Genesis 3:4-5 – 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.
.
One of the Devil’s most crafty arguments is the one that he used in the very beginning. When Adam and Eve fell, they fell from grace by falling for a clever deception that still catches us today.
Take a look at the verses above. The woman was tricked into thinking two things, both of which get us today. First, the serpent told her that, no matter what consequences God had threatened for her actions, they would surely not happen to her. She would not surely die. If the woman bought into that statement, she would have to assume that God was a liar, or that he was incapable of imposing the threatened punishment for defying his commands.
The other thing the woman believed is that God was not offering her the best. The serpent convinced the woman that God was holding out on her. Though she had knowledge of good already, she was missing out by not knowing about evil. The woman assumed that the higher good would not be for her to obey God, but for her to elevate her own intellect. And thus the human race was plunged into pain, sickness, suffering, murder, rape, racism, and all the rest of the greatest evils of the world.
When you think of the fall, recognize that you are still tempted today like the woman was years ago. When you sin, what are you thinking? You have to be thinking both that you will face no consequences for the wrong you do and that what you want to do is somehow better than what God offers you. Both are lies. Both are what the devil used in the garden. And, if we will learn to identify these evil thoughts that we get in our hearts as we make the decision whether or not to sin, perhaps we will see that we are in danger of falling into the same old destructive trap.
Pastor Travis Peterson 