“Satan never murdered anyone.” I suppose not if you believe deceiving people into murdering each other on their own makes him innocent. God created all things. God created man in His image; He gave man a companion, a woman, and together they had children. God populated the earth, breathing life into all things. He then gave Adam and Eve everything they could ever dream of, putting them in the garden of Eden.
Everything was theirs without sin or shame. The only thing God commanded was not to eat of the tree of good & evil in the center of the garden. Eve had no desire to eat of the fruit of this tree. She was perfectly content to live in the perfect world given to her by God. Then one day, the serpent (aka satan), comes along and twists God’s words. Satan implies God set Adam and Eve up, tell her God doesn’t want her to know everything, gaslights her into believing God is the enemy.
Eve doesn’t even realize she is doubting herself and the truth which she knows. She engages in the word salad, plays with the variety of meanings it might imply. Eventually, she gives into the temptation to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. After inspection she sees it is ripe, beautiful, smells good. She compares it to fruit on the other trees in the garden. By all accounts it looks good enough to eat. Forgetting all about God in an instant, Eve gives into the serpent's temptation and eats fruit from the tree of good & evil.
Do we need to see and experience evil to know that it is wrong? Eve certainly did, because she was so naive and foolish, she didn’t comprehend the consequences of going against her creator. She didn’t recognize her own self doubt, based on lies of an enemy of God. She didn’t appreciate herself as a humble creation, made in the image of God, born on this earth to love and do good things. Instead, she became embarrassed and ashamed, as she and Adam together covered their own nakedness.
There’s been a serious attack on our senses in recent years. People are doubting themselves in numbers like never before. They are doing some of the craziest things in the name of fear and safety. They are challenging people who defend freedom, oppose government oppression and think for themselves. Trump Derangement Syndrome on Steroids!
Thinking for yourself is a good thing. Believing the truth of what you see, instead of what you are told is true by people who want to manipulate and control you, is intelligent. Doubting what you see, convincing yourself good things are bad, and bad things are good, is dangerous and often can be deadly.
Once you’ve been duped all bets are off, especially as the lies get exposed and you realize how absurd it is to believe in the hateful rhetoric being used to cause you harm. It is natural to hate the messenger. It is easy to call foul on the people who don’t believe the lies, and stand firm in the truth they see with their own eyes. It is normal to fear the consequences of being duped by the lies. There are some serious consequences when lies convince people to hate God and defend satan.
Yet, in this same story of Genesis, we find love and mercy over and over again. God banished Adam & Eve from the garden. He punished the serpent much more severely, condemning it as an enemy of the people to slither on the ground and eat dust for the rest of its days. This didn’t stop sin and corruption from being part of the world, but it did expose it for what it is, a blight on humanity that will and does harm us all.
Genesis is the story of our beginnings. It is the revelation that we are all loved into existence, and even when we fall, God still loves and forgives us. He doesn’t negate the consequence of our wrongdoings. He does tend to soften them when we turn back to Him though. When we go against each other, fighting and killing ourselves in various ways, we buy into the lie that God isn’t good. Yet, when Cain was afraid after killing Abel, God protected him. Even though Cain couldn’t escape the consequences of what he had done, God lessened his burden and soothed his fears, stating that anyone who harmed Cain would have much more severe consequences for doing so.
Later, God gave Adam and Eve another child, Seth. Cain’s lineage progressed through the days of Noah, as did Seth’s. Noah is a descendent of Seth. Evil manifested on the earth. It was rampant. God told Noah to build the ark, to save the world He created from the evil that had infiltrated it. The flood came, and God in His mercy put a rainbow in the sky. It was through this sign that God promised never to wipe out mankind again. God’s promise doesn’t stop us from killing each other and wiping out ourselves. It merely reminds us that we are loved enough to be shown mercy, that we might come to our senses, and quit doubting ourselves and the lies being shoved in our faces. It gives us the power within ourselves, since we truly do have God’s spirit within us, to believe in and stand up for truth, because the lies only lead to destruction.
Wishing you all only the best things in life!
God bless you,
Teresa
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Photo credit:
"Адам и Ева", Yuri Annenkov, Public domain, Adam and Eve by Y. Annenkov (1913, GTG).jpg
Awesome!!