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Tommy Wallen has just shared the latest episode to his show, Tommy's Sunday Seven, which the father of the country superstar releases every Sunday on 'Morgan Wallen Radio' via SiriusXM.
This week, the Tennessee native continues with the first book of the Bible, Genesis, as he dives into Chapter 3. He begins by quickly recapping the ending of last week's episode 11, and how he closed it by discussing Satan, or as Tommy blatantly puts it, "God's enemy."
He discusses the beginning of chapter 3 - Satan's first attack on humankind. When Adam and Eve were living in the Garden of Eden, as the preacher describes, Satan enters the garden in the form of a serpent, or by controlling one. He reads off Genesis 3:1, which describes his entrance. "He's more subtle than any other thing God has created."
Tommy marks the importance of the word 'subtle' in this verse before unpacking the rest, emphasizing how it is synonymous with words such as crafty or sly. He mentions Messianic Jewish theologian Arnold Fruchtenbaum for reference, stating his argument for linguistic word play in the Bible. Going into the Hebrew translation for the word subtle, Aruwm (aw-room), he draws the connection to Genesis 2:25, where the text states that Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed in the Garden, meaning they were oblivious to evil, but Satan's subtle first attack brought guilt and shame upon them, making them aware they were naked - or aware of evil.
Tommy states how Satan used this same word that describes his own slyness to conjure the feelings Adam and Eve would wrongfully have of their physical state - robbing them of their integrity. He describes the tarnishing of human innocence through his craftiness as the "first weapon formed against humanity," before he continues with the action that caused humanity's downfall - Satan's interaction with Eve.
Satan puts doubts in Eve's mind about God's spoken word to her, his power, and his intent with her and Adam through a singular, manipulative question: "Did God really say?" Relating this question back to current day, Tommy describes that this was the very beginning of the doubts humanity would have about the Bible for the rest of time, and how it is all the more reason to study God's word as much as possible.
"If he can get us to doubt God's word, then the next thing that happens is, we begin to doubt God's goodness," Tommy states.
He continues on with Genesis 3:2-5, reciting Eve's rebuttal to Satan, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die,'" and then Satan's reply, "You will not certainly die. For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
It is here that Satan deceives Eve into disobeying God and gets her to question his authority over herself and Adam.
"Rules without a relationship always leads to rebellion," Tommy offers as insight to Eve's disobedience, while adding that he personally believes the deception of Eve by Satan was an ongoing occurrence, attacking her over an extended period of time to get her to turn against God.
Tommy then relates his belief back to patterns in human nature today, stating that any time we fall short of God's will, it usually begins little by little, creating instances that occur over time to lead to one huge disobedient act, or acts, toward God. He encourages his listeners to form opinions and beliefs about biblical text on their own, though, explaining that he would never tell a listener what to think about something he cannot biblically prove.
The Tennessee preacher then cuts Adam into the story and says that the end result to Satan's unfortunate success here was Eve eating of the forbidden fruit, and then handing the fruit over to Adam to eat as well.
In previous episodes, Tommy has spoken about the correlation between Adam and Jesus, describing Jesus as "the new Adam." In this specific text, Adam was not deceived. Instead, he knew that Eve would die for eating the fruit, and chose to eat it as well, since he knew he would die too, and didn't want to live forever without her.
When Jesus sacrificed his life for humankind, Tommy describes, he did the same thing. He would rather die than live without his bride, humankind - so he gave himself up as sacrifice.
Tommy often finds ways to relate texts of the Old Testament back to the New, and the book of Genesis back to Jesus's salvation he graced humankind with through his great sacrifice. He specifically states that Jesus's efforts of coming down from heaven in the form of a sinless man and dying in humanity's place was something he didn't have to do - but he did it anyway because of his great love for us.
Tommy's Sunday Seven airs on 'Morgan Wallen Radio' via SiriusXM every Sunday. Next week, Tommy Wallen will continue his preaching with Episode 13, only on SiriusXM.
