[02]
V
Indicates Scripture or other reference inserted at the end
of this chapter.
Chapter
2 The enemy who stands between
you and the
God who loves you.
And he
(the devil) said unto the
woman, “Yea, hath God
said....?”
Genesis 3:1b
Before
God created this universe
that we can see, He created a vast and everlasting domain
in the heavens. It is a spiritual domain that
cannot be seen, heard, touched, or even understood by our
natural senses. This heavenly domain is populated by
legions of cherubim, seraphim, and other orders of angels.
And the highest-ranking of these angelic beings was once
called Lucifer – “the shining one.”
No other created being could
worship God more wonderfully than Lucifer. This “shining
one” could praise his Creator in song, in music, and by
casting all of his created beauty down at God’s feet. But
Lucifer did not worship God in his heart. He
thought he was “too good” to be under anyone else, even
his Creator. And to get “out from under,” Lucifer rebelled
against God, and convinced one-third of the heavenly host
to follow him into rebellion. Here is the way God’s
prophet Isaiah describes Lucifer’s act of original sin:
How art thou fallen from
heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut
down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For
thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of
God: I will sit also upon the mount of the
congregation, in the sides of the north: I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be
like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to
hell, to the sides of the pit.
Isaiah 14:12-15
“I will!”
said the rebel, as he rose up defiantly against the Lord
God Almighty. “I will do whatever I want; and I
will do it my way!” Five times Lucifer said “I
will!”; and then God slapped him down, changed his
name to Satan – “the enemy of God” – and threw him and all
his followers out of Heaven. And, at the end of time, the
Book of Revelation assures us,‘they shall be
brought down to hell”:
And I
saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the
bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid
hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil,
and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him
into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal
upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till
the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he
must be loosed a little season.
Revelation 20:1-3
Yes, Satan was cast out
of Heaven before the beginning of time. And yes, he surely will be cast into hell at the end of time. But
during this period we call “time,” Satan is right here
on earth, “weakening the nations,” pulling the same tricks
he tried to pull in Heaven – trying to get people to
worship him instead of God.
Satan’s original act of sin
in this world is described in the book of Genesis,
chapter three:
Now the
serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field
which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree
of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may
eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye
touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the
woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that
in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And
when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and
that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired
to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did
eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did
eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew
that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together,
and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of
the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day:
and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of
the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
Genesis 3:1-8
The serpent began by subtly
challenging God’s Word: “Yea, hath God said....?”
At that point, Eve could have silenced the serpent – once
and for good – simply by saying, “Yes; God did say
to my husband, ‘But of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day
that you eat thereof you shalt surely die.’ That
is the Word of God, Mr. Serpent, and I’m not going to
argue with you over it, I’m just going to obey
it. And if you have any problem with it, you can just do
what my husband and I would do – take it up with God!”
But Eve did not say that. Maybe
she thought the Word of God wasn’t strong enough in its
own right; after all, this lowly serpent had the nerve to
challenge it. So she “did God a favor.” She tried to
“strengthen” God’s simple command by adding the words:
“Neither shall ye touch it.”
That was all the opportunity
God’s enemy needed. The moment he saw that Eve could not
trust the bare Word of God, he went on to challenge God
Himself. He said, “Ye shall not surely die: For God
doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes
shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and
evil.”
Subtle! Satan did not tell Eve
that she (and her descendants) would be like the living
God, who created every good thing out of the love in His
heart. He told her that they would know good and evil
– not that they would be good or even have the desire
to do good. Satan – who is called “the god of this
world” in 2nd Corinthians 4:4V1
– actually prophesied to the mother of all man-kind,
“If you disobey God now, then you, and all of your
descendants, will be just like me. If you fail to
worship God through your obedience now, then you and
your husband will spend the rest of your lives – and your
descendants will spend the rest of time – worshiping me.”
God had given Eve a loving heart
and a trusting soul; but He had not given her a subtle mind
that could deal with the serpent’s trickery. And so Eve
fell. The Bible tells us, “And when the woman saw that
the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the
eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of
the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her
husband with her; and he did eat.”
And then the serpent’s horrible
prophecy came to pass. The moment Adam and Eve dis-obeyed
God, they knew good and evil, just as the serpent
said they would ... and they knew they were evil in the
sight of God. The Bible says: “Adam and his wife hid
themselves from the pres-ence of the Lord God amongst the
trees of the garden.” God’s children had passed from
purity into sin ... they had become the spiritual children
of Satan ... and they knew it!
What they did not know – even
when they saw their son Cain murder his brother Abel – is
that the serpent’s sin had come into their spiritual
DNA. Every one of their descendants came into this world
with an inborn sin-nature. Cain lived a slave to sin. Abel
died resisting sin. And all of us would surely be destroyed
by sin – if it weren’t for the mercy of our loving God!
V1
2nd Corinthians 4:3,4
But if our gospel be hid, it
is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this
world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not,
lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the
image of God, should shine unto them.
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