Learn the Attack… How the Enemy Comes Against God’s Word…

There are a lot of people in our world that do not hold the Word of God in high regard. They say it’s an old book. They question how we can possibly believe its stories. They ask how could a loving God allow this or that to happen. They say the writers were uneducated, unsophisticated and on and on. For those of us who love God’s Word, this is maddening, but it’s nothing new.

In the garden (another biblical story often dismissed by many) we see God give His first restriction, the only one recorded to that point (Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) and no sooner does He give the command, then Satan comes along to contradict it. It’s a three step process, that we would be wise to understand since it is the same one he has used against the Word of God ever since.

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

(NIV)

Step one: Get us to question the Word of God. Did God really mean what he said?
Step two: Discredit the Word.
“You will surely not die” and because they did not die instantaneously, some would say he was right. However if you remember when God banished them from the garden a short time later, God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” Translation death came as a result of eating the fruit, and the choice to sin. From there, Satan jumps right into the third tactic.
Step three: Discredit God.
“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Translation, God is withholding His best from you because God is not good.

First he gets us to question God’s word, then His truth and finally His goodness, because if he can get us to turn from God, Satan can fulfill his ultimate mission, to destroy what God loves most, humanity, you and me.

It’s the same tactic he has used from the beginning of time. Don’t fall for it. God means what He says. His Word is truth and the things he chooses to withhold from us are the things that would do us harm. After all when He withheld the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they already knew good. The only thing God was trying to withhold was the knowledge of evil. God is good and He loves us completely. We need to trust Him and follow Him. We can take God at His Word.

Don’t fall for the same old attack.