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The Freedom of Choice, January 7
Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning.
2 Corinthians 11:3
, NIV.
Satan entered into the serpent and took his position in the tree of knowledge and
commenced leisurely eating of the fruit.
Eve, unconsciously at first, separated from her husband in her employment.
When she became aware of the fact she felt that there might be danger, but again she
thought herself secure, even if she did not remain close by the side of her husband.
She had wisdom and strength to know if evil came, and to meet it. This the angels
had cautioned her not to do....
Satan would convey the idea that by eating of the forbidden tree they would
receive a new and more noble kind of knowledge than they had hitherto attained.
This has been his special work, with great success, ever since his fall—to lead
men to pry into the secrets of the Almighty and not be satisfied with what God
has revealed, and not careful to obey that which He has commanded. He would
lead them to disobey God’s commands, and then make them believe that they
are entering a wonderful field of knowledge. This is purely supposition, and a
miserable deception. They fail to understand what God has revealed, and disregard
His explicit commandments and aspire after wisdom, independent of God, and seek
to understand that which He has been pleased to withhold from mortals. They are
elated with their ideas of progression and charmed with their own vain philosophy,
but grope in midnight darkness relative to true knowledge. They are ever learning
and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
It was not the will of God that this sinless pair should have the knowledge of
evil. He had freely given them the good but withheld the evil....
Eve had thought herself capable of deciding between right and wrong. The
flattering hope of entering a higher state of knowledge had led her to think that the
serpent was her especial friend, possessing a great interest in her welfare. Had she
sought her husband, and they had related to their Maker the words of the serpent,
they would have been delivered at once from his artful temptation (
The Story of
Redemption, 32-37
).
Rebellion and apostasy are in the very air we breathe. We shall be affected
by them unless we by faith hang our helpless souls upon Christ. If men are so
easily misled now, how will they stand when Satan shall personate Christ, and work
miracles? Who will be unmoved by his misrepresentations then—professing to be
Christ when it is only Satan assuming the person of Christ, and apparently working
the works of Christ? What will hold God’s people from giving their allegiance to
false christs? “Go not after them” (
Luke 17:23
) (
Selected Messages 2:394, 395
).
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