God had a question for the woman as well as for the man. “And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done?” God would ask Eve’s firstborn son this selfsame question after he killed his brother. “And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” (Genesis 4:10). It is depressing to note that a person never seems to know when he is being beguiled or deceived until after he has been beguiled and deceived, and usually never knows what has happened to him. Eve could not help but come to the realization that she had been deceived because she had a face to face meeting with her Creator. “… What is this that thou hast done? …” God demanded.

Who can know the mind and heart of the Lord at this moment, since He does not reveal it to us. But knowing that God is a person with emotions and feelings (Ephesians 4:30), how can we fail to realize that this was very painful to the Lord. How can one love another without being pained when the object of our love does something very bad? Christ shed tears during His sojourn upon the earth: why cannot we believe He shed tears in this moment? Hear the dismay, disappointment, and shock in His words. This thing ripped God’s heart.

In that moment God foresaw all of the pain and suffering that the world must endure because of what had been done. God saw every arrow in flight; the glitter of every sword; the pain of every betrayal,; every eye sunken in death; every sparrow that would fall; every tear that would drop to the earth; every disappointment, every lie, every cursed thing that would come upon the earth and its inhabitants in the next thousands of years. God could not change the consequences of this act.

There was nothing that could be done now to stop the process of events that would wreck the world and its inhabitants. God cannot lie. God cannot break His word. It is impossible. He had spoken, and it must be done according to His word.

“… I did eat.”, said Adam. “… I did eat.”, said Eve, and so what was left to be done? If God could have broken His word, and did, then every atom in the universe would have disintegrated, and there would have been the ultimate chaos. God commanded that they should not eat, but they responded, “… I did eat.” God says, “Ye shall not,” and man replies, “I will.” It has been so ever since the beginning.

The serpent was the villain. The serpent corrupted their faith just enough. This account of what happened in the garden is attributed by some unbelievers to the Gilgamesh tales of ancient Babylonia. Some assert that the Biblical record of the fall developed into Jewish literature when the Jews were carried off to Babylon. Here is what one writes: “Now in the retelling, however, these (Gilgamesh) tales acquired new meaning. and became adapted to the God of Israel. It was related that the first man, Adam, had been created of clay, and had been immortal until a wise serpent had said that one who ate of the Tree of Knowledge should be as a god – deceitfully failing to mention that to retain this high estate the eating of the fruit must be continued. Adam had eaten of the Tree, and had been punished for presumption, and driven out of Eden; and because they (Jews) hated Ishtar, and because they (Jews) were afraid of blood and the chronic uncleanness that was attached to woman, they (Jews) laid the blame of the debacle on Adam’s mate.”¹

The truth that nothing good could evolve from something bad never occurs to the evolutionist. The Word of God is beyond all measure the most beneficial thing the human race has ever laid its hands on, yet some choose superstition rather than truth. Ishtar was the Egyptian name for Astarte (as TAHR tee), which was the goddess of the Phoenicians, and called Ashtoreth in the Old Testament. It is not nedessarily true that “the Jews hated idolatry,” but they were commanded to hate it. That the Jews wrote into the book of

Genesis that the woman was to blame for the fall is no more than an opinion put forth by those who do not understand the Bible as the Word of God, and don’t want it to be true.

A great step of faith is needed to believe in a mythological tale rather than the scientifically accurate and highly rational Bible. The Bible has not changed in 2,000 years. Translated into different languages, it remains the same. Many books of the Old Testament have not changed in a much longer time. The doctrines in the Bible have remained unchanged for all of this time. What the Bible teaches about God, His plan and purpose for the universe is the same as it was when it was first set down. Evolution literature is in a constant state of flux. Even the definition of evolution is being changed, and debated every day. The leading evolution high priests in the nation have discarded the sacred writing of evolution found in The Origin of the Species by Natural Selection: or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life..

Dr. Harry Rimmer has written these words, “In the library of the Louvre in Paris, there is, or there was, an alcove containing miles of shelves, all crammed with books on various phases of science, which had become obsolete in two hundred years. That section was devoted as a graveyard of ideas and theories. Students consulted the contents of those thousands of volumes largely to amuse themselves with a review of the history of human error!”² The Gilgamesh epic has not changed either, but it is not in daily use by millions of people as is the Word of God. The Gilgamesh tales are buried in the sands of time.

The woman made a mistake. The man made a mistake. Their mistake cost all of us more than we know. Do not blame Adam and Eve for your sin, however. You are condemned because of your own sin, not only Adam’s We were in Adam when he sinned, and therefore we are as guilty of disobeying God as Adam was. Please note Hebrews 7:9,10. “And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham, For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisidec met him.” Levi did something before he was born. He did something while he was yet in the body of his great granddaddy Abraham. When, pray tell, does a man appear in the body of his ancestors? Is it scientifically possible for all the human race to have been physically in the body of Adam when he was created? It must be so.

It is depressing to know that women without God can be very evil. “… What is this that thou hast done?…”. The great evil for American women in our day is to submit to abortion. I noted in the newspaper that some medical schools are now offering courses in abortion. The case of the boy and girl up in New England that put their baby son in a dumpster to die, is evidence of how irrational the abortion mind set is in our country. It is a national tragedy, and it is a personal tragedy. It would seem that no woman could murder her baby and ever feel anything but remorse and guilt afterwards A woman who has an abortion must surely spend the rest of her life moaning in her soul, “What have I done?” But God saves women who have had abortions. He will even save the abortionist.

What a jewel is woman. She was the last thing God made. A woman is a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a saint of matchless worth. That is a godly woman. Yet she was the means by which Satan reached Adam. Satan could have touched Adam in no other way. Only for his wife would Adam turn from God. How great is the woman’s responsibility. The morals of the world ride on her gentle shoulders She must assume the care, not only for her own virtue, but for every man she encounters. When the women of a society lose their virtue, then the society sinks into immorality.

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1. Homer W. Smith, Man and His Gods (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1953), p. 117.

2. Harry Rimmer, “The One Book That Will Never Change,” The Sword of the Lord, February 7, 1997, p. 10.

After Adam answered God in the garden of Eden, we cannot know if Adam came out of his hiding place to face the Lord, or whether he stayed where he was. Either way, he had to look on God’s face sooner or later. The human imagination cannot picture the horror of standing before an angry God. Hebrews 10:31 tells us that “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” If human imagination could visualize the face of the living God, human language still could not express it. Falling into the hands of the living God tears one loose from all his supporting thoughts and helpers. A mocker at God is at his worst when he is surrounded by mocking friends.

In the absence of the sight of God’s angry face, the mocker takes great delight in using God’s name in vain, and scoffing at all His works, and leading others in the impudence nad ruin of irreverence. There will be no friends around encouraging him when he stands in the presence of God, the righteous Judge at the Great White Throne (Revelation 22:11ff).

Adam heard the questions of the God Who had been his friend and companion, but was now his Judge. Man must flee to the Lord God when the Lord God is a friend. There is no pardon in the hand of the Judge. Pardons are not handed down from the bench. God was Prosecutor and Judge as He stood with the trembling figure of His erring creature before Him. Adam surely knew the principle laid out in Hebrews 10:30: “For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord will judge his people.” God’s judgment is always right, the criticism of heretics notwithstanding.

Notice that Adam did not object when God said, “. . .I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” God had commanded Adam, and Adam knew that God had a right to command him. Should the Creator not have the right, authority, and power to command His creature? The creature thinks more highly of himself than he ought to think. The creature has a rebellious spirit that makes it very difficult for him to obey. There can be no shame in obeying the Creator. I have never gone wrong when I obeyed the Creator. God’s command was God’s law. The ruler of the universe must have laws in force. Man with a free will must have laws to restrain the use of that free will. Man, contrary to common contemporary belief, does not have the right to do anything he pleases. No living thing on Earth has the right to do everything it pleases.

Corliss Lamont, voice of the humanist religion, wrote, “This means that all teachers and employees in school, college, or university are entitled to full liberty of expression and association.”1 Imagine what a bag of worms that opens up. But humanists are the world’s foremost hypocrites, for they do not practice that principle. I was fired by the Cherokee County School board for exercising my “. . .full liberty of expression…”. My full liberty of expression happened to include teaching my students biblical principles, and that was not approved by the humanist judge who handed down a decree that forbade Alabama school teachers from teaching the Bible in the classroom. Humanists declare that everyone should be able to do whatever he pleases, but they don’t permit it. If they were in full control of all our governmental powers, no one would go to church. Neither would anyone go to church in America if any of the religions in this country were in political control, except for the Protestants and Baptists who are presently in control, and guarantee freedom of religion.

God gave Adam one law. One simple, reasonable law. One law to delineate the position of God and the position of man. God was King and man was subject. That was not unreasonable.

I Corinthians 14:33 says, “. . .God is not the author of confusion but of peace,” and laws are for the purpose of maintaining peace. Even the matter of the universe, every atom is subject to divine law.

God’s question went directly to the heart of the matter. Adam and his precious wife must give an account for their deed. “. . .Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” “What’s the big deal about eating an apple?” the world demands. That we do not know what sort of fruit it was never seems to dawn upon a world that has little patience with the details of spiritual matters. It is this lack of caring for the details of eternal matters that is responsible for deceived souls being deceived. Who cares about the details of evolution as long as we can believe that scales turned into feathers, or the beaks of finches are different.

The big deal is that disobedience to the command of God is the capital crime of the creature with the free will. Sinners go to hell because they disobey the command of God, namely to repent. (Acts 17:30). Disobedience to man’s law may or may not be wrong, for man’s laws are not always based upon God’s laws. But every disobedience to God is wrong.

Adam’s classic answer is recorded to the shame of every man, in verse 12. “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” Beautiful Eve was not now the wife of his bosom. She was the woman that God had given him. This is Adam’s second sin. He is a sinner now, and apt to say evil things. The knowledge of evil has not made him a better man – it has only made him a man with evil propensities. “Woman” is an honorable word. A very devout professor, Miss Ruby Wagner, said in class one day that she hated the word “lady,” and wished that preachers did not feel compelled to call women “ladies.” Jesus called His mother “woman.” The word “woman” is no less honorable than the word “man.” But as Adam used the word in his answer to his Creator, it was dead wrong. When a man refers to his wife as “the old woman,” he is committing a sin against God and his wife. “The ole lady” is no better. Speaking disrespectfully about his wife, indicates that a man has little self-respect, for a man’s wife is his own body. (Ephesians 5:28,29).

Adam did not confess his sin until he had a scapegoat. He laid the fault on his “woman,” and then he confessed. Such a confession is unacceptable, as the subsequent institution of the curse reveals. Repentance is not blaming somebody or something else for our sins, and then confessing them. Repentance is assuming the burden and guilt of our sins ourselves. We must stand in the presence of the almighty Judge open and honest with Him and with ourselves. Everyone will be judged according to their deeds. Parents who neglect their children are guilty of a great crime against God and man, and they will give an account for their abuse of that child at the judgment bar of God. But that does not justify that child for a life of crime against God and man. That child, born condemned, will give an account of his deeds unto the Lord Judge, and God will sentence him on the basis of his works.

All of us, sinner and saint alike, will give an account to God. God will interrogate us. “. . the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” (Revelation 20:12).

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” ( II Corinthians 5:10).

God’s interrogation awaits all of us. I want to be prepared with a Substitute, not a sick excuse.

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1. Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1979), p. 271.

Five verses of Scripture are given in Genesis 2 to describe four rivers which no longer exist, although the name of one of them does still exist.  The surface of the original earth was completely obliterated when the flood engulfed the earth 1656 years after Adam=s creation.  There was no rainfall before the flood, and so how did water get high enough above sea level to form rivers?  The earth as God created it was quite different from the earth we know today.  The hydrological aspects of the earth’s systems are a mystery to us, though we can make some educated guesses about how it operated.

I had the privilege of seeing Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park a few years ago.  While in Yellowstone, I learned that Old Faithful is only one of many geysers in that region.  A geyser is like a an old-timey coffee pot.  A geyser is a very deep narrow hole in the ground.  The hole is like the little tube of the coffee pot which conducts water from the bottom of the pot up to the top.  You put water into a tall pot which has a tray of coffee sitting on the top of a tube, the bottom of which sits on the bottom of the pot.  The bottom end of the tube is welded to a nearly flat, upside-down cone which traps water. When the water is heated to the boiling point, steam shoos it up the tube, and squirts it out on the coffee in the tray on top. 

A geyser works the same way.  Water collects in a great pool deep in the ground.  The heat of the earth gets the water to the boiling point, and when enough steam is generated, it blasts the water collected in the tube high into the air.  With Old Faithful, that happens about every hour.  Old Faithful “percolates.” 

These rivers  in Eden could have  formed in a similar way underneath Eden, and other parts of the earth for that matter.  The cool water in the earth would not have to be warmed but a very little bit to be forced to the surface through great tubes, where the water would form into rivers and meander to the seas.

            And so, without rainfall, the heat of the earth could provide the power to drive a hydrological system.  The mist that went up could not have formed enough water to make these four great rivers. 

Of course, God could have operated the earth by His miraculous power, but the Lord set up the universe to operate by laws of physics – Alaws of nature@ as some call them.  The establishment of these laws was miraculous, but their operation  is not. Sending a rocket into space is no miracle. Every law of physics is obeyed in the process. If you wish to call these laws miracles, then you are free to do that.  There is no doubt that the laws were miraculous creations of the Creator, but after they were set in motion, they operate on their own.  The laws of physics are all interactive, and drive each other.  The law of gravity is always at work.  Nobody can explain it, but it is always there.  But the law of gravity is congruous with the laws of inertia and other laws.

One great river watered the land of Eden and its paradise garden, and then after it flowed out of the garden, it divided into four rivers.  No doubt the river out of Eden flowed into a big lake, and from that lake four rivers flowed out. Let’s read these verses: “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.  The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.  And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.  And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.  And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria.  And the fourth river is Euphrates.”

Cain may have headed for the land of Havilah when he fled from the presence of the Lord.  Perhaps Nod and Havilah are either the same, or close together, because the gold found in Havilah would have been a basis for supporting a city, the likes of which Cain built, even as gold is the economic base of man=s cities today.

None of these rivers is known today, except the name Hiddekel (Hid’ – de – kel) is the same name as that given to the Tigris River on ancient Assyrian monuments;¹ and the name “Euphrates,” which is the name of one of the two rivers in the Tigris-Euphrates valley. The great underground reservoirs that would have fed them would have been broken up  when “… all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, …” as recorded in chapter 7 and verse 11.  There are enormous caverns in the earth now, but they are mostly only partially filled.  There is a virtual underground sea in east Tennessee.  There is evidently much more water on the surface of the earth, and in the earth now than there was before the flood, because there was a great amount of water in the canopy that enclosed the earth before the flood.  Most of this additional water is no doubt in the oceans, which are probably much deeper now than before the flood.

Rivers are important to human and animal life on Earth.  I love rivers.  The North Fork of the Holston River in southwest Virginia may be the most beautiful river on Earth.  The Middle Fork of the Holston in North Carolina and east Tennessee is also a very scenic river.  The North Fork of the Holston is pure and as clear as drinking water before it gets to Tennessee.  I spent many hours of my childhood on that river, and what precious memories they are.

We sing of crossing the river when we depart this robe of flesh and go to be with the Lord.  The idea came out of the history of the Jews crossing the Jordan River over into Canaan, the promised land.  That doesn=t picture very well what the saints will do when they go home, because the Jews crossed into Canaan to fight long bloody battles.  When we die, the fight in over.

Some of the old Negro spirituals were based on the thinking of the slaves who heard about a great river to the west.  That, of course, was the Mississippi, and after emancipation, many freed slaves struck west for the Mississippi, thinking it was a river to cross over into the promised land.

Though Alfred Lloyd Tennyson had a line in his poem ,ACrossing the Bar,@ that smacks of evolution, his allusion to “crossing the bar” is like crossing a sea, and he ends his poem with these two familiar lines, AI hope to see my pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.@ 

We cross neither a river or a sea when we die, and though I cannot speak about the experience of death from experience, as even  Houdini couldn’t after he died, I have some idea that death is quite pleasant for the child of God.  I do not refer to the experience of the body.  The body may suffer agonies of all sorts, and die of shock, but for the soul and spirit, it will be like releasing a caged bird.

My wife fears coming home and finding me dead.  I tell her to pray God that it may be so.  How much better than languishing over my dying body for weeks.

In the garden of Eden, there was a fruit of life, growing on the tree of life.  In the new Paradise, there will also be the tree of life, but there will be a river of life as well.  It=s in Revelation 22:1,2:  “And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb.  In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”  Will you see this some glorious day, or will you see the blackness of an awful Hell?  Are you sure? 

“There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.”  (Psalm 46:4).

Psalm 105:41: “He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out; they ran in the dry places like a river.”

Daniel 10:4: “And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel; …”

For the best discussion of this subject, refer to pages 88-90 of The Genesis Record: a scientific and devotional commentary on the book of beginnings by Dr. Henry M. Morris, who is well learned in the science of hydrology.  To obtain a copy, call 1 800 628 7640.

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1. Henry M. Morris The Genesis Record (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1991), p. 89.

GENESIS 2:8,9

THE TREE OF LIFE

We must go back to Genesis 2:8,9 at this juncture to cover a subject that we bypassed in our study of the creation week. Let’s read the verses: “And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food: the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”

Adam’s food would be provided by fruit trees. That would allow him to retain his dignity because he would not have to stoop to pick fruit from the ground, from vines or bushes. Adam was to bow only before God. Adam’s food, like our’s, comes from three sources to remind us of the triune God: energy from the sun, water, and elements from the soil from which man was made. The elements from the earth matched the elements in Adam’s flesh, for he was made from the dust of the earth.

Note that there must have been many trees in the garden for Adam to eat from. These trees bore the most delectable fruit because they were created especially for the nourishment and pleasure of man. All of the nutrients for living forever were in these fruits and the water. The taste must have been something to think about. Sometimes my wife will make a pie of some sort, and it will taste so good I can hardly stand it. I love to watch little infants when they get something strange in their mouth that they don’t like. What faces they can make. It seems that nowadays that everything we like is bad for us.

Verse 8 tells us that God put the man in the garden, indicating that Eve had not yet been made. God planted a garden eastward in Eden for the food supply of Adam. Evidently, God planted mature plants with fruit on them because the man had to eat that very day. Adam was put into the garden among the most delectable and nourishing fruit. Where did God get the trees? Remember back in verse 11 of chapter 1 that God created plant life on the third day. Remember, too, that even though we cannot fully understand it, that God created a fully working system when He created the cosmos.

They were beautiful in in the garden. There must have been a great number of trees in the garden, and Adam was given access to all of them but one. Adam would have to dress these trees. He was created with all the knowledge and skills he needed to survive happpily, so he knew how to prune trees, and make hoes to hoe potatoes. In verse 15, we’re told that “. . .The LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” Think of how man defiles the earth today. The garden of Eden was designed as a place where man could do productive work. There was not the grinding toil that has been the lot of man since the expulsion from the garden. The work was kinder and gentler, giving man enough labor to keep his body in good condition without wearing him out. Work makes sleep better. I feel sorry for people who sit in a computer cubicle all day pressing keys with a telephone resting on their shoulder. I have to work in a similar way. That is not the sort of work that prepares you for a good supper and bed. Many folks have to go to gyms to work out because of the need of the body to work.

Adam would have to have tools to work with, and so God put plenty of ore in the ground for his use. Within a few hundred years, it is recorded, man was making iron and brass – verse 22 of chapter 4. I have a replica of a hammer that might have been made back in those days. If you’re going to dress a garden you must have tools, and Adam was fully capable of making them.

Gold is the first metal mentioned in the Bible. It is spoken of in chapter 2, verse 12. Two precious stones are also mentioned in that verse. Iron is more precious that gold. If a man is marooned on an island, he will choose iron every time over gold. The trees in the garden never felt the pounding of rain or hail. Verse 6 of our chapter 2 tells us that “. . .there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.” This would be good for the trees. There would be no erosion around their roots, but it would be hard for man.

With a mist, or fog, in the air, the best place for man would be inside his house, and Adam and Eve would have to build a house very quickly had they stayed in the garden for any length of time. This mist could have come up after man was in bed, and so not been a hindrance to his enjoying the evenings outside. It might also have condensed very rapidly into dew so that there would be moisture in the air for only a short period during the night. It is most likely that there were no nocturnal animals to be about at night, except perhaps for a few night singing birds. As plant eaters, there would have been no reason whatever for any animals to be abroad during the night.

The tree of life is the most interesting of the trees in the garden, perhaps because we know so little about it. It seems most likely to have had actual fruit with symbolic meaning just as the tree of knowledge of good and evil had. The actual fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was not toxic to man. The reason man would die from eating of the tree of the knowledge was because the tree represented God’s sovereignty over man, and when man ate of that tree, then God pronounced judgment upon him. The tree of life was a real tree with real fruit on it, but it must have been symbolic of God’s provisions for man. Christ is the source of life, and the tree was the symbol. Some may point out that after the fall, the reason God gave for putting them out of the garden was the danger that they would eat of the tree of life and live forever. That’s 3:22. God said that if they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that they would surely die. Perhaps being separated from the tree of life is what the Lord was referring to. Without access to the tree of life, they were doomed. It would take nine centuries for Adam to die, and probably Eve also, but when they disobeyed God, it was simply a matter of time until they actually departed from their body.

A saved man who is obedient has great privileges. James well said that “. . .The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” The Proverbs say that wisdom “. . .is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her:. . .” (3:18). In 11:30 the Proverbs declare that “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.” Proverbs 13:12 says that “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when desire cometh, it is a tree of life.”

The tree of life will be restored to man. Revelation 2:7 promises that “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” Those who overcome during the tribulation will be allowed to eat of the tree of life which is in Heaven. Will the garden of Eden be there also?

We hear of the tree of life again in Revelation 22:2. “In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month? and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations,”. The tree of life probably bare twelve manner of fruit in the garden of Eden, since that would have given variety to fruit that could not be improved upon.

The real tree of life is a barren thing to look upon. It is indeed a ghastly thing to look upon – with revolting blood stains and stiletto splinters. But the rugged cross bears everlasting fruit. As I look through my window at the trees across the street, they look barren and dead. There is no beauty there that they should be desired. But their beauty is hidden. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him;; for we shall see him as he is.” (I John 3:2.)

Be not dejected, brother or sister, the winter is long, and the limbs are barren, but there is life in the root. That tree looks dead in winter, just as we look dead in this present world, but wait for spring, and you shall see what that tree is. It is a living thing of beauty. It is “. . .the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”, and there we shall see it in all its eternal bloom.

Four things are called a “tree of life” in Proverbs: in 3:18 it is wisdom. Wisdom is said to do many good things for a person; in 11:30 it is “The fruit of the righteous . . .”; in 13:12 “. . .when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.”: in 15:4 it is “A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.”

The first sin of man was rebellion against the authority and position of God. Satan determined in his heart that he would take the place of God. Isaiah 14:13, 14 says, “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” Satan probably had a throne on Earth where he was a high- ranking angel. Many scholars believe he was the maestro of the sounds that came to Earth, and were converted by the canopy into beautiful music that greatly enhanced man’s life on Earth, “. . .for the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.” (Ezekiel 28:13).

Satan originated sin when he said what is recorded in Isaiah 14:13, 14, and proceeded to Heaven where he attacked God, and was cast back down into Earth. God could have cast him to any planet in the universe, but Satan would have returned to Earth, for it was man’s worship he wanted. Satan’s attack probably occurred on the Sabbath, the day of the Lord’s rest, or Sunday, the first day of the week, for he would not have wasted much time in attacking the Lord after the creation was completed, and he saw it. Genesis 3:1 must have occurred on Monday. Let’s read part of what happened on that day as it is recorded in verses 1 through 3 of Genesis chapter 3. “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? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 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.”

Satan quotes the Word of God as it pleases him to quote it. He translates it any old way he wants. If you write me an important letter, giving me clear instructions about something, that is very important to you and me both. If you send it to me by a messenger, how would you feel if that messenger got the letter open, and changed the wording, or the meaning of words, and then gave it to me? I’d be very surprised if you didn’t get pretty mad. Satan spoke through this serpent. Mockers have scorned the idea that animals could speak, but some zoologists are even now claiming that they can teach chimpanzees simple speech. Anyway, it was Satan speaking through the snake.

We know that God caused an ass to speak. In Numbers 22:28, Balaam’s ass spoke to him. When animals were created, some of them may have been made to speak to man. Eve was not alarmed by the serpent speaking to her. She seemed not to be surprised when the creature spoke to her.

Satan may mix truth with his lies if he must to persuade some person to do what he wants him to do. For example, Satan may say, “Sure, you need to get saved, but you have plenty of time to get saved.” In that he mixes truth with a lie. Satan is the father of lies. Jesus said, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” “You need to get saved” is the truth. “You have plenty of time is a lie.” The statement is a lie. Great numbers of people don’t know the difference. The lie in the truth makes the whole statement a lie. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. The statement sounds good, and it relieves the pain of a smiting conscience.

Dr. Henry Morris says, “Apart from uniformitarian considerations, there may really be no reason why we should not assume that, in the original creation, the serpent was a beautiful, upright animal with the ability to speak and converse with human beings. Such an interpretation would at least make the verses in this passage easier to understand, even though it may make them harder to believe.”1

Satan could speak only lies, and a lie with truth mixed in it is the most sinister sort of lie. How can people hate God, and blame Him for humanity’s pains? Famine, wars, death, everything bad is laid on the shoulders of the LORD. This is what Satan planted in Eve’s innocent heart by what he said in Genesis 3:1. In so many words, he said to Eve, “Do you mean that God will not allow you to eat of all the trees in this big garden?” Eve must have been stunned by that question. It had never occurred to her that God would withhold something from them. I am sure this was a painful thought to Eve. She was so rattled that she did not realize that Satan was twisting God’s words.

We must resist the devil. We can only resist the devil by the power of the Word of God. Eve did not know the Word of God very well, because she misquoted it. God had said, “. . .Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Eve quoted God as saying, “. . .God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” God did not forbid them to touch the tree.

Do we see in this scene the devil at his absolute worst? Is there any greater damage he can inflict than he does in beguiling this innocent woman? Was Satan worse when he drove Stalin to murder 30 millions of his own people? Was Satan worse when he motivated Adolph Hitler to launch an extermination campaign against non-Germans? Was Satan more dangerous when he influenced Herod to slaughter the little baby boys in Bethlehem? Look at Satan in these verses. He was not violent in behavior. He was not cursing. He was not threatening. He was soft, tender, kind, beautiful, sympathetic. In all of these wonderful characteristics, he succeeded in bringing the human race down to ruin. In these few minutes he murdered the entire human race, “For as in Adam all die, …”. Every soul was in Adam, and so Satan’s greatest crime was in deceiving Eve. His worst is seen in his softness, tenderness, kindness, beauty, and sympathy.

Look at John the Baptist – a man dressed in animal skins, eating insects, blasting people out of the water. Look at Jesus, just a carpenter’s step-son, turning over tables and beating up on people, calling them the devil’s children. Think about Peter, saying things to people that cause them to actually fall down and die. (Acts 5). Consider the fundamental preachers today telling people they are living in sin, and are bound for a devil’s hell. Those ways are not the ways of Satan. He is soft, quiet, persuasive, kind, and as deadly as a king cobra. If I am going to tell you a lie and expect you to believe it, I am going to be the nicest to you that I will ever be. I’ll even do you favors or give you gifts to break down your resistance to what I am about to tell you.

The great preachers of old would rouse such passions among sinners that their lives would be threatened. Churches were burned, and all sorts of damage done to stop the ministry of conviction that caused by such feeling of guilt. The truth doesn’t come wrapped up in silver foil tied with a golden string and perfumed with Evening in Paris. The truth is raw. The truth is sharp. The truth is gleaming. Like the needle on the tip of the syringe that is about to inject medicine into you – and pain. The truth flashes on the edge of a Sword. The truth falls from fearless lips that pronounce the wrath of God upon sinners without fanfare or soft music, but love wells up from a heart of love. Deception comes from oiled lips that say pleasing things, and stagnates in a pit of hate.

Satan was as smooth as silk, as sweet as saccharin, as soft as a marshmallow, and as deadly as strychnine. Lies are the opiate of people who love deceit. Lies contradict God. Lies are aimed at God. “. . .Ye shall not surely die.” is the monumental lie of all time. Poor Eve believed it. How can a poor mortal alone joust with the devil? Satan has steadily increased his output of lies. The human race is saturated with them. The more humans there are, the more lies can flourish.

It would be interesting to know whether there are more lies perpetrated in the world of business or the world of religion. There is little doubt which category of lie does the most harm. If a person in finance tells me a lie, then we might lose more money than we have, but we could probably recover from the loss in a few years, but if a person in religion tells us a lie, then we might never get over it. It is most wicked to make a liar of Jesus Christ Who is the truth. People who contradict the Holy Writ are making the Saviour a liar. This is an outrage of outrages. The Bible must be handled with extreme care to assure that we do not violate it in any way. John 8:32 “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”