Over the last few weeks in my study of Genesis, I’ve been awestruck at just how awesome our God is. Our God is fantastically great.
And unfortunately, Satan is fantastically evil.
A blogger on my blogroll has written a very insightful post on the subject of the fall, one which truly resonated with me. I won’t copy his post but encourage you to take the time to read it.
I’ve known all my life about Satan, about the story of how he was cast down from Heaven, and how he is constantly warring against all that God is. But in reality, that story seems very far away from the daily life I live. I’ve grown so conditioned to hearing the message to “stay away” from Satan that I don’t think I truly appreciate how evil he truly is. We laugh at jokes regarding hell and cast off the phrase “the devil made me do it” with incredible nonchalance, when in reality, nothing could be scarier for us.
In recent years, I’ve become more and more aware of the insidious ways Satan takes all that God intended for our good and twists it into something he can use against God. It all began in the garden with God’s blessing and encouragement to Adam and Eve to eat of ANY tree in the Garden…except one. God’s blessing was abundant. His provision was perfect. As far as the eye could see there was a bounty of agricultural delight. It was perfect. And Satan convinced us – mankind, as represented by Adam and Eve – that it wasn’t enough. That God really wasn’t perfectly good. That God was holding out. And we’ve all suffered the consequences since.
As I’ve dug deeper and deeper into the book of Genesis, I see this pattern repeating ad nauseum. God creates the garden…Satan twists God’s provision. God creates the stars…Satan twists the message from a Divine story of redemption into man’s quest to take care of himself independent of God. And later in Genesis we see the rainbow…once a symbol of God’s beautiful promise to never again destroy the world due to our sexual promiscuity now being used to validate a lifestyle that is in direct contradiction to the one God intended. It breaks my heart, and causes me to realize how serious our enemy is.
That devil is one twisted dude.