10/13/2026
Friend, consider the stark contrast that opens the human story in Genesis 2–3: a warning against the serpent’s deception that constantly seeks to influence your spirit. Satan’s influence is never neutral or mixed; it is harmful, negative, dreadful, and deceiving. The only path he opens for mankind is the way to death.
God commanded Adam: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:16–17).
That is the recorded word of the LORD God. When the serpent spoke to Eve, she answered: “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” (Genesis 3:2–3).
The words “neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” do not appear in the command God gave Adam.
Satan then answered with a direct contradiction of the original warning: “Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4–5). That was the only “offer” he made—an inversion of the sure death God had declared. The process he initiates is as follows: question what God said, then correct what God said. Satan’s picture of what their lives could become if they disobeyed God and ate of that fruit became desirable for wisdom (Genesis 3:6). The trap is as follows: man chose to trust a creature more than his Creator (Romans 1).
Eyes were indeed opened (Genesis 3:7), but only to shame, nakedness, and the reality of the death God had warned about.
In direct contrast stands the LORD God. He does not leave the man and woman in that darkened, dying state. He speaks the true diagnosis—“the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil”—and then acts: “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever” (Genesis 3:22). He sends them forth and places Cherubims and a flaming sword “to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24). What looks like severe judgment is, at the same time, mercy and grace. God will not allow fallen humanity to remain forever in the ruin Satan produced. He guards the way so that true life cannot be seized by the sinner on his own terms. In doing so, He illuminates the real condition of the heart, enlightens the mind to the consequences of sin, and directs the path toward the only true remedy—redemption that He Himself will provide. Genesis 3:15 (KJV) And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Satan tempts with a counterfeit enlightenment that ends in death. God illuminates with truth that, though delivered to us as chastisement and correction (Hebrews 12), leads by His mercy and grace into the path of life. Satan offered knowledge that destroys; God prepared the pathway back to redemption by promising a seed who would bruise his head, who is Himself “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
The same created creature who spoke in the garden is later described by the Lord Jesus in plain terms: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44).
From the beginning he has been a murderer and the father of lies. There is no truth in him. His only work is to steal, kill, and destroy.
In direct contrast stands the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it is written, “God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16). He Himself declares: “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:10–11). The thief comes only to take life. The Good Shepherd comes to give life—and to give it more abundantly—by giving His own life for the sheep.
Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). Because of this, we ought to protect our eyes and ears from the ungodly influences that surround us in the world of unbelievers. He seeks to tempt us, to minister to us, and to lead us astray through that external approach (unbelievers- Colossians 3:6).
Contrary to his access from without, God the Holy Spirit dwells in us: “Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:17). He seeks to guide us into all truth from within: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come” (John 16:13). The Holy Spirit seeks to redirect our heart’s attention to the spoken and preserved words of God for all matters of faith and practice (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and to obey them for our protection and perfection.
To live after the flesh is to resume living under the influence of the serpent’s deception, which leads to death: “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die” (Romans 8:13). To walk in the Spirit, to be led of the Spirit, is to remain living under the influence of God the Holy Ghost, who keeps us in the path of life: “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Psalm 16:11).
One is a murderer from the beginning; the Other lays down His life so that others may live. One offers only the way of death; the Other is Himself the way, the truth, and the life. May we reject every voice that promises life apart from God, and instead walk in the light He gives—guided, directed, and kept by His mercy until we fully possess the life that is in His Son.
Proverbs 19:27 (KJV) Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge.
Isaiah 26:3 (KJV) Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
With love, brother Carlos.
