Doubt and Lies


July 18, 2013

Temptation
Genesis 3:1-5
1Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

It does us well to read this passage of Scripture with regularity. We become used to the ways of Satan. He's so good at what he does that we tend to become complacent and immune to the fact that we are constantly being tempted by his cunning deceit. 

Notice that Satan only speaks twice. His first weapon is doubt. "Did God really say . . .?"  We all know about doubt. It stalks every single Christian like a shadow. "Will God actually answer my prayer?" "Does God actually love me?" "Can the stories from the Bible actually be true?" Those are just a few examples of the kinds of doubts that we all deal with daily. You can probably supply many of your own. If Satan can get us to doubt God's power and God's love, he wins.

(On a side note, notice that Eve tells Satan "You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die." If you go back to chapter two, you will see that God did not say that. He told them not to eat the fruit of that tree. He said nothing about touching it. For some reason, Eve feels the need to embellish. Always a bad idea.)

Satan's second comment goes straight for the kill. "You will surely not die. . . . You will be like God, knowing good from evil." Satan flat out lies. God told them that they would die, and that is exactly what happened. It took several hundred years for them to die, but they're not here today, so  . . . Yup, they died! It was a brutal consequence. But once the doubt had been cast, it was easy to take the next step and believe that God might be a liar as well. Satan was right about one thing - they did indeed learn about good and evil. It was a terrible thing to learn. 

We need to read these verses often because the remind us of the way of Satan. He hasn't changed his tricks since the fall of Adam and Eve. His best weapons are still doubt and lies. Our best defense - a close personal relationship with the Living God and a solid knowledge of His Word. These always hold you in good stead when the evil one tries to whisper in your ear.

Comments

  1. Thank you, Carolyn, for these great reminders on how to fight the devil.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Excusez-moi

יהוה שָׁמַר--Yahweh Shamar (God Watches)

Narrow Door