Did God Really Say

The conflict begins when we question God's love for us.

Genesis 3:1 The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?"

Genesis 3:5-6 "God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil." 6 The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too."

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When I think about how large the Garden of Eden must have been, I have to wonder about Adam and Eve's choice of location, it seems like they must have set up household in close proximity to the tree with the forbidden fruit.

Think about this, if you had the most awesome garden in the world to live in and if it was large enough for so many animals to live in then would you hang out next to the tree full of forbidden fruit? Yes you would!

We are always attracted to what we are told that we cannot have, none of us should think that we would have chose a different neighborhood or handled the talking snake any differently. Satan used the same tools on Adam and Eve that he has used on everybody else that has ever lived.

Satan's has a short list of tricks to appeal to us:

• The lust of the flesh - it tastes good
• The lust of the eyes - it’s nice to look at
• The pride of life - it’ll make you wise 

Satan even used these same things to try to get Jesus to rebel against God. He tries to appeal to our senses and gets us to doubt God's love for us and question the rules that were given to protect us. Any loving parent that is concerned for their child's safety does the same thing that God did.

God's love for us is already obvious in the first few chapters of Genesis. It can be seen in his willingness to meet our needs. God created a friendly atmosphere to live in, he met our need for relationships with God and with other humans, and he gave us boundaries that any good parent would give for their child's safety.

God's love continues to be seen as he meets another need, it's a new need that had never existed before, a need that man would try to fulfill on his own but it certainly didn't measure up to God's standards.

They knew they were naked and they sought to fix the problem with their own wisdom by making clothes out of fig leaves but how long is produce going to last after it has been picked?

God's response to man's sin reveals some more about the character of God and his love for the human race. God meets another need for us, one that we couldn't adequately meet on our own, God sets the standard and then he fulfilled the standard as an example to us.

Later on there would be men that were set aside for the job but for now the first high priest is God. He would offer the first blood sacrifice and teach us how to receive forgiveness long before the law was ever given. Sin brought death into the world, first the death of the first animal, then the way of Cain brought death to his brother.

Man becomes his own executioner, and takes part with Satan, the murderer from the beginning.

-Expositor's Bible Commentary

God wasn't inventing something new, the old system of animal sacrifices and imperfect priest was a picture of the heavenly system that was on the way, a perfect high priest would come that would also be the perfect sacrifice and he would minister in the perfect tabernacle. (Leviticus 4:31, Numbers 15:25–27, Hebrews 8:1-7)

Hebrews 9:10-12 For that old system deals only with food and drink and various cleansing ceremonies— physical regulations that were in effect only until a better system could be established.

11 So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world.

12 With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.

The new covenant that God promised in Genesis was fulfilled in Jesus, the offspring of the woman became the bruised servant that has fatally wounded Satan and destroyed his plans, his sacrifice is perfect and final.

It is so easy to believe the lie that you are worthless to God and that he is holding back something good from you but in light of what Jesus did for you on the cross why do we listen to that snake?

Do you know what God said? The Bible is God's message to you that was preserved through the ages to show you how much you are loved and what you must do to restore your relationship.

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