The killer in our midst (Part 2)
Most Christians don’t truly understand how devilishly persuasive Satan can be. We
don’t realize that he’s constantly whispering to us his thoughts, desires and dreams for
our lives. He has one goal: to lure us away from serving God. And the more we listen
the more we start to believe his thoughts, desires and dreams are really our own.
What we fail to grasp is that the whisperer is the same created being whose lies about
God and His goodness were so persuasive that one-third of the angels believed them
and turned their backs on Him. We underestimate him. No one lies better than Satan
(John 8:44). But what makes him so deadly? His lies are pleasing to the hearers.
But we don’t “hear” the lies.
When the whisperer “talks to us” he tells us what we want to hear. “God wants you to be
happy.” “God wants you to be rich.” “You are a child of the king. You should live like
one.” “You should have this and you should have that, etc. etc.” “Go ahead and do it.
What will it hurt?” When he whispers, his focus is to fulfill the lusts of the flesh in our lives.
Satan, the killer, is exposed.
“Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices”
(2 Corinthians 2:11).
As children of God, we have the capability of seeing through the
darkness as Satan attempts to seduce us. The more “light” we put on (Psalm 119:105)
the more we’ll see his attempts to lead us astray for what they truly are -- feeble.
(Sidebar: Although the point I’m making is appropriate, when 2 Corinthians 2:11 is read in
context, the subject is our willingness to forgive someone who has wronged us [see verses 7-10].
Holding unforgiveness gives Satan access to our lives and he will use that access to separate us
from our Heavenly Father for all eternity.)
This brings us to Genesis 3.
God exposes the killer in our midst in the very first book of the bible. It’s that important
to Him. He wants our eyes to be wide open to his true nature (2 Corinthians 11:14) and
what he does to tempt us, deceive us and ultimately cause our spiritual destruction.
What the Genesis account teaches us is critical: Satan can only seduce us if we are
seducible. And we make ourselves seducible when we – now listen to me – don’t treat
God’s Word as the final authority for truth in our lives.
Satan plants the seed of doubt.
“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?” (Genesis 3:1)
Satan is not a serpent. The serpent is an analogy to show us how he operates. But why a
serpent? A serpent does not have arms or legs. Satan can’t grab us or push us or force us do
anything that we don’t want to do. And this is what we see in this first verse. Satan has
to get us to agree with him so that we will do what he can’t – cause our own destruction.
So the first thing he does is ask a question.
No big deal. It’s only a question. And this is exactly what Satan wants us to believe. He
asks the question for one reason – to see if Eve is willing to consider it. If she doesn’t, it’s
game over for him. If she does, it’s game over for her. Either way, it’s game over.
Satan slowly weaves his tapestry of doubt, lies and deceit. “Eve, did you really hear
from God?” he asks. “Is it possible that what you heard is not what He actually said?”
he says with a sly smile. “You know God’s ways are higher than ours. Who can truly
understand Him? So, Eve is it possible,” as he watches her expression change, “that
maybe, just maybe you misunderstood what God said?”
Satan wants Eve to believe that what God says He does not mean. (You may want to read that
again.) He has not changed. He wants us – the body of Christ – to believe that God’s
Word changes with the times and evolves with the needs of society. It does not. The
bible says “For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89).
Eve blinks first.
“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” (verses 2 and 3)
Eve does what Satan hopes and more. She tells him the only thing that he needs to
know to ruin her: how she interpreted – understood – what the Lord God had said. At that
moment Satan knew Eve was not in agreement with Him. Game over.
Now let’s see what God really said. “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die” (Genesis 2:16, 17).
Do you see the areas of discrepancy?
God was very specific in His commandment but Eve’s response left the door open for
“wiggle room.” Many Christians are like Eve. We want God to be “our God” instead of
us being “His children.” When that happens, we open the door for Satan to do in our
lives what he does best – steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10).
Eve’s answer to the serpent’s question is a key lesson for the body of Christ.
*She changed God’s commandment into a statement to be considered. When God
“commanded the man” not to eat of the tree He was giving him, to use a military
analogy, a direct order.
But Eve didn’t see it that way. For her, it was “God hath said” – an instruction to be
considered. Again, most Christians are like Eve. God’s Word is not absolute for
them. It is merely something to be considered.
*She was not in full agreement with everything God had said. God said she could eat of
every tree freely except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve said she
couldn’t eat of the tree in the midst of the garden.
Contrast this to what Jesus says in John 12:49. “For I have not spoken of myself; but
the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what
I should speak.” When the Father gave Jesus a commandment obeyed. Jesus is our
pattern for living a victorious life. He just shared one of his secrets!
*She added “her understanding” to God’s commandment. She said “Neither shall ye touch
it.” On the surface that sounds good. But if God didn’t say it, then it doesn’t matter
how good something sounds does it? (Deuteronomy 4:2) But all too often we find
ourselves doing just that – adding to God’s Word to make it easier to live by. What
we are truly doing is living by a lie. God cannot join Himself to a lie. He can only anoint
and bless His Word (Isaiah 55:11).
*She changed God’s Word from an absolute to a possibility. This is big, really big. God
said the very day that you eat of the tree “thou shalt surely die”. Eve said “lest ye
die”.
Most Christians have great difficulty with absolutes. For them, God’s Word is only a
guide for how they are to live; it’s not the standard. For them, when, where, how
and to what degree God’s Word holds a place in their lives is dependent upon the
situation and the people involved. But God’s Word is not flexible. It never has been.
It never will be. (Psalm 119:89)
This is what I want you to see.
God’s Word, was not in Eve’s heart. David wrote in Psalm 119:11— “Thy word have I
hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” Satan counts on Christians not
having God’s Word hidden in their hearts. He knows that without God’s Word in our
hearts, he can defeat us. And God shows us this in the very first book of the bible.
Satan’s lies sound so good.
“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” (verses 4 and 5).
I wonder how long it took Satan to convince Eve to believe him when he said “God lied
to you about what would happen if you ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil?” My point: Satan took as much time as he needed to ruin her. And he’s more than
willing to take all the time he needs to ruin us.
Notice what Satan tells Eve. “God doesn’t want you to eat of the tree because it will
hurt you. Oh no. He doesn’t want you to eat of the tree because you will become just
like Him.”
Eve was already “like” God. She just wasn’t deity. “And God said, Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness ... So God created man in his image, in the image of God
created he him, male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:26a, 27). Eve already had
God’s nature. She didn’t need to do anything else to be like Him and neither do we!
Genesis 3 is really a message about faith.
“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” (verse 6).
Eve believed what she saw more than what God had said. Let it sink in.
As I said earlier, Satan had been talking to Eve – whispering in her ear – for quite some
time so much so that she began to see things the way he saw them. Satan convinces Eve to
give in to “the lust (an intense and strong desire) of the eyes” (I John 2:16) rather than
live by the “word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
Satan is a sly one. Notice that he did not directly open the door of disobedience to Eve.
He simply walked her all the way up to it. The choice to sin was Eve’s decision.
Adam was not deceived.
Did you see what the verse says about Adam? He was “with her”. First Timothy 2:14
tells us plainly that Satan did not deceive Adam. “And Adam was not deceived, but the
woman being deceived was in the transgression.” Eve “having been seduced by deceit”
(according to the Greek) was in “transgression.” This simply means that she went
beyond God’s commandment. She allowed what God did not allow.
God held Adam responsible for Eve’s transgression because He had given him charge
over the garden (Genesis 2:15, the word “keep” means “to guard”). God also gave
Adam the commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and
he was to give that commandment to Eve.
“And unto Adam he said, Because thou has hearkened unto the voice of thy wife
(instead of obeying My Word), and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee,
saying, Thou shalt not eat of it ...” (verse 17).
We know how this record ends. The serpent is punished. Eve is punished. Adam is
punished. All three are banished from the garden, which is to this day guarded by
Cherubims and a flaming sword (verse 24).
What can we learn from this account in Genesis?
*Satan always tries to get us to doubt God and what He has said in His Word. We
have to decide to take God at His Word and live by faith. When we have doubt, we
do not have faith.
*Don’t give Satan an ear. That’s the first mistake many of us make. We listen to
what he says. Stop it! In fact, when he starts whispering in our ears, we must
start worshiping God in his!
*God is not holding back on us. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered
him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”
(Romans 8:32).
*Satan will take us by hand and lead us all the way to the point of disobedience.
That’s all he can do. We are the ones who must make the choice to sin.
God’s Word is our guarantee of victory against everything Satan can and will put in our
paths. The key is to always let God’s Word be our first response in all situations. And in
order for that to happen, it has to be hidden in our hearts (Psalm 119:11).
Always, always, always let the Word of God be your foundation and your source of joy and
your reason for rejoicing!
