Friday, July 28, 2023

Goal of the Tempter

By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Romans 5:12

"....into Eden the tempter came. 
Having been cast as profane out of the mount of God, because of the rebellion to which his pride had urged him on, his sole satisfaction was found in 
--trying to thwart the purposes of God
--and in causing others to share his own unhappy lot
 
Knowing that obedience is life, 
he planned the death of the human race, 
by causing our first parents to sin. 
 
Where was happiness, 
...he sowed the seeds of discontent; 
where was meekness, and willing subjection to God's requirements,   ...he planted pride and unholy ambition; 
where was the utmost liberty, because man was walking in the law of God, 
...the adversary of souls brought hard and cruel bondage.
 
By insinuating into their minds the idea that God was a harsh task-master, and that by His gentle rules he was seeking to elevate himself at their expense, he caused them to seek for larger liberty in their own way; and thus they found that, although a man's own way may seem right in his own eyes. 
 
But the loving Father did not leave his children entirely in the hands of their merciless adversary. Immediately after our first parents had committed the sin which brought death into the world, and all our woe, with loss of Eden, God spoke the words which saved the guilty ones from utter despair, saying to the one who had caused their fall, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Gen.3:15
 
*These words are universally understood as containing the promise of the Messiah, who should destroy Satan and his works, and set at liberty those whom he had bound; 
*and in the succeeding ages, until the day that hey were fulfilled, the highest hope of every woman who believed God's word, was that she might be the mother of the great Deliverer." 
E.J. Waggoner