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Spiritual Gifts, Volume 3
they would be in greater danger than if both were together. The angels
enjoined upon them to closely follow the instructions God had given
them, for in perfect obedience they were safe, and this fallen foe could
then have no power to deceive them. God would not permit Satan to
follow the holy pair with continual temptations. He could have access
to them only at the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Eve wandered away from the side of her husband, and was gazing
with mingled curiosity and admiration upon the fruit of the forbidden
tree. Satan, in the form of a serpent, conversed with Eve. The serpent
had not the power of speech, but Satan used him as a medium. It was
Satan that spoke, not the serpent. Eve was deceived, and thought it was
the serpent. This serpent was a very beautiful creature with wings; and
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while flying through the air his appearance was very bright, resembling
the color of burnished gold. He did not go upon the ground, but went
from place to place through the air, and ate fruit like man.
Eve’s curiosity was aroused. Instead of fleeing from the spot, she
listened to hear a serpent talk. That strange voice should have driven
her to her husband’s side to inquire of him why another should thus
freely address her. But she enters into a controversy with the serpent.
And he said unto the woman, “Yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of
every tree of the garden?” He begins his controversy in the form of
a question. Eve answers, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the
garden. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden,
God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye
die.” The serpent answers, “Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know
that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall
be as gods knowing good and evil.”
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 to be satisfied with what God has revealed, and not careful to
obey that which he has commanded. He would lead them to disobey
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God’s commands, and then make them believe that they are entering
a wonderful field of knowledge, which 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