Last time we learned about three strategies and tactics the enemy uses when he attempts to deceive us. Today we will discuss three more strategies and tactics as we continue to review the story of the temptation in the Garden of Eden found in Genesis 3:1-7.
Engage Imagination
By carefully crafting his story, the enemy had engaged Eve’s imagination. She began to wonder what it would be like to do the thing that God had said not to. She begin to wonder what adventures might lie before her and what knowledge she might attain, if she simply ate the fruit. It seemed such a small, easy thing.
Deepen Desire
The more Eve imagined, the more she desired. Scripture tells us that she begin to see the fruit of the forbidden tree as pleasing to the eyes and desirable for gaining wisdom. The enemy had touched two parts of her creative nature: The desire to experience new things and the desire to attain new understanding. While nothing is inherently wrong with these desires, they must be harnessed. She had a whole garden full of trees, plants, animals and more that she was encouraged to explore, yet she desired the one thing she was not allowed to have.
Eve clearly became an example of what the Apostle James would later warn about, “Each person is tempted when lured and enticed by their own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.” (James 1:15).
Pervert Relationships
It has always intrigued me that after Eve ate the fruit she turned and gave some to her husband who was standing with her. One can only help but wonder why her friend and life partner had been silent during the entire episode. After all, he was the one – the Priest if you will – that received the original instructions from God. Why did he not loudly protest? Why did he not take his wife’s hand and lead her away?
In the New Testament, Paul actually tells us that Adam was not deceived! “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” (1 Timothy 2:14) This makes me yell the question through history, “Hey Adam, what were you thinking? Why did you participate? You weren’t even deceived which tells me you were even more to blame than your wife. This also seems to play out in God’s genealogy as we see that sin is not passed through the egg of a woman, but through the seed of man.
I can’t help but wonder, was Adam just trying to keep his wife happy? Did he want to be in tune with her? Did he want to have a good night back in the cave? I guess this is one question, whose answer we will just have to wait for Heaven.
In failing to fulfill their proper God-given roles, Adam and Eve failed to submit to God and instead submitted to the serpent’s desires. As a result they lost much. Losing their godly covering, they found themselves naked and hid from the One they had always enjoyed. Man’s job became much more difficult and Eve would suffer in childbirth. Her greatest joy would now also be filled with pain. Indeed pain became the underlying theme of everything. Pain in work, pain in childbirth, pain in relationship and pain of separation in death. Adam and Eve where never supposed to experience the death of the other but now they would. This was not because God took his covering from them, but because they chose to walk out from underneath it.
Gladly, God has made a way back to the covering through the shed blood and sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He has put sin to death in His own body that we might once again be reunited with God. This time the choice is not whether we will walk away from, but whether we will walk to.
If you have not accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, “Now is the accepted time, today is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2) all you have to do is “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9) Certainly, that is just the beginning, but the Holy Spirit and the Church is here to help you on your journey.
Even today the enemy is at work in the lives of all believers using strategies of testing knowledge, exploiting error, planting doubt, engaging imagination, deepening desire, and perverting relationships in an attempt to lead us into sin. But I have great news, “he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:57.)
If you accepted Christ into your life today, please write and share your great news with me. I would love to rejoice with you, and share a gift that I trust will help you on your journey.
Shalom!