Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from the “Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide”, is titled “The Fall”. A good lesson with some interesting insights. For example: “…right from the start, we can see that Satan likes to quote God…” (Quarterly for Sunday). And so, did the Pharisees. In fact, the Pharisees based their whole lives on Scripture and a firm “thus sayeth the Lord”. Everything they believed and did was based on God’s Word and a firm “thus sayeth the Lord”. Yet, they did the will of Satan, just like their Bible quoting “leader”, Satan. Amazing, is it not. That the Bible itself could be used to promote Satan and a Satanic picture of God. A picture so diametrically opposed to God, the very Author of the Bible and Inspirer of all Bible writers. The holders of that picture of God hated their very God and then killed Him when He showed-up on earth. YIKES!
The question at the bottom of Sunday’s lesson asks, “What is our best defense against (Satan’s) deceptions?” The answer is not, “a firm reliance on a strict ‘thus sayeth the Lord’”. For that is precisely the way the Pharisees lived. And precisely what Satan did to Christ in the wilderness of temptation. The correct answer needs to be more like, “an understanding of God, what He MEANT by all that He said, as demonstrated so precisely by His Son”. Just doing what God says, without continued striving to understand what He MEANS by what He said, will produce the character of Satan in you and me.
Another insight from Monday’s lesson; “Satan’s two arguments, immortality and being like God, convinced Eve to eat the fruit”. Were those the two temptations? Let’s take the second temptation first, “being like God”. Is it a sin to want to be “like God”? We sing a song with a chorus that goes, “Be like Jesus is my song, in the home and in the throng. Be like Jesus all day long. I would be like Jesus”. Don’t you and I want to be like Jesus? Doesn’t Jesus call us to be “like God”? Of course, He does. But the temptation to Eve was not so much to “be like God” (the “what”), but the way to “be like God” (the “how”). The temptation to Eve appealed to the very “how” that attracted Lucifer in the first place. That “how”? Self-exaltation. Satan appealed to Eve’s desire to promote self. To decide for herself between good and evil. To be her own “god”. And this is what attracts us, too. We want to be the decider of how, when, and in what way to follow our God. We do not really like our God and His self-sacrificing ways… and neither did Lucifer the light-bearer (now Satan the adversary). We self-focused sinners do not like God and His ways. We do not really want to be like God in character, either. We want to be like Him in might and power. Satan appealed to that latent desire in Eve… and Satan appeals to that in us, too.
And He also appealed to Eve’s sinful desire for immortality… her desire to not die and her desire for eternal life… or was it? God had de-facto assured the Holy Pair of eternal life with Him. Only sinfully going against Him would bring death. Satan does not entice her with immortality for God had already assured Eve of it with Him. She was tempted to distrust God and His selfless ways… and yield to her own desire to be her own God. Tempted to, once again, go her own way. Go the way “that seems right to a man (or woman), but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25). She presumed on the love and graciousness of God. That she could just follow her own desires with no natural consequence. Not realizing that God had been warning her of sin… and sin’s natural consequence… death. God had not been warning her that He would need to kill her if she disobeyed. But warning her of separating herself from Him who is life.
One more insight. This time from Thursday’s lesson; “But now that (the Holy Pair) knew evil, God was going to do all that He could to save them from it”. A rousing AMEN from me! Let us never forget this. All God’s actions or allowing’s are to save us from “the sin which so easily ensnares us” (Hebrews 12:1). Everything. And so, with these stories in Genesis. We must see these stories through the eyes of a Father who loves us and will die to save us. But will also slay us rather than have us remain the slaves of sin. All His actions are “love” because “God is love” (1 John 4:8; 4:16). Never forget. And as you read His word, if God’s actions seem unloving, vengeful, arbitrary or severe, then go to Him and ask Him for understanding. He may tell you to “read on”. To keep reading. But His Holy Spirit will work with you to help you understand. It is God’s desire that we be His understanding friends. But it may take some time and effort on our part to get to the place where we are even capable of understanding. Because we are such sinners, steeped in the cauldron of self-love and selfish ways. But the effort is worth it. For “when He is revealed (when we begin to understand and really see Him), we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). When we begin to understand, we will no longer be motivated by the beggarly selfish motives of “fear of punishment or hope of reward” but we will be “like Him”, willing to sacrifice our own eternal security for others… all others… any other.
May we always read scripture to understand our God. It is what friends, do (see John 15:15).
With brotherly love,
Jim