Let us now examine Isaiah 14:12-20 and see to what lengths self-exaltation carried satan in rebellion against his Creator and Sovereign.
(Isaiah 14: 12-14, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
For thou hast said in thine heart,
I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation ...,
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I WILL BE LIKE THE MOST HIGH."
Self-exaltation led to self-will,self-will led to rebellion against God, and lucifer, son of the morning, became satan, father of the night. The moment "the anointed cherub" said in his heart, "I will" as opposed to God's will sin began. The moment the subject sought to dethrone the Sovereign by saying, "I will be like the Most High" sin's work in the universe commenced. But it did not end there. The sin that began in the holy mountain of God was carried into the garden of Eden.
satan, the deceiver and tempter, in Eden
satan, God's avowed enemy, is there. This apostate spirit is the fourth person in the garden of Eden. And what is his mission? He is there with the definite, deliberate, diabolical purpose of tempting Adam and Eve to do just what he himself had done - through an act of self-will to step outside the circle of God's will, to dethrone God by enthroning self. He is there to gain recruits for his rebel ranks; to win subjects for his kingdom of darkness and death.
It is instructive to follow the cunning machinations of this diabolical strategist as he succeeds in tempting Adam and Even into doubt, disobedience and disloyalty. God grant that it may throw needed illumination upon the path of temptation some reader may be treading.
Let us ask and answer three question:
What was satan's aim in tempting Adam and Eve?
What was satan's method of approach to them?
How did he achieve his success?
satan's aim, let us remember, was to exalt himself to God's place of sovereignty and authority and to secure for himself the worship from God's created beings which belonged to God alone. So he was in Eden to draw Adam and Eve away from God, to persuade them into disobedience and disloyalty, which would automatically cast them out of God's kingdom into his own. To accomplish this he did not need to incite them to gross sin or vice; one act of disobedience would carry out his purpose. He needed only to destroy confidence in God and to lead them to disbelieve and disobey Him.
satan's method of approach was very cunning and subtle. It was not the method of open warfare against God but that of undermining faith in God by malicious propaganda. satan did not come out into the open and contest God's sovereignty over His created beings but he sought to discredit God in their sight by creating within them discontent with their circumstances and by holding before them a false Utopia, thus hoping to instigate a revolt against God.
His method has not changed from that day to this. He is attempting the same thing and using the same method now that he did 4,000 years ago. The seed germ of discontent and disorder sown in the garden of Eden has born fruit and is reaping a terrible harvest in all parts of the world today. Churches and chapels are being demolished; Bibles are being torn to pieces; anti-Christian demonstrations are being staged; threats are being made of dethroning God in His own universe. Back of all this subtle, efficient, destructive propaganda is the master mind of the first spiritual Bolshevik who began his world revolution in the garden of Eden.
To accomplish his purpose there he put before Eve the lure of a better condition of life than they enjoyed under God's beneficent, loving rule, and urged securing it by illegitimate, revolutionary means. satan must reach the spirit of Adam and Eve and in some way break the connection between the divine and the human. He did this by the proffer of a knowledge even such as "the gods" possessed. Through the human spirit illumined by the divine Spirit they did know God, which knowledge was the "summum bonum" of benefit and blessing. But satan intimated that there was more to be known which God was willfully and wrongfully withholding from them. They were not have their due.
To reach the spirit to which satan had no means of access he must get at the soul. The emotions must be stimulated to desire this tree of the knowledge of good and evil which could make one wise. Their eyes must be opened to see how pleasant was this tree that they might covet its fruit.
So an indirect appeal was made to the soul through the senses. satan gained his entrance to the innermost being of Eve through the body. The tree was good for food so he tempted Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit.
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 12)
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