Genesis 3:1-6
1 – 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?
2 – And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 – But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 – And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 – 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.
6 – And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
When God first created Adam and Eve, they were sinless and without fault, a status that no other human being except for Jesus Christ Himself has ever held. But that didn’t last very long at all after they met up with satan (in the form of the serpent).
God had given Adam and Eve free run of the garden and they were free to enjoy His magnificent creations in any way they wanted. God gave them explicit permission to eat anything and everything that caught their fancy except for the fruit of one solitary tree in the midst of the garden. I can only imagine what delectable treats the Lord must have placed in that glorious place for His new children to enjoy. After all, He had created them in His image so I’m sure that He wanted them to enjoy the most delicious food possible.
As His first human creations, Adam and Eve held a special place in God’s heart. He gave them the most wonderful place that humans have ever seen in which to live, and they didn’t even have to work for a living. Everything was “handed” to them! Even better, since they had never sinned they would never be required to feel the sting of death. Like God Himself, they would live through all eternity, never growing old and frail or falling victim to any illness or disease. As the old saying goes, “They had it made!”
But then along came the serpent – satan in disguise. He used the same tactics on Eve that he has used on every human being since then: lies, temptations and deceptions. The scoundrel told the first lie in human history when he told Eve “Ye shall not surely die“. She believed him and ate of the forbidden fruit, and talked Adam into eating it as well.
The seduction of that one simple lie led to the fall of the entire human race, plunging Adam and Eve along with all of their countless descendants into a life plagued with sorrow and hardship. Should we be bitter at our first “grandparents” for saddling us with such a hard life after God had blessed mankind with such an easy one? Not really, because even though they had never sinned before eating the forbidden fruit, they were still human, and as such they were susceptible to the lies and deceptions of the devil. In all likelihood, had you or I been in Eve’s “shoes”, we would probably have done the very same thing. Satan tempted Eve and she fell for his “line”. It’s really as simple as that. But God still loved her and Adam (and us) enough to make a way for us to regain the status of perfection that we lost so long ago in the garden…
If we will simply accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour, His precious blood that was shed on the cross at Calvary will wash away each and every sin that we have ever committed in our lifetimes – as well as the ones we’ll commit in the future.
Through His blood, we can regain the status of perfection that will be required of us before we will be allowed to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven some sweet day. When we ultimately stand before the Lord in judgment, He will see only the blood of the precious Lamb, not a cloak of sin. Through the blood of Christ, those who are saved will appear perfect and without blemish, just like Jesus himself.
Satan may have led us humans astray with that very first lie, but Jesus holds the keys to death and hell, and everyone who accepts His free gift of life gains victory over both of them!