Temptation

Genesis 3:1-7 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, Indeed, has God said, You shall not eat from any tree of the garden? The woman said to the serpent, From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die. The serpent said to the woman, You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. (NASB)

Too often, I believe we have a tendency to read passages of Scripture such as this and gloss over its real meaning and its implications for us. I want you, the reader, to take a moment and consider what you would do if a snake walked up to you and started speaking to you, engaging you in conversation. If this has ever happened to you, please go to the contact page of my website and send me an e-mail. Id like to hear from you.

It is very difficult for me to imagine what I would do if this actually happened to me. Running in the other direction while screaming in terror comes to mind! Or possibly fainting on the spot. Can you put yourself in Eve’s shoes for a moment and imagine carrying on a conversation with a snake? It is very difficult for me to do this.

On one side of my house is a narrow pathway between the bushes along the house and the brush at the edge of the yard. Snakes like to lay in the sun there, probably because they can dart into cover within seconds in either direction. Walking through the pathway to the backyard, something I do quite often, I may come through this pathway 20 times before seeing a snake. The sight always startles me because it is unexpected. I should expect it and be on my guard but the likely explanation is that I get complacent if I do not see the snake for awhile.

A few times I thought about what I would do if one of these snakes started talking to me. And that got the wheels of my mind working. The snake’s purpose in talking to Eve was to tempt her. If only temptation were so obvious, we would have little problem defeating it and living in surrender with the Lord. We would always run the other direction, screaming in terror. Unfortunately, temptation is rarely this easy to spot.

There must have been a reason why Eve did not think a talking serpent was strange. We are not going to undertake an exegetical study of today’s Scripture lesson to explain this phenomen, except to say that, much like Moses and the burning bush, there must have been some reason that this was not an extraordinary occurrence. The focus here will instead be on subtle approaches of temptation. Not only was Eve not frightened by the talking serpent, she had a conversation with the serpent. She made the mortal mistake of negotiating with Satan and giving him an opportunity to take the upper hand. It should be no surprise, then, that she fell into sin. She allowed herself to be captivated with Satan’s charm.

Today’s Scripture lesson should serve as a reminder that temptation often approaches us through readily recognizable images and even common objects and ideals within the culture. Temptation comes in such subtle ways that it is often not recognized as temptation, many times not even detected until we have given some ground to Satan in letting a thought sit in our mind for too long.

It is also a reminder that we should not even entertain the thought of temptation. Yielding to temptation is a slippery slope. Once the door of our heart and mind is opened even a crack, Satan gets his foot in, and it becomes very difficult to close the door to sin. All temptation is a lie. It is an invitation into separation from God on the basis of satisfaction and enjoyment which do not exist and lead only to bondage. Consider for a moment that what the serpent said to Eve was technically correct. She did not die immediately when they ate the fruit, like Ananias and Sapphira did in Acts 5 of the New Testament when they lied to the disciples. The technicality was only a cloak over the real truth, however, the truth that sin causes us to be separated from God, separation which leads to spiritual death and eternal separation.