In the Garden, Satan tempted Eve to mistrust God’s good judgment: “You will surely die,” he said.
Oh, how subtle is the devil! He challenged the judgment of God by pointing to an immediate consequence (death or no death) when the main issue was obeying God. He wedged himself between Man and God by getting him to doubt and disobey. Man did not need to know the difference between Good and Evil when he simply obeyed God and trusted in Him. In such a place, we were impervious to evil. But we chose to disobey God, thus walking away from His provision of richness and abundance. This came from doubting God’s authority and goodness as if there are things that He can’t control and good things that He would withhold from Man.
The truth is that God intends for His sons to fully know Him as he knows them and there is nothing He withholds from them in terms of His goodness. He will give them all things. But obedience is definitely required to receive His rich inheritance. Jesus was tempted by the devil to throw himself down from the top of the temple to challenge God’s judgment of death and life as well. In this incident, it is not a matter of the help of angels, but the son of God’s own obedience to His Father’s judgment.
We are not to tempt God, but in complete trust obey Him. My guess is that you have, at some point, thrown away all restraint and put God to the test, not about His goodness, but about His judgment, in the world at large and in the things of your life, and in whether or not He stands for justice, righteousness, and truthfulness. The enemy will rise up in us to provoke God through disobedience which causes God to hand us over to our own ways which always lead to destruction. Disobedience is by nature divination (1Samuel 15:23). At its root divination is testing God, His authority, and power and judgment. It’s an attempt to make ourselves gods of our own circumstances. John called this sin lawlessness, which is the doorway for the Lawless One or anti-Christ spirit to work through your life.
We’ll continue this discussion tomorrow. So invite someone to join us.
This post is _Part 5_ in a series about The Fall. To continue with this series, click on Part 6. To use this as a growth tool to better understand your own calling, you might start by reading the explanation of this series and then read Pt 1, Pt 2, Pt 3 and Pt 4.
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