How Do We Not Bite When Satan Says Bite?

The devil is very crafty. He usually gives us a half-baked story, so he can worm his way into our lives. This devotion will examine Satan’s conversation with Eve during the original sin.

Nuggets

Satan is the master of deception, so what he told Eve was part truth and part lie.
Satan loves to twist God’s Word around.
We each have to make our own decisions to obey God.
Satan will do everything in his power to get us to disobey God.

Now, God had told Adam he couldn’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for he would die if he did (Gen. 2: 16-17). (Eve hadn’t been formed yet. We are going on the assumption that God repeated this to her, so she didn’t get it second-handed from Adam. Otherwise, it may have been the first game of Telephone.)

Satan Said Bite, and Eve Bit

"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die'" (Gen. 2: 16-17 ESV)

Satan is the master of deception, so what he told Eve was part truth and part lie.

In his conversation with Eve, Satan removed the restriction of not eating of one of the trees. He contended that every tree in the garden could be used for food.

Why did Satan do that? You would think he was setting God up to be seen as benevolent.

Quite the opposite. Satan was pointing out the restriction.

And, don’t we humans hate being restricted! We like to have all the options available to us, thank you very much. Better yet, we like to be the ones making the decisions.

Eve countered by telling Satan they couldn’t touch the tree. Now, that was going to the extreme. God didn’t say anything about touching. He just put the restriction on eating (Gen. 2: 16-17).

Don’t we do that sometimes? We try to make sure we don’t come anywhere near the temptation, so we set the conditions way up to ensure we leave ourselves some wiggle room. (Is that kind of like telling someone the meeting is at 6:30 so they make sure they get there by the actual 7:00 start time?)

We try to make the temptation so off limits to ensure we totally avoid it. But it usually backfires on us. That ends up making whatever the temptation is more appealing.

Sad, isn’t it? We want to do what is right, but we set ourselves up for failure. We build its importance and attractiveness up in our minds so that we absolutely have to bite.

Satan Called God a Liar

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3: 5 ESV)

Satan loves to twist God’s Word around.

But Satan wasn’t done yet. He put words into God’s mouth. Satan said God didn’t mean Eve would stop breathing and fall down dead. Instead, Satan clarified it to say that God meant that “…. you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3: 5 ESV).

What God was talking about was the fact that man would die spiritually. Their relationship would suffer the death of the perfectness.

Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.

The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.

Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.

Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.

The ABCDs of Salvation

If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.

A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord

D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us

The Disciple’s Job Description

Glossary

I wonder how much Eve really understood what death meant – nothing had died yet. She might have had a preschooler’s understanding of death.

Death was probably just a concept that was out there somewhere. God may have explained the concept, but until some of us experience something, He might as well be talking a different language.

It is kind of like the people had no concept of what rain was when Noah was building the ark. It hadn’t rained yet (Gen. 2: 5), so the threat posed by the restriction didn’t really appear to be a threat.

But the threat was real. And Eve gave into it.

Eve Said Bite, and Adam Bit

We each have to make our own decisions to obey God.

Once Eve took the bite and nothing really happened, it made it look like Satan was telling the truth and God was lying. She didn’t fall down dead. She kept right on breathing.

Eve must have thought the apple tasted okay, so she gave it to Adam to eat. There is no indication that Adam questioned her decision or what she was telling him to do. He chowed down.

And so, they died a spiritual death.

The Real Story

Satan will do everything in his power to get us to disobey God.

The thing is, Satan did have some truth mixed in to the story. Genesis 3: 22 says, “…Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil ….” (ESV emphasis added). So, Satan was really telling the truth in Genesis 3: 5.

Satan is going to use scripture, tell us half-truths, not explain things fully, flat out lie – anything – to get us to sin against God. He will use whatever it take to make his story more attractive to us.

As believers, we belong to God. We no longer belong to Satan.

Satan is going to use everything in his power to wreck our witness and try to get us to turn away from God. We have to stand firm.

How Do We Apply That?

We really have to be careful when we are tempted. We have to combat Satan’s truths and lies by doing what God has told us and is telling us to do. That is, we have to obey.

One of the best ways to ensure we are strong enough to withstand any assault Satan fires at us is to grow our relationship with God. If we know what God has said in His Word, we can use it to combat Satan.

We know that Satan knows the Bible. Luke 4: 10-11 gives us Satan quoting scripture to Jesus.

We know it wasn’t because Satan thought Jesus didn’t know it. It was because Satan was trying to twist things around to his benefit. Jesus countered with scripture of His own.

Another confession time – I have never been good at memorizing scripture. Put it to music, and I am good. Say it straight, not so much.

I wish I could quote scripture back at Satan, but I did something (I think) that was just as good. I keep saying that Satan could throw whatever he wanted at me – I was not going to deny my God.

I stated over and over again that I was going to remain true to the One True God. I kept telling Satan that I was not going to bite.

Yep, that was my choice. Because that was what it was, wasn’t it? Eve had a choice. Adam had a choice. They chose wrong.

I have a choice. You have a choice. How can we fortify ourselves so that we make the right choice?

We have to make sure our relationship with God is strong so that we can withstand the onslaught that Satan will bring. And make no mistake about it – he will bring it. We have to be prepared to withstand it.

Gracious Lord. Help us to see through Satan’s lies and his twisting of the truth to his advantage. Help us to not add to or detract from your instructions. Give us strength to stand up to him. Help us to keep our focus on You. Amen.

What do you think?

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