with the ancient kingdom of Dilmun*. (Britannica, s. v. “Dilmun”) Interestingly, ANE** literature refers to the land of Dilmun as an ancient paradise reminiscent of Eden.  (Arnold and Bayer, RANE, 15-19)

Josh McDowell & Sean McDowell, Evidence That Demands A Verdict (Thomas Nelson, 2017) pp. 438-439

This side of heaven, we will never know exactly where the Garden of Eden was located. But the Lord and you can turn your heart into a paradise as you walk with Him through this world. And when you exit this life, He is going to take you to Paradise to be with Him forever.

Carl

** Dilmun: Sumerian name of an ancient independent kingdom that flourished c. 2000 BCE, centred on Bahrain Island in the Persian Gulf. Dilmun is mentioned as a commercial centre in Sumerian economic texts of the late 4th millennium BCE, when it was a transshipment point for goods between Sumer and the Indus Valley. Copper and a variety of other goods, including stone beads, precious stones, pearls, dates, and vegetables, were shipped to Sumer and Babylonia in return for agricultural products. (Britannica)

**Ancient Near East literature