SATAN APPEARS ON THE HUMAN STAGE. Genesis 3

Satan tempted Eve, the most beautiful creature in the perfect environment of the Garden of Eden, which did not exempt her from the gruesome ordeal.

He sought her while she enjoyed the attractive God-given womanhood. He was ‘cunning’ meaning crafty or prudent. This snake was a hissing creature, non-venomous before the fall. . Satan gave the serpent power to speak,, even as Balaam’s donkey warned him of his obstinacy.

Satan said to the woman, ‘Has God indeed said, ‘ You shall not eat from every tree of the garden.’ (v1) He affronted God’s spoken word, an unpardonable insult to a holy God. He implied that God was mean, robbing his creatures of their right to every tree. How utterly false, when the Lord loved them dearly. Remember just what the Lord said, ‘ From every tree of the garden you may freely eat. But from the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it, for in the day you eat the fruit of it you shall surely die. ( v17)

Our city streets and beaches are littered with syringes from heroin addicts. However, Satan first injected doubt , asking ’Has God said?’ He has used the same needle on millions of God’s dear children, contaminating them with distrust, as though stained with the serum of Hepatitis C or HIV . The enemy has not changed his destructive programme from the first assault on humans.

The woman spoke to the enemy, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden.’ ( v2 ) That is correct, if you exclude the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve’s grievous mistake was in talking with the enemy of God and man. She had no right to do so. Nor have we. Don’t discuss the serious eternal issues with one who is the antagonist of all that is pure and holy. Remember he is fallen, and cast out of heaven with one third of the angels which once lived in unspeakable beauty and glory around the throne. Eve chose fellowship wrongly.

Satan is malignant ( like a raging cancer ); he is destructive like a cyclone, and deceptive like the snake chosen as his mouth-piece. He sought to destroy Adam and Eve, God’s most beautiful creation. He introduced rebellion, defiance and chaos , demanding that 4000 years later the holy Son of the Highest should offer Himself at Calvary to destroy the works of the devil. ( small letter for the defeated foe ).

We must teach these truths of Genesis to show how sin was and is disastrous and only the almighty God could send a Deliverer. Many do not read these passages; nor are they often taught in home studies or from the pulpit. Yet they are foundational. They floodlight God’s entire Word . Salvation means much.

Eve confused herself in adding to God’s Word, ‘ Nor shall you touch it.’

God did not say so. Do you recall that Satan attacked our Lord Jesus in the wilderness, taking away from the Word of God, ‘in all your ways’ ( Psalm 91 ) . The devil mangled the unchangeable living word. Guard it!

Brazenly bold, the serpent said to the woman, ‘ You shall not surely die.’ And in doing so, he undermined the authority of the eternal word, implying that he had supremacy over the living God.. Whom would Eve believe; the loving Creator or the Usurper and Liar who sought to destroy her and all who followed her? Study these great realities to confirm our belief in His spoken Truth.

The serpent continued to patronise Eve, the beautiful wife God had brought to the lonely Adam, saying ‘God knows that in the day you eat it your eyes shall be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ ( v5 ) Satan presumed on the knowledge of the Omniscient ( ALL-KNOWING ) God. He suggested that God withheld their right from them. He belittled our great God, Who sought to protect His beloved children. The devil suggests to our teenagers their right to smoke pot ( marihuana) or cocaine or alcohol or have pre-marital sex so that they will be fulfilled. Utter rot! ‘Blessed are the pure. ‘ We parents pray, teach such Scripture and warn against every overture of this insidious enemy.

Satan was fallen from the heights of glory, plunging to the ruins of expulsion from Heaven, dragging angels with him. God rejected him for his pride. Now he wanted to spoil God’s creation of Eve and Adam. His authority was tattered.

What did he mean when he claimed ‘that your eyes will be opened"? When a beautiful young woman has spent a night on alcohol and has been sexually assaulted, her eyes have been opened. ‘Am I infected? Could I be pregnant?

When in 1945 man first dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the following morning the city was charred, devastated, and reduced to ashes. The devil promised that Eve’s eyes would be opened. Ruin stared her in the face.

In July 1998 a tidal wave surged on a village in Paua New Guinea, where many Allied soldiers had fought during the WW 11. It carried all before it , so that homes, schools and church were swept away. Relief was rushed for surgery, exposure, disease, hunger and thirst that followed. Our eyes ‘were opened’ when TV showed the extent of the disaster. This illustrated what the serpent falsely promised Eve, hiding the harmful outcome of a tidal wave of trickery.

I continue to illustrate this almost-forgotten historical calamity. On our visit to Sydney, one thousand miles ( 1600 Kms ), the windscreen of our VW shattered from a stone from a passing truck. I peered through a thousand jigsaws of glass. Some fine fragments hit us in the face as we continued driving. The rain on the shattered windscreen obscured our vision, slowing our progress to the city where it would be repaired. We protected our eyes from splinters of glass and wore waterproof coats to guard from driving rain. Eve’s experience tallied with our’s.

The deceiver added, ‘You shall be like God, knowing good and evil’ ( v5). Once the serpent had wanted to ascend into heaven above God and the stars of God and to be supreme. Therefore his fiendish strategy wooed Eve to go higher than the God Who created her. Read Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 to understand the devil’s original thrust for power, and his abject failure.

Surrender your total being to the loving God and Father of our Lord Jesus.

Please feel free to call Harrold on hgsteward@cobweb.com.au