As Adam did not know how far reaching his eating of the forbidden fruit would take him, man cannot know how far his disobedience to the laws of God will remove the shield of God’s protection over him!!. We have come to accept sin as a part of our existence, thinking it not to be as harmful as we are told. We tend to overlook the admonitions of Deity and hide our heads under the fact that somebody told us that “God is love” and would never send anyone to Hell who ever showed the slightest love for He or His Son, Jesus Christ, reasoning that IF God loved us He would not allow us to be damned for eternity!!
It makes no more sense to think that God left the determination of our eternal habitation strictly with the “newbie” just created. In-experienced, unaware of just who was their enemy, Adam and Eve were in an idealic, innocent Garden where nothing had ever impeded them. They had no natural enemies as they knew of them, for they were created in the “image” of God; they were untouchable. Led by their innocence, they would have been as blind to the restraints God would place on them as they had been the wondrous benefits He had bestowed on them. Like most people who “have it too good” who had never harmed anyone else, Adam nor Eve could have been the least questionable to motives of anything, even a snake; especially one who intended their doom and destruction. Put yourself in their shoes, who would ever have thought that a snake would be their undoing?? They had NEVER experienced the anger of God, never considered the weight He placed on His Word, nor the possibility of Him cutting off fellowship with them. Who or what had warned them of these prospects? Had this been their only chance for eternal happiness with God, it would seem rather cruel for novices as they to have been dealt “such a harsh hand.” What we will discuss in this article I hope will clear the mind of any charge anyone could bring against God!!
“It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Jeremiah 10:23 When man is living his life he thinks himself at liberty to do whatever he may desire. He hears the roar of the lion at his back but pushes on to his life-goals thinking he is the master of his race. The preacher cries long and hard when no one is listening. The only Being to whom he can turn is God!! It truly is as though their work had been in vain. It remains true; “the blind lead the blind and they all shall fall in the ditch.” The brutality often incurred by the people is caused by the selfishness of their preachers. They think it is a good life every one is relatively all right and so content that they are good enough to get by, they continue on “the way that seemeth right unto a man and the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 14:13 The preachers and leaders of the people have done a great deal to enjoy the benefits of religion but practically nothing to repair it so as to keep it godly!! They have no eye to God or His Providence, therefore being blind, they make every “would be saint” a cold, calloused, brute who depends on himself and not of God!! When true calamity does come that has been whispered from their pulpits instead of being lauded from the highest housetops, the worshiper has no way to redress his grievances but to depend on himself, God has been long out of the picture. You cannot expect a people to pray when faith has been taken out of their vocabulary!! As Isaiah cried: “Israel has no one to lead her of all the sons she has brought forth.” Isaiah 51:18 God did not put us in this position we find ourselves!!
God did not tempt Adam, Eve did; God did not try Adam’s faith, Satan did through Eve. God did not put them in the position they found themselves so it is wrong to blame their situation and condemnation on God!! In fact, God had gone before them and given them a simple commandment that would have remedied their conduct had He just been listened to, but they ignored His predetermined plan!! God had to plan ahead because man was not smart enough to “watch his back.” Satan was the model hypocrite that stabbed Eve in the back (and she was worse than he) when she was not looking. God had to defend God!! Had God not enforced His Word, He would have become a “partaker of their evil deeds” by ignoring their insolence. 11 John vs 8-10 We have no right to cry, “sin is an evil that I must bear because it is the will of God.” God willed sin on no one, especially man, man chose, man sinned not God, but God had to be what His Word demanded Him to be so let us be like Job when “in all these things we find ourselves, we do not charge God, foolishly.”!!
