Season 4 Podcast 111 “The Story of Creation, Genesis 1-3 Pt III”

Season 4 Podcast 111 “The Story of Creation, Genesis 1-3 Pt III”Now we move to Genesis Chapter Three.  We have already learned that the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil were planted in the garden, thus giving Adam and Eve a choice. Two things give mankind agency. One is choice, the other is enticement.  The choice is between good and evil; the enticement is between Christ and Satan. We learn from John the Revelator in the Book of Revelation that Lucifer was cast out of heaven.Revelation 12“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”This was during the Sixth Day of Creation, before Adam and Eve were formed in the flesh and the Garden of Eden became their home. Satan decided to continue his war against God on earth.  John records.Revelation 12“And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”Having lost the war in heaven, Satan’s first target on earth, of course, is Adam and Eve. The following is his account from Genesis 3 of his conversation with Eve. Eve is naive and does not recognize Satan for he appears to her as a serpent.“Now the serpent was more subtil 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?”We learn an extremely important lesson from this. On the one hand, I take literally the idea that Satan used the serpent and that it was no strange thing that the serpent could talk. We only understand the animals of our narrow world.  We have no clue of the extraordinary possibilities of all of God’s creations. On the other hand, some things have never changed. Satan uses man to be his voice which is very deceptive. It is only natural that he would use those who only pretend to be religious.It is also true that God uses man frequently to be his voice. From that we may conclude that man has the ability to speak his own mind, to listen to the promptings of God, or to follow the promptings of Satan. It is up to us to discern which spirit is at play, even in our own conversations. To do that we must be able to discern good from evil, God from Satan, as well as the philosophies of man which may pretend to be of God. The serpent is speaking the words of Lucifer.“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.”Satan, of course, speaks only half truths. He lies to Eve about not dying but tells the truth that she will be as the Gods knowing good and evil. Eve having lived in the Garden of Eden for who knows how long, would have understood little about death for she had no comparison. There was no death in the Garden of Eden. Death was certainly not something she would be terribly afraid of. Obviously she studies the fruit for a very long time, and this is probably not her first time contemplating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Notice her own reasoning.