“Now the serpent was more cunning than any animal of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Has God really said, “You shall not eat from any tree of the garden”?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, “You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.”’ The serpent said to the woman, ‘You certainly will not die! For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil’” (Gen 1:1-5).
God had spoken to Adam in unmistakable language as written in Genesis 2:15-17. And Eve knew God’s instruction, including the prohibition. But Satan is the great deceiver, and he slyly led Eve to question and to doubt God by doubting what He said.
Satan uses the same playbook today.
Will God really punish the evildoer? Isn’t God too loving to do that? “I just can’t believe God will consign people to hell eternally,” someone says. What’s the problem? They don’t believe God. God’s word says, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched” (Mk 8:43).
What about the person who is unhappy in his or her marriage? “I just can’t believe God expects me to remain with my wife (or husband) and do my part regardless of whether my spouse is what they ought to be,” someone says. What’s the problem? They don’t believe God. God’s word says, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt 19:4-6). And “husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her” (Eph 5:25); that’s a love not based on reciprocation.
Admittedly, behind the doubt could be other factors: What God says does not fit with my upbringing, with my way of life, or with what I want. Examine yourself.
Satan wants you to question and to doubt what God has so plainly said, and he wants you to persist in that doubt and disbelief until you are swallowed up in sin. But “you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (Jn 8:32). Live according to Jesus’ example of His response to Satan’s schemes: “It is written” (Lk 4:4). So stand fast in what stands written.
-Larry Jones