God’s Command and Satan’s Lie
Every day, we make many choices. These choices can be big ones (like whether or not you are going to skip school), or they can be small ones (like what kind of jelly to put on your toast). The big choices that we make affect our lives in many ways—sometimes even later in life. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve were faced with a choice that affected not only themselves, but also everyone who has lived after them. This choice involved two trees and a lie.
When God created the world and made the Garden of Eden, He placed two trees in the garden. One was called the tree of life, and the other was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God then told Adam: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). God allowed Adam and Eve to eat from all the other trees in the garden—including the tree of life—but not from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. One day, Satan came to Eve in the form of a snake and asked her about the command God had given them concerning the trees. WhenEve told Satan what God had commanded, Satan lied to her and said: “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5).
Adam and Eve then had a choice to make: would they obey the command of God, or listen to the words of Satan? This was a big choice, and they made the wrong one. The first man and woman made a choice based on a lie, and committed the first sin in human history. In the big choices we make, there are times when people lie to us and pressure us to make the wrong choices, just like Satan did with Eve. But we need to learn from the choice Adam and Eve made, and always remember to make the right choice based on what God says in His Word, not on what man or Satan may say.
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