In the creation story, God specifically commanded the man not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the consequence of disobeying God was a sure death (in other words the tree was not good for eating it was evil) . However, Satan the master of deception convinced Eve that what God called evil was actually good for her. Foolishly, she believed Satan and chose to eat the forbidden fruit. As soon as she did that she” changed”. The Bible says: Gen 3: 7: “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they” knew” that they were naked. . .”
This means that they became conscious of the fact that they were naked when they ate the fruit. When God questioned Adam about what happened Adam told God that he was scared because he was naked and hid himself from God?God asked him: . . . .” Who told thee that thou wast naked?”in other words You’re not supposed to be conscious of that. (Gen 3: 11)
The word” naked” as used in the creation story refers to mans natural state without God. Prior to the fall, Gods spirit” covered” Man’s eyes from seeing Himself and focused his mind on God glory. That’s why he wasn’t conscious of the fact that he was naked. To further explain this lets look at Isaiah 30: 1″Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that” cover” with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin.”
The spirit of God covers the eyes (mind) of man from focusing on self and instead focuses mans attention on seeing God as he really is and living for him. (1 john 3: 2)
Result of mans disobedience:
Satan succeeded in” blinding” man from seeing God and opening his eyes to seeing and serving a false reality, : “Mans beastly and selfish self.”
Many occultists and mystics often emphasize that gen 3: 7 (”And the eyes of them both were opened, . . . . . .” ) means that Satan opened the eyes (mind, understanding) of man to see and that prior to when their eyes were” opened” by the forbidden tree, they were actually blinded by God. What they fail to realize is that the serpent actually blinded them. He” opened”their eyes to see a false worldview without God and blinded them to the fact that they were supposed to be seeking God not self, supposed to be bearing Gods image and name not making an image and a name for themselves, 2 cor 4: 4 says: ” In whom the god of this world hath” blinded” the minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” Notice it didn’t say whom the god of this world hath opened the mind of. . . . but blinded the minds of. . . . .
Satan blinds You from seeing the truth and opens Your eyes (mind) to see a false reality so You can spend eternity without God. Please take note of the fact that 2 cor 4: 4 says” blinded the minds of” and not the eyes of. . . Our minds are our spiritual organs of sight they direct all our activities and any decision we make. In fact the ancestor of every action we take comes from the mind. The word” eye”as used in the creation story refers to the mind.
The two minds:
Romans 8: 6
For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
From the above verse we see that there are two mind views presented in the bible one leads to death and one leads to life. These two minds are symbolic of the two trees in the garden of Eden the tree of knowledge of good and evil (carnal mind) which gives a false worldview based on self leads to death (death means an eternity without God who is our life) while the tree of life (spiritual mind) as the name indicates leads to life.
Satans Deceit Strategies:
-Rev 3: 17: Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
The above verse is just an example of how Satan deceives humanity he gives humanity the impression that they are rich , increased in goods and need nothing but hides their true nature from them and that is that Without God they are wretched, miserable, poor , blind, and naked. Notice the word” blind”is used in this verse, This describes the true state of the Laodecians (whom the verse was addressing) their mindset (eyes) told them that they were rich and prosperous but they were actually blind to their true spiritual position: They were wretched and needed God. Only Jesus could see that
Satan’s deceit didn’t end in the garden of Eden:
So many Christians feel that since Satan deceived eve, He doesn’t have much to do with humanity. That is a great lie, The same way satan deceived eve is the same way he deceives humanity. He makes Us set our mind on the temporal and forsake the eternal. He makes us seek our will (self) instead of Gods will. (Read rev 12: 9 to see that Satan indeed deceives the whole world) . We often blame Eve’s choice for all the evils that are in the world today but What we fail to realize is that we are so much like Eve. Everyday We make so many destructive and selfish choices like Eve did. We choose death over life when we refuse to submit to the Lords Authority. Its so sad to say it but many of us prefer death to life (Prov 8:36)
IS 5:20: Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Another strategy Satan uses to delude us is to call what is evil good and good evil. to put darkness as light and light as darkness to call what is sweet bitter and bitter sweet. Lets take another look at the temptation of eve to better understand what I’m saying: Satan made eve accept evil (the tree of knowledge of good and evil) instead of good” the tree of life.” He blinded her from seeing the true light (1 cor4: 4)”…lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” ) Notice the verse in bracket says lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. . . Satan made Eve choose darkness over light and fooled her into thinking that the darkness was light to make her accept the darkness as being ideal
The same strategy Satan used to tempt eve is what he uses to fool humanity to accept him. St Paul said in 2 cor 4: 18: While we (Christians) look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Satan makes us look at the temporal things and on the worlds pleasures. He makes us despise anything spiritual and live for now. He makes us live for ourselves seek self and He uses the immediate gratification that living for the self offers to buttress his point. God only wants to deprive You of pleasure, he says, Why don’t You compromise and enjoy Yourself forget about God he doesn’t mean well for You. He wants You to suffer.
That’s why Jesus rebuked Peter in Matt 16: 21-23: “From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offense unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.”
Notice Jesus called Peter Satan. Satan is only mindful of the things of men (carnal things) instead of accomplishing Gods purpose (dying on to self So our souls can be saved)
Little wonder people of our day hate Christians, They hate them because they view them as people who are against them indulging themselves. Little wonder money and not God is respected in the society we live in today. Little wonder there is an explosion of all sort of abominations in the world and people respect the people who partake in them.
Wake up my brethren The devil has deceived humanity for too long, wake up to righteousness. Deny Yourselves be reconciled to Your God. Come out of Babylon or else You will partake in her sins and share in her judgment
N.B: Unless otherwise stated all Bible verses quoted here are taken from the Authorized (King James) Version.
Source: Arthur_Jason
