Looking for GodSample

God Allows Us to Choose

Why do we keep knocking on one “brothel” door after another? Why do we look for God in all the wrong places? The answer begins in Eden.

Adam and Eve knew perfect love in the Garden of Eden. They lived in paradise, and all their needs were met. In the cool of the day, God walked with them. The Bible doesn’t say that God spent time with the animals or marveled at the beauty of the garden. Rather, God was in fellowship with Adam and Eve. They had relationship with Him. Their purpose was shared by nothing else in all of God’s creation. They were completely unique. Everything in the garden was in perfect harmony. They could go anywhere and do anything except they could not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). That was their only condition for living in paradise.

But the serpent got into Eve’s head by saying, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” (Genesis 3:1 NIV). He told her that God didn’t want her to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because if she ate the fruit, she would be like Him. Paul David Tripp says,

Satan is not tempting Eve with a better menu than what God had provided. He is tempting her with autonomy and self-sufficiency. His pitch is “you can be like God.” Genesis 3:6 says of the tree that Eve wanted the wisdom it would give her. She walked in relationship with God, so why wasn’t his wisdom enough? What attracted Eve was not just wisdom, but autonomous wisdom, that is, wisdom that did not require reliance on, and submission to God.*

That lured her in. Ephesians 4:27 warns us, “Do not give the devil a foothold” (NIV), but Eve did, and Adam followed suit. They ate the fruit, and God had to remove them from Eden, permanently blocking their way back in. Why did He do that? Because if they were permitted to live in Eden and eat from its fruit, it would mean that they would live forever in that fallen, rebellious, sinful state. The undeniable tragedy here is that Adam and Eve lost their purpose. They had walked with God and enjoyed Him and His creation, and then gave it up. This was not the Father’s choice; this was on Adam and Eve. The Father's heart of God wanted them to live in paradise with Him, sheltered by His love, safety, and friendship.

The earth belongs to the Lord (Psalm 24:1), but it was given to Adam and Eve to enjoy. When they broke their covenant with God, Satan became ruler and god of this world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Corinthians 4:4), and the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2). Because of the rebellion in Eden, there are now two kingdoms at work in this world: the kingdom of God and light, and the kingdom of Satan and darkness (Ephesians 5:8). There has been a cosmic war since Satan deceived Eve and Adam in the garden. Satan is a real being. He appears in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and is called the father of lies, the devil, the ruler of demons, the evil one, the tempter, the accuser, a murderer, our adversary, and deceiver of the whole world, among other names (Matthew 4:1-3; 9:34; 13:19; John 8:44; 1 Peter 5:8; Revelation 12:9-10). The kingdoms of light and darkness cannot coexist in peace. It’s impossible. But God allows us to choose which kingdom we live in and serve. When we are not in the kingdom of God, we are an enemy of God (Romans 5:10). Our choice determines whether we are “children of God” or “children of the devil” (1 John 3:10 NIV).

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References

* Paul David Tripp, Do You Believe? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 269 (emphasis in original).2.