Hanging on the Tree of Knowledge, his domain of death,
the God-hater spied on the God-loved woman and
waited patiently for a moment of laziness, a brief second
of languid ease where he could beckon her to come
and look. Merely listen. No harm in that.

So very clever was the serpent. Diabolical in his cunning.
Never outright, oh so subtle, hiding his real intent.

He whispered to Eve a question that left the conclusion to her.
He was too clever to state that God was not good.
To that Eve would have objected by the obvious
Paradise of her enjoyment.

So he slithered into her mind with
first a question:
"Did God really say you must not eat any of the fruit in the garden?"

The question of the calculating snake held a tone of implication.
In the malicious hidden way Evil talks -
Hatred said without saying,
"If God is so good, why would He deny you
something so delicious and beautiful.
How could He love you and tell you a 'no'
within this Garden of Yeses."

By questioning God's Word, Hatred negated God's command.

God had withheld what Eve
1. had the right to possess and
2. needed.
    
Not stated, never asked, but definitely, clearly implied.
The serpent cast a shadow,
a dark cloud of doubt over God's Splendid Love but also . . .
on His character, His holy essence. His validity.

Eve answered.
She didn't need to.
She could have ignored the question as inconsequential, stupid.
Even insane . . .
As it was.

God's holiness and goodness were everywhere she looked.
But Eve, by talk-and-thought that seemed within her capacity,
entered reason-without-God, the realm forbidden.

She stated God's clear command but confusion had entered
her mind by merely listening, by trying to answer.
By letting the thoughts of Evil be even considered,
she added to God's word, a harsh addition,
"we must not eat it, or even touch it, or we will die."

"God is not love, not good " was slowly germinating.

Eve answered with the "fear of God" by His promised consequence.
In His ultimate fairness, God had warned of the result,
the death of the spirit leading to the death of all.

"You won't die!" the serpent hissed. (Genesis 3:4)

You won't die. The second lie.
The removal of consequence that opens the door of "anything goes."
Satan's promise of "no consequence" kills the fear of God.

Without the fear of God, humanity goes berserk in selfish madness.
God is to be loved, but also feared. He is God.

Only by listening, just a simple conversation - seemingly innocuous -
Eve let "thinking" lead her to the destruction of
her trust in the Love-God . . .
and therefore the entire death of all her self and life
including the death all her relationships.
With Adam and with God!

"God knows that your eyes will be opened when you eat it.
You will become just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil."
The woman was convinced.
Genesis 3:4, 5

His own ambition, filthy and delusional,
to rule God by knowledge,
to scorn Him by superiority . . .
this was the poisoned fruit of his hatred.
Eve chewed it by listening and swallowed it by believing,
and as food does to the body,
the venom of the snake's God Hating permeated her soul,
her spirit and finally her body.
    
So satan, brilliant in his hatred, killed Eve merely by suggestion.
She had the autonomy to refute it all.
Eve choose.
With frightening freedom, this fresh-made woman,
the pure dream of God's own gentle side,
sat down with
the Enemy of her Creator and ate his poison.
Satan merely tempted her. She agreed to eat!

Serpent-lies about God Most High:

First lie, God is not good, proven by
His not giving you anything you want.
We ever judge God by what He withholds,
rather than by what He gives.
"His withholding constitutes His failure."

His character and holiness are put on trial by our human judging
by the insidious logic of satan.
Ludicrous presumption! Common to our thinking.
If God is not as good as I think He should be to me,
then God does not Love, IS not Love.
"I declare who He is and what He should be and do."
The lunacy of the God-Hater became
the insane arrogance of Humanity.

God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son . . . .
Ultimate refuting of the lie.
Unchallenged proof of His love.

Second lie, "you surely will not die."
We ever believe we can determine our own outcome. with the power
to bestow the pampering gift of immunity onto our choices.
We have been duped to think we are gods and have the last word.
that God has no power to inflict consequences.

The fear of the Lord prolongs life,
But the years of the wicked will be shortened.
Proverbs 10:27 NAS

Third lie, "your eyes will be opened."
You decide what is good and what is evil.
You know everything about everything.
You don't need God's thought, His input.

The Final life, Fourth lie, no more true than the others:
"you will be like God knowing good and evil."

God never intended Adam and Eve to have two categories
for everything, the division of all things into opposites.
No, they were to see Life only,
possess the singularity of Life. God-Life.
Without God, they could never be 'like God.'

The Hater of God discredited God by four lies,
lies that still reverberate, still resonate and
send their sounds to the lazy.

Three lies about Him, His very being.
The fourth lie was the ludicrous promise to humanity.
The lie that - just by knowledge - one can be God.
Adam and Eve bought it by the self-flattery of it.
Had you been Adam and I Eve, we would have bought it, too.
    
No one can be God but God!
    
A God without love, a God without power.
A God unnecessary for knowledge.
A God you do not need and should avoid.
A God of whom you can be smarter.
A Weak and Harsh God you can ignore and
before whom you can do
entirely as you please.
Without fear because
without ramification.

They (the wicked) say to themselves,
"Nothing bad will ever happen to us.
We will be free of trouble forever!"
Psalm 10:6 NLT
    
The Evil Presence led Eve to draw her own conclusion
so she would think the idea came from her mind.

If the Snake could guide her to her own thoughts,
to believe she gave birth to those heinous ideas
out of her own brilliance,
she would chew those thoughts in delight and
swallow their treachery,

And she would love the taste of her intellectual independence,
not needing the surrendering work of waiting to hear.
She would merely let her mind be free to go its own way
and spawn its own reality.
    
She tasted the flavor of her autonomy and was
deliciously flattered by the capacity of her mind
to reason without God.

Make no mistake. The fruit WAS delicious.
    
Free of God's restraints!
Free to eat arsenic.
Free to die . . . a slow and miserable demise
of all love, all peace,
of every hope and protection.
Free of God . . . .

That is our absolute freedom to choose. Real and terrifying.

We still think thinking is only thoughts, not wrong, not dangerous.
"I can think!  That is my right, isn't it?  After all, God gave me a brain!
He expects me to use it."

We live in ignorance that the capacity to think was
made by God, bestowed on us for God,
to hold His Wisdom and respond with Adoration.

As you think, you go.
As you consider, you become.
And . . . as you think . . . you live or die.
    
. . . (A) true knowledge of God's mystery, that is,
Christ Himself in whom are hidden
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Col. 2:2b, 3 NAS

Copyright © 2001 Martha Blaney Kilpatrick