Serpent’s Test

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]

“Did God really say…? [fill in the blank]  Isn’t this question the beginning of any test for a believer in God and a follower of Jesus Christ?  The problem isn’t the question itself.  The problem is desiring options that will give us the answer we’d rather have.

The woman had the truth from God.  She had the right answer but the problem was the serpent‘s test had a trick question: “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”   Did you notice the crafty option in the serpent’s lie…the word “any?”  The serpent cleverly twisted reality from the one tree God warned them about to “any” tree.  One small lie was enough to become the fruit of doubt with the power to make desire a more palatable option than God’s truth.  Word’s matter!