In this chapter of my book, God Is Always Good, I take the reader on a journey of how quickly God’s good plan for us can be distorted by the schemes and trickery of the devil. The devil knows man’s weakness because he was created with those same tendencies. The devil was not born in the spiritual purity from which Christ was born. Christ came through a virgin, and was not born by the seed of man, through which the seed of sin enters man. He was conceived by the power and purity of the Holy Spirit, which gives Him a nature like God, to know God intimately, and have control of the trickery and deception of the devil. The devil was called into existence by God. But man, is so prone to wonder, and the enemy knows exactly when to ponce on a wondering soul. This is taken from the chapter, “And then it wasn’t, but God…”

Genesis 3:1-4, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God 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 surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Could Eve have already been desiring in her heart to eat from this tree? The Bible does not give us a look into what Eve may have been thinking, but it is interesting that the serpent went straight for what she may have been desiring. The Scripture says that she saw that the trees were “pleasing to the sight,” in Genesis 3:6. We can come up with many questions as to why the enemy tempted her in this way.   We see that God did not intervene in this encounter or restrict Eve from using her free will. She not only rejected everything that God commanded, but she also, disregarded the role God gave Adam to be her husband and leader. 

The next thing that happens is Eve presents this fruit to Adam; he does not question Eve or seem concerned about where she got the fruit from that she was offering him. The Scriptures do not give us further details, but we know that he took it and ate it, and the rest is pain and strife for all mankind. We can draw several things from this breakdown, from complete perfection to total separation from God on this side of the story. But sin is the culprit that turned this beautiful start of creation into pain for the rest of us. It was the sin of doubt which led to her disobedience. The serpent, the devil, continued in his defiance and disobedience to God; he tempted Eve to act in disobedience, and then Eve led Adam, the gatekeeper of all creation, down that same road of disobedience. Everything was perfect, and then it wasn’t.