Daniel Bishop
We look to Jesus and we remember what He has done on the Cross for you and for me. Because, beloved, He’s the lover of our soul.
It was our sin, it was your sin that held Him there, and He did it because He first loved us.
In Satan’s direct challenge, he tries to get Eve to doubt the goodness of God. If God lies to her, how can He be good?
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Genesis 3.4-6
Satan’s direct challenge tries to get Eve to doubt the ‘badness’ of sin. If the fruit is something good for her, why can’t we have it?
Satan wants us to see sin as something that is good: it looks good, it will make you wise, it feels good.
Love is Love; we’ve heard those phrases haven’t we? Jeremiah 17.9 says,
9 “The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it? 10 I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.
So, Satan says,
4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3.4-6
Satan’s Temptation was all the more powerful because it would allow Adam and Eve’s eyes and heart to be open, to see their own sin and their own rebellion.
… you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3.4-6
Beloved, Satan tempts her in the same way Satan fell, he tempted her the same way Satan himself was tempted, he temps her that she ‘would be like God’.
Why did Satan want to be like God? Let’s compare in Genesis 3.5 it says,
5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Genesis 3.4-6
Now, as you know, Satan fell in Isaiah 14.12 in a similar way:
12 “How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!
13 For you have said in your heart:
‘I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.’
15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit. Isaiah 14.12-15
Satan was tempted in the same way and he fell.
Satan still does it today, doesn’t he? How many people go and hum on mountains to try to be little demigods, try to ‘be’ their own truth, become their own ‘mini-gods’?
He uses the same tactic even today. But let’s compare that to our Lord Jesus in Matthew 20.28 where it says,
28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Matthew 20.28
Hallelujah! Praise our God! What a God we serve! The Lord Jesus, the lover of our soul, the One who gave His life as a ransom for you and for me.