Genesis 3:1 – Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Hey all, new blog today. The fall… well that’s how we got here. Mankind was made perfect, in perfect fellowship and communion with God, but then one day, it all got shattered. When Adam and Eve sinned, they disobeyed God, and mankind died. God warned Adam, he said if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil… that they would surely die. And surely died they did. Then and there they died when they took of the tree. Physically they died many hundreds of years later, and our physical death is a result of the fact we are under the curse of sin, living in sin cursed bodies. But there and then they died the real death, a spiritual death. Because once they sinned, they were naked, they were ashamed, there was the coldness, the darkness of separation from God. When we sin, we should feel naked, dark, separate, not right… because we are. Sure, we can get used to sin, but for unsaved and saved alike, but there is no substitute for being right with God, of having that peace and rest of being right with God, of having his wrath turned away from us. But in sin, we are alienated from God, and not just alienated, but ENEMIES of God. That is our first, our natural state. We are all conceived and born in sins. The Bible says we are by nature the children of wrath. Adam’s sin descended upon all mankind, it is passed down, and we and creation groans under the curse of sin. We are all born spiritually separate from God, as separated as light is from darkness, and that is why we all need to be saved. That’s why we must be born again. Born again refers to spiritual rebirth. But our default position when we start is unbelief, we all need to, when we are of age… repent of our sin and turn to God through accepting and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour. And when we do, the relationship is repaired, because the sin issue is dealt with through Jesus, and thus fellowship can be restored with justice served, because Jesus paid the price for our sins, he purchased our freedom with his blood. When we are saved, we are born again, spiritually made alive again, reconnected to God!

So looking at the fall. Because it is not just “back then”, but we can “fall” today in the same way. Satan is not original, he does the same thing he does back then. The fall in each of our lives today comes from doubt on God’s word. Satan tirelessly attacks God’s word. Because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Our faith is inextricably, inescapably tied to God’s word. We have to remember that things like faith and belief are “action” words. It is hearing, reading, and OBEYING, it is doing. It’s not enough to hear, God’s word illicits a response from the hearer. It requires a response, and gets a response one way or another, but a response nonetheless. You cannot live in middle ground, Jesus said you are either for him or against him, there is no middle ground, you cannot wash your hands or absolve yourself. All of us are in one camp or another. Are you on the Lord’s side or on Satan’s side? So we are all hearers or doers. Many people hear, but that’s it. Few people hear and then “do”. Satan has attacked God’s word, persecuted God’s word all throughout history. But under all the persecution… Acts 12:24 – But the word of God grew and multiplied. It is God’s word that carries power, it has the power to multiply, it has creative power. Because God’s word is with power, it has the power to change your life, transform your life, it is what your life can hinge upon and be built upon. 1 Peter 1:23 – Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. So great is it that God says heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. So great is it that God says he has magnified his word above his name.

Where doubt is, disobedience will soon follow. If you have doubt and questioning and wavering in your life, than you will also end up in disobedience, in falling in your life. But first, Genesis 3 begins with subtlety. Because Satan is subtle, and he will deceive all of us, we are no match for him in our own strength, reasoning, power. There is a lot of subtlety around today, with regards to Bible versions, with regards to God’s word in general. Where doubt is, it is because there is also subtlety there as well. That’s why instead of handling doubt as Eve did, and being deceived in the process, we should cling to the word of God, it’s authority, and it as the basis, the rock upon which our life is grounded and founded. That’s why Jesus likened hearing and doing God’s word to building your house upon the rock, unless you’d rather the house upon the sand that falls flat when the storms, wind and floods come (and they are coming!). But instead today there is disputation, doubt, ambiguity, human reasoning. There is no authority in churches anymore, man has become the god, and just like in Judges where there was no king in Israel and everyone did that which right in his own eyes, so because there is no authority and basis for lives, lives are all over the shop, and lacking the power and anointing and blessing of God… God who does not bless sin, who does not bless evil, who does not bless disobedience.

Eve entered into reasoning, rather than trusting God’s word, she started going by her own understanding, rationalizing. She was allured, deceived and hoodwinked by the devil, and so we will be today, he is very subtle! She added to God’s word, she did not repeat the command God had given… she added to his command! And where deception and doubt and questioning is, disobedience is never far behind. Because we don’t get much further, and we see Adam and Eve taking of the fruit. They fell, and you will fall, and probably already have many times in your life, as we all do. We get deceived, we doubt, we walk according to our own eyesight, pride and lust takes over… just as pride and lust got Eve as she gazed at the tree. And we can and do look at some really fertile attractive trees in our life, which carry such great cost, but that we take of. We take of the fruit of sinful pleasure, sinful desires, sin, which brings forth death in our life. Death of a marriage, death of a relationship, death of fellowship with God and others, practical death, and possibly also physical death. Instead of obeying God with the simple faith of a little child, we exercise our right as “gods” to take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We’re going to make our own way! Decide for ourselves! We make ourselves the god, we are going to do it all our way. We make up our own religion, our own Jesus, our own gospel, our own way, we find our own path. Proverbs 14:12 – There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Why is just simply obeying God so hard? Why don’t we just take him at our word? Well because there’s subtlety of Satan involved, there’s the fact we are fallen creatures involved, there’s our lust and pride, and humanity in his natural state hardens to and resists God. It started with questioning. Romans 14:1 – Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. We need to stop questioning. And grow up in the faith. We start off as babes, and as the Bible says and as babies do, we desire the sincere milk of the word that we may grow thereby. We desperately need spiritual food to grow spiritually. But instead we starve to the point of death. We’re on milk when we should still be on meat as the Bible says in Hebrews… instead we should grow up and get on meat, as should human beings do as they grow up and begin eating meat and are weaned off the milk. 2 Timothy 3:7 – Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Jesus said “Ye shall KNOW the truth, and the truth shall set you free”. The truth is there, just do we want it, it’s not we can’t obtain it, because that would make God a liar, but it’s because it doesn’t suit us, it’s not what we think it should be or look like… maybe it’s because we have not the truth in us, we don’t have a love of the truth in us, we don’t have the Spirit of truth in us… and that’s why we never get the truth, it’s why we never arrive at it, settle on it. 2 John 1:1,2 – The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth; For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever. And 2 John 1:4 – I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father.

Satan will get you to disobey God through questioning, doubt, dispute. He is a liar. And he got Adam and Eve, and he gets us today. Your spiritual life will die or remain dead, or be severely compromised by being deceived, by disobeying God. Fellowship, communion with God will be cut off in your life. Read 1 John 1, God is light and in him is no darkness AT ALL. You can’t be in fellowship with him and walking in darkness. It’s impossible. You need to walk in the light, as he is in the light. And if you aren’t… well… the solution is there as well. 1 John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We need to get right with God through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Adam and Eve fell, they disobeyed God, and it set on course six thousand years of tragic human history, redeemed only by the blood of Christ, the only sinless one, the Son of God, who fixed it up with the sacrifice of himself for the sins of the world, for you and for me. We have all fallen, we all fall, but Proverbs 24:16 says For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again… and Proverbs 4:18 says But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Jesus will fix it up, he will fix you, he will set you on the solid rock, and we as saved people look forward to that perfect day, when the fall is no more.

3 John 1:4 – I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

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