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Cheap Imitations

French author Guy [rhymes with “key”] de Maupassant wrote a story in the 1800s about a woman who borrowed a diamond necklace to wear at a fancy party. After the party ended, she had lost the necklace. She and her husband found another one, just like it, but it cost 36,000 francs--an incredible amount of money back then and far more than this poor couple could afford. Having no choice, they borrowed the money and replaced the necklace, never telling the owner what had happened.

The couple then endured ten hard and bitter years of privation, working themselves into mental and physical ruin in order to pay back the loan.

In the last part of de Maupassant’s tale, the woman who had lost the necklace, Mathilde Loisel, met the one she had borrowed it from a decade earlier, Madame Forestier, who was very surprised at how bad Mathilde looked. Mathilde then told her the whole sad story of what had happened and how they had ruined their lives in order to get the necklace replaced. Madame Forestier looked at her and said, incredulously:

"You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?"

"Yes. You hadn't noticed it? They were very much alike."

Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred francs! . . . "

Ouch! Tell me that’s not horrific! Ruining your life, selling your soul--for nothing, for a cheap imitation!

And yet, friend, I think that’s more common than most of us realize. Sad to say, people are doing this same thing all the time!

We began our series yesterday by looking at the fall of Lucifer, a fall which led to a war in heaven: “And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer” (Revelation 12:7, 8, NKJV).

According to the Scriptures, however, that war didn’t end there.

“So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:9, NKJV).

Cast out of heaven, Satan came to earth and is continuing his war here, only now against us. “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath” (Revelation 12:12 NKJV).

And, as we’ll see, it was through the same kind of principle revealed in the de Maupassant story-- that of getting humans to sell themselves for a lie--that Satan was able to get his foothold here on earth and wage his war against us. And he’s waging that war against us in the same way, today—getting us to sell our souls for cheap imitations.

Keep listening; you’ll see what I mean.

Let’s begin back in the Genesis account of Adam and Eve, in Eden, because this is the first example what we saw in Maupassant’s story being expressed on earth, and that is of people selling themselves for a lie, for a cheap imitation.

Now, according to the Bible, when God created the world, it was “very good” (Genesis 1:31 NKJV). This means, I believe, that there was no death, no sickness, no famines, no earthquakes or diseases. At the same time, the first human beings Adam and Eve were made “in the image of God” (Gen 1:27, NKJV). As hard as it might be for us to imagine, they were perfect beings, sinless beings in a perfect world. Though I have been to many beautiful places, such as [Lonnie’s favorite], I’m sure it’s just a faint hint of what it must have been in Eden itself.

Adam and Eve were also given various instructions on how to live in this paradise. Amid all this natural luxury, one command was very specific: “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2: 16, 17, NIV) for it they did, they would die. They could eat of everything else, but not that tree.

Now, there has been endless speculation about what “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” meant--and who knows? Scripture doesn’t say. Because, as we saw, the world they lived in was already “very good,” Adam and Eve probably already knew “good.” It wasn’t, I believe, God’s intention for them to know “evil.”

In fact, maybe there wasn’t anything inherently evil in the fruit of the tree itself; instead, maybe the evil would come if they disobeyed God’s command to eat of it. In other words, the evil wasn’t in the tree itself. The evil was in disobeying a command of God.

Notice something else with me too. Adam and Eve were free beings; they had moral freedom. How do I know that? Well, it’s easy. Why would God have warned them about eating from the tree if they didn’t have the freedom to do it in the first place? Why warn them against doing what they couldn’t possibly do? Why would mother tell little Johnny before he goes out to play, “Now, Johnny, I don’t want you going to the moon today”?

Thus we have free moral beings living in a paradise.

Then--what happens? The serpent appears, and tempts the woman to eat of the tree. Who is the serpent? As we’ve read before, it’s Satan, who had been cast out of heaven: “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.”

And he starts that deception with the woman. Look at what he did. After she clearly explains that God forbade them to eat of the tree, lest they die, Satan says to her: “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" (Gen 3:4, 5, NKJV).

God said, don’t eat of the tree; Satan says, you can eat of it. A direct challenge to the command of God Himself. As black and white as black and white can be. It’s one authority or the other. Period!

Notice, too, Satan tells her that if she eats of it, “you will be like God.” Well, first of all, she already was “like God” in the sense that she and her husband were made “in the image of God.” He was trying to trick her here. Also, this is interesting in light of what we saw yesterday about the fall of Lucifer. He was a mighty angel, had so much already, and yet it wasn’t enough. He wanted to be “like the Most High.” He wanted to be like God. And now here in Eden, with Eve, he played that same card against her that tripped him up.

And how does she respond?

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it” (Gen 3:6, NIV).

There you have it. Just like that. Boom! The fall of the human race. The great controversy that began in heaven now has foothold on earth. Having so much already, having everything they could ever want, they nevertheless fell for Satan’s ploy, fell for a cheap imitation, fell for a promise that turned out to be a lie.

The fruit of the tree seemed good for food, was pleasing to the eye, was full of promise--yet what happened? It led to ruin because it was taken in direct contradiction to God’s command.

It’s as plain and as simple as that. How easy for any of us, in direct contradiction to God’s Word, to go after things simply because they look good, because they are pleasing to the eye, because they are full of “promise”--only to find in the end we have been duped, lured by cheap imitations that lead only to bitterness, pain, and ruin. It’s been a hard lesson for us to learn, wouldn’t you say?

Sex, drugs, the lure of fame, of money, of power, of ambition. How often do people sell their souls, ruining their lives and the lives of their loved ones, all from chasing after things that, just like that tree in the Garden of Eden, look so good, so pleasing, so full of promise and yet turned out to be not so good, not so pleasing, not so full of promise after all?

Please. I’ve seen countless live ruined for things just as worthless as that cheap necklace Mathilde Loisel and her husband ruined their lives over in de Maupassant’s story.

Friends, here is the essence of the great controversy, a battle that’s being waged in the heart of everyone one of us. Yes, we are all in this battle, this battle for our hearts and minds. On one side is Jesus Christ, and His promise of not only a new life here, but of eternal life in a new Eden, a new paradise.

But on the other side is Satan, the serpent, and all his promises here, promises that might look good on the surface because--like the tree of knowledge of good and evil—they’re right here, before our eyes, glittering. Yet in the end they are hollow lies that lead only to ruin, to death, and to eternal loss.

The great controversy is real. We can see it all around us; indeed, we can often feel it raging in our own hearts. But there’s good news because, though the war is real, the outcome has already been decided. Yes, the victory has been won—a victory won for you! For each of us, actually.

How often have you been in a struggle where you know, beforehand who the winner is? Well, that’s the hopeful things in this great controversy. Good wins, good triumphs, and evil will forever be eradicated. We know that beforehand!

And the great news is you can, right now, share in this victory, the victory that Jesus won against Satan, for you, at the cross. We’ll look at that later in our series. Tomorrow, though, we are going to continue to examine this great controversy, and how it’s being played out here on earth.