Scripture text: Gen. 3:1-7
The serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field.
Let’s talk about some key points of this scripture passage:
First, Eve probably was familiar with this serpent. She wasn’t all of the sudden convinced after one conversation with him to disobey God. There must have been more than one encounter with this creature. Just as the devil used a snake in this incident, I want to stress this point. The devil is not an individual person such as Jesus Christ was. The devil uses people and objects to try and cause us to sin. He is good at his job.
Why do you think the devil chose Eve to deceive instead of Adam? The devil always preys on the weaker vessel. He always preys on the one who cannot defend themselves (who can’t defend themselves because they don’t have enough knowledge of God’s word). So guess what the is preying on children such as you all every single day. If he can kill you early, before you become strong, then he wins. Eve got the Word of God second hand from Adam. She didn’t hear it from God for herself. That’s a problem. We must hear God personally. Eph. 6:11—Put on the whole armour of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. In Ephesians it talks about putting on the armor of God. We have to have our own armor. We have to get it for ourselves. Your friends armor is not going to fully protect you. Your mother’s armor is not going to fully protect you.
Their nakedness was an expression of innocence, naivety and purity. They were out in the open. There was nothing hidden about them.
Their eyes were opened. Before they tasted of the forbidden fruit, they had been spiritually one sighted. They could only see God. They had Singleness of vision. Remember the scripture that says (the light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light, but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness However, when they tasted of sin their eyes were then opened to sin. The devil always tells us that God just doesn’t want us to have any fun. He is holding back on us. He knows that we would enjoy “it” and then we would find out just how much we have been missing out on. The devil knows that once you taste of the fruit of sin you are changed forever. God has mercy but you can never be like you were before. You are no longer pure and innocent.
The leaves that they put on after sinning was “to cover or hide their sin” isn’t that just like us. Always trying to cover and hide what we’ve done wrong. However, we can’t hide from God.
I know we have all heard this lesson before, and I don’t want to bore you, but there are many important lessons to learn from this one little passage of scripture. You see the devil is still doing this very same thing today. He may not appear to you in the form of a serpent but the devil is still using this same technique to try and destroy you. We need to be able to recognize his tricks so that we don’t fall prey in his trap of destruction.
Subtle—deceitful, that is the devil’s business and he’s good at it! In this record of the downfall of man (or woman) we see that the devil can and will use whatever he has to in order to overthrow our faith, our walk with God, our spiritual one sightedness, he is looking destroy us and that’s what I want to talk about today. The wiles of the devil. Wiles meaning the tricks he uses to get to us. Our question is, who or what does the devil use to get to use?
In the case above he used a piece of fruit and a serpent. Okay we can understand him using a piece of fruit to tempt Eve. Just the same as he uses worldly things to tempt us. Clothes, entertainment, etc. The fruit was tempting to Eve. She had never tasted it and it looked good. The befuddling question; however, is why would the devil use a serpent to speak to Eve? After all doesn’t he know that every women is scared to death of snakes? Of course he does (well at least they are now), but here’s the thing, I don’t think Eve was afraid of snakes. God had not yet put enmity between the woman and the serpent. That came later. The serpent and Eve coexisted together in the garden and I bet she was pretty familiar with this particular serpent. I bet she was comfortable with him being around and she trusted him. He might have even been one of her pets, and I can almost bet that he had spoken to her (or beguiled her) many times prior to this day. I mean there’s no way that Eve would have let just one conversation with a strange snake cause her to disobey the God that she and her husband had known intimately for some time, not over one measly piece of fruit. She had to have known this serpent. She must have trusted that the serpent was friendly and that he was not a threat to her (or at least she thought he wasn’t). You know, the devil is doing the same thing to us. Although he is not using a serpent to talk to us (as I said woman hate snakes), he is using something or someone to beguile us. It’s the someone that I want to talk about today. We all know the what(s) that he uses. But we often fail to recognize the who(s) that he uses.
I can tell you for a fact that the devil has not stopped his attempts to destroy women or men, or even children. The devil is still using a something or a someone in his attempt to destroy every single one of us. The thing is it’s usually not an inanimate object that he’s using. I can guarantee there is almost always a someone involved. That’s scary! He almost always uses someone we trust, love or admire to influence us. It’s imperative that we find out today the who behind Satan’s ploy to destroy our lives.
You see I recognized this past week that the devil was doing this very thing with someone in my family. My daughter, Kayla. The devil has been using her aunt Cindy to downgrade church, our doctrine and beliefs and to persuade Kayla that the Bible is not true.
The devil has tried this same things with me. My best friend LaDonna tried this stuff shortly after I started coming to church. She was unsuccessful because I kept referring to the word of God as my answer to her (remember the lesson of how Jesus was tempted?) That’s what I did. It’s our only defense against him. However, Kayla is not as versed in the Word of God as I am and so the devil is using her aunt Cindy to confuse her. Thank God that he showed me what was going on so now I can protect her. Now Kayla is not allowed to hang around with her aunt Cindy without me.
Do either of you have anyone in your life that you love, trust or admire who is trying to take away the Word of God out of your heart? Let’s think about it. Let’s talk about it.
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