The prosecutor or defense attorney will fire questions at the defendant or witness, starting off with mild questions, then increasing the severity of the question until they reach the more complicated questions that will either prove one guilty or guiltless. You might be totally innocent, yet by crafty, calculated questioning, they follow a pattern until they shoot the intended question to prove their case. How you answer that question will determine your guilt or innocence before the judge. The tempter in Genesis chapter three followed such an approach. Please read:
Ge 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 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.’” 4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 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.” 6 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. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
1) A denial of Truth. As we saw yesterday, by putting the question … “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” … The intention was to cause doubt. Force the woman to question what she knew about how her husband relayed God’s instruction to her. This drew an answer that was not totally accurate in its entirety:
Ge 3:2 “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 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.’”
This initial question solicited the type of answer he desired, enabling him to fire an unfair and deceitful response that is a total denial of the Truth of God. He said:
Ge 3:4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.
God said … “You shall die”. The tempter said … “You will surely not die.” He is so much the father of lies that he tries to imply God is a liar. Every attack on the Christian God and His Church (Kingdom) centers on an attack on the Word of God. Take the Jehovah Witness sect. By them changing one aspect of a word in the Greek, they lead people to read their Scriptures which proves Jesus is not God and if He is not God there is no Trinity. The Bible says:
Jn 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Their translation says:
Jn 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was a god, and the Word was God.
Jehovah Witness translation
In performing this assassination on the Word of God they have lead millions of people worldwide to view Jesus Christ, God the Son as a lesser god. Not only does this create a plurality of gods with one God over these gods, it denies every Christian Doctrine about Jesus as God incarnate, born of a virgin, living a sinless life, dying and rising substitutionally in the place of believing sinners. They do the exact same with the Holy Spirit. They say He is just a force, yet we read:
Ac 20:28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.
How can the Holy Spirit be a “force” if He makes overseers? And then to add Paul’s words as recorded by Luke … Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. If Jesus was not God (note the capital G), whose blood was shed? There are many other examples that can be used about this sect as well as many others, but this is suffice to alert us to how the enemy of God seeks to deny the Truth God speaks and make it seem as though He speaks other words. Over and over we are warned in the Gospels and in the Pastoral Letters to be on our guard. As subtle, cunning and deceitful as the devil was through the serpent with Eve, he is still today.
2) A denial that God is good. Make no error, both Adam and Eve knew what we know about Genesis chapters one and two. I would even venture to say they knew far more than we know about the whole of creation and then God honing in on the making of man, giving him authority to work the Garden, name the animals, making the woman and him then naming the woman. They knew that what God created was “very good” because the Creator Himself was “very good.” What the devil now shoots at the woman, after causing doubt and a denial of God’s Truth (Word) is to have her deny God is good!
Ge 3:5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
In other words, he is telling her that God cannot be good because if He was, He would not withhold the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from them. Surely if they were God’s most precious possession once creation was completed, God would permit them to access everything He had access to! He is saying that God wants to limit them by “keeping their “eyes” closed to certain realities. What would these eye be? Paul, under inspiration used the term “eyes of your heart”.
Eph 1:18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe.
The way Paul used this concept was for a deeper understanding of the hope we have in Christ. That is, the hope of salvation IN Christ and the hope we now have because Jesus saves us from the world, the flesh and the devil! Yet this was only possible after God’s salvific plan materialized! The devil knew that once the woman (and the man’s) eyes of their hearts were opened, knowing the difference between good and evil, they would have sinned and sin is hated by God. Objective achieved. The devil through the serpent injures man spiritually and the race he represents as substitute would be equally injured spiritually.
But there is another angle here … with their eyes opened they would be like God … knowing good and evil. That’s the carrot! “Would be like God” in wisdom and knowledge! Go and eat and you shall see you will be like God in knowledge! Naturally this is another lie! There are many cults that delve into the supernatural … into the spirit world. In doing so, they become more and more possessed by the devil. They want to know what is forbidden to man. The sadness is that what they are exposed to is demonic and not good and helpful. God has given His people His Word to live by. All we need to know for this life and to prepare for eternity is within His Word. He says clearly:
Dt 29:29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
Father, we do not know how we would have stood up to the devil in the Garden if it was us being tempted. We too might well have followed the logic presented. Thank You that we are living on this side of the Cross, having access to Your complete Word. Help us to use it in our preparations for life and for eternity. Amen.