Like all good lies, it started as a little thing!

PART 1

A Serpents Tale (NOT)

Like all good lies, it started as a little thing! The master of deception doing what he does best. Just in case you don’t know the story, here is the introductory part from the Bible:

Genesis 3:1-4
1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 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.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

All good lies contain a lot of truth. God did say, as the serpent so aptly points out, that they shall not eat of every tree of the garden. He just did not say it with the negative connotation that the serpent used. Of course, Eve being “naive” immediately nibbled the bait, so to speak. She quoted to the serpent, in part, what God actually said to Adam.

“And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:”

But a certain little voice in the back of her head reminded Eve to mention God’s caveat. So, Eve almost somewhat reluctantly quoted most of the rest of what God said to Adam:

“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.”

And still yet, she has left the door wide open for the master of deception! Satan’s goal was to drive a wedge of doubt between Eve and her relationship with God by offending Eve. By offending Eve, he tempted her to trust in self and not God. I guess nothing has really changed, as offense is still one of satan’s top tricks to separate us from the love of God. We also need to consider that what God said is a prophecy of the downfall of man, and, in actuality, it’s the first prophecy recorded in the Bible. Here it is straight from chapter 2.

Genesis 2:17 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.

Notice, God did not say IF you eat or “eatest’ for those of us who like to talk King Jamish. He did not even say when you eat, but He gave a more definitive statement: “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

See, it’s a prophecy. God gave an authoritative statement that “in the day” man ate, not if, not when, but “THE DAY”, that man would fail or fall if you prefer. Of course, God the Father knew the actual day man would commit the original SIN. Yep! I said it: the big SIN word. Don’t fret; contrary to popular opinion, a large portion of the Bible deals with SIN and sins’ consequences. The first man Adam saw to that. Thank God, the other half is about REDEMPTION! The last Adam saw to that. See 1 Corinthians 15:45

Here is a good place to learn something from Eve’s mistake. It’s best not to play word games with satan. Had she simply rebuked satan and refused to play his game, well frankly, we would probably not be in this mess would we. One might ask: What about Jesus when He was tempted of satan? Didn’t Jesus have a dialogue with satan? Well yes, but with one difference; Jesus knew the word intimately. After all, He was and is the Word.

John 1:14 “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Knowing the Word and believing to faith in the Father leads to great trust. It becomes evident quite soon that Adam and Eve had very little faith in the Word and even less trust in God the Father. Even though the Word created them, they knew Him not. It’s almost like they became vain in their imaginations. You know, I read something similar to that before, probably in Romans 1.

The serpent (satan), being the persistent devil that he is, refuses to give up. He continues his ploy of manipulating human nature by sowing a small seed of doubt. Sowing doubt is the simplest of all negotiating ploys. Satan is careful not to misquote what God said. As a matter of fact, he tells Eve even more truth; one might say he illuminated or shed more light on what God said. Remember, Isaiah calls satan lucifer, which means light bringer. That old serpent, the devil, sheds light upon God’s word via a third person admonitions, to a definitive partial conclusion, made by the first speaker. SAY WHAT? He tells a lie! We all know that a partial truth is the beginning of a very good lie.

Genesis 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

Satan did not blatantly change God’s word. He falsely illuminated it by breaking God’s word down, out of context, if you will. Satan twisted it to imply that God was withholding vital knowledge from Adam and Eve. Telling someone I’ve got a secret is a temptation few, if any, can resist. Inquiring minds have to know. Hey Eve, I’ve got a secret. God ain’t telling you the whole truth, cause He knows in the day you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, your eyes will be open and you will be just like God. Genesis 3:4 “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:” Satan did not change God’s word; he modified the meaning, by changing the inflection or tense of one small word. That three-letter word is NOT. Again, by placing a negative connotation on the word NOT he offended Eve. So, the serpent, also had a not in his tale. If you have not figured it out yet, I think I’m punny/funny.

Now, I never made good grades in English grammar, but satan probably had a doctorate in grammar.
Because, what satan did is the best example I have ever seen of an adverb. Simply by telling additional truth regarding one small word, he completely flipped the meaning of God’s statement.

Can’t you just hear Eve now thinking in her own mind…..
Yeah! The serpent is right.
God did not really mean what He said.
I must have misunderstood what God really meant.
I mean God loves ME and wants me to be happy.
What “I” really want is to eat of that tree.
Since God really loves ME, He would not begrudge ME eating of that tree.
Perhaps, I should consult the original documents.
You know, see what the Greek word really means.
Break it down into its root meaning.
This serpent guy is an expert grammar major.
I’ll take his word for it; after all, it’s what I really want to do!

Okay, maybe the “break down” of the Greek word thing isn’t funny. Actually, it’s hilarious if you think about it! I’m sometimes fed up with all this modern breaking down of the Greek word stuff. Granted, we must understand what a word means to fully comprehend a sentence, but all this breaking it down to the root word sometimes goes too far. We either believe that God is capable of protecting the integrity of His written word or we don’t.

You might say that’s a strange statement coming from someone writing about the original lie? You see, that’s the real deal. The real lie is not so much what is written. The real lie is in how what was written has been and is being interpreted.

Wouldn’t it be much simpler to just tell a straight out lie? Well, in the beginning, yes. You know that’s the thing about lying that we all know. It is simple to tell a straight out lie, but as our audience learns more, it’s necessary that our lie become more elaborate. So, simply wholesale changing the written word would be too easy of a deception to debunk. For example, let’s consider any relatively new version or translation of the Bible. If some translator, author, scribe, editor or group added or removed text that changed the meaning it would be too simple to track. Just lay down your accepted translation beside the new and look for the changes. DUH! People have made a cottage industry out of trying to prove how different translations have added or taken away from God’s word.

However, if one could keep the same basic meaning and change the way people interpret the text, then well nearly any doctrine is possible. Stealing a line I heard in a Sci-Fi movie “Perception is reality.” So, if we perceive something to be true because it seems so “from a certain point of view”, then it is true. Guess which Sci-Fi movie I borrowed that line from.

Some of you may be tempted to skip ahead to the chapter entitled “STAR WARS THEOLOGY”, but please don’t. Come on, have a little, well, patience if not faith. Oh wait! You can’t skip ahead, because I have not finished this book yet. Yes, this is the beginning chapter of a book I have been working on about how satan has weaved a lie so complex that the only adjective which does it justice is WHOPPER.