by Janelle Goodwin
Now we see that sin is when we know to do the right thing and not doing it, or we do the wrong thing. We know that we sin when we do not obey God but how did sin get started in the world? When God created the world He made everything perfect! All the animals were perfect, all of the plants were perfect and Adam and Eve were perfect. God allowed Adam and Eve to eat of every tree in the Garden of Eden, but the tree in the middle. It was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God put this tree there because He wanted to give us a choice to see if we would obey him or not. Let us see what happened
Isaiah 14:12-17 tells us the story of Satan 5 "I wills", this is when sin began. He said he would ascend into Heaven; he would raise his throne above God and be more powerful than Him. He said he will sit upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north; he wanted to make sure that everyone would see him. He said he would rise above the heights of the clouds and he would be like the most high. Satan allowed greed, selfishness, and sinful pleasure to rule over him. Our world is being dominated by these satanic principles. Since satan was cast out of Heaven he walks here on the earth looking to see what he can steal, kill and destroy.
Satan still has access to God. He spends his time telling God of all of the sinful things that people here on earth do. He is only allowed to do certain things to tempt us. The Bible says that if you are tempted not to say that you are tempted of God, but of the devil. Just because you are tempted by satan does not mean that you have to fall into the temptation. Satan has rule over this world, but he is still on a leash and God has the final say in everything that happens in the life of a Christian. Satan cannot touch you with out the permission of God.
In the end of time, we will look as satan and say, "is this the man that made the earth tremble and shook the kingdoms? Is he really the one who destroyed the cities and made the world such a wilderness". We need to realize that greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world and take control of the authority that we have over satan. We as Ladies of Virtue need to be determined in ourselves to rise above the standard of the world and live the Proverbs 31 life that pleases God, not one that pleases the wickedness of this world.
The story of Adam and Eve is where sin entered into the world. The Bible tells us that it was by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and death passed upon all man, for that all have sinned. It does not seem fair that Adam should be blamed for sin entering the world since it was Eve who took the first bite of the fruit and offered it to Adam, but Adam was the one who was given specific instructions not to eat the fruit on the tree. God told Adam what He expected out of him. It was his responsibility as the leader to tell Eve that the fruit was not allowed to be eaten, and to make sure that it was not eaten. Even though Eve took the fruit it was up to Adam to stand up for what was right and not eat the fruit. Since he did not obey God's instructions sin came into this world.
We have to be careful about the decisions we make. If God has revealed something to us as sin and we still do those things, then we never know how man lives we can affect with disobeying just one thing. Just think about what was going through Adam's head. I am sure all he was thinking about was that it looked so desirable and that one bite could not hurt anything, after all God was not there, He would not know. Guess what, God is always there, He knows everything. As a Christian, we have invited Him into our hearts to live with us and guide us to be who He wants us to be. When something is wrong, we should not do it, no matter how great the temptation might be. As Ladies of Virtue we need to realize that not obeying God is sin and we need to begin realizing that there are consequences for these sins. We need to start now by confessing our sins and set our feet back on the path that is pleasing to God not man.
The curse of the snake - The snake was sneakier than any of the other wild animals that the Lord had made. One day satan in the form of the snake came to Eve and asked if God told her that she could eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden. Eve said that God had told Adam that they could eat of any tree in the garden except the one in the middle. He told them not to eat nor touch of the fruit of that tree or they would die. Satan told Eve that she would not die, but that if she ate of the tree then her eyes would be opened and she would be like God, she would know the difference between right and wrong.
Satan is very clever. His job in this world is to kill, steal and destroy. He always tries to confuse reality by making evil seem good. Even in the beginning he is out to make things different than they really are, here is Eve, living in the garden of Eden with all perfection and every need met, yet he deceived her into thinking that she is missing out on something if she does not eat of the forbidden fruit.
Satan always starts with a plan, he chooses God as his subject of conversation. He turns the words of God around so that it looks like God is withholding something good from Eve. He cast doubt on the character of God. Doubting God makes it easier to take the fruit and eat it.
The snake and his temptation won Eve over. She took the fruit and at it, then she gave some to Adam. Because of this, God punished the snake with a curse; he was cursed above all animals on the earth. The snake has to crawl on his belly and he must eat of the dust of the earth for the rest of his life. The snake and Eve will hate each other and all of the descendants that come from Eve will hate the snake. We will hit the snake on the head and the snake will stride at our heals.
Temptation like this has been played over and over again in each of our lives. The situations are different, but satan's plan is always the same. He will always tempt us to think that a good God would not keep me from this would He? It is up to us to know that God will not withhold any good think from His people and that when thoughts like these come into our heads, that it is nothing but the devil. It is time that we start realizing when the devil is tempting us and learning not to fall into the temptation.
The curse of eve - The snake came to Eve and asked her, "did god really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden?" Eve said to the snake, "we can eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but the middle of the garden and you must not touch it or you will die." The snake said, "you will not die, for God know that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like Him, knowing good and evil."
When Eve looked at the fruit of the tree, she says that it was good for good and that it was pleasing to her eye. She could not resist it. She longed to gain wisdom so she took the fruit and ate it. She also gave it to Adam. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked. Eve allowed the snake to distract her. She listened to the lies of the devil and allowed the lust of the eyes, how good the fruit looked on the tree. The lust of the flesh, how the fruit of the tree was good for good. And the pride of life that she wanted to gain the same wisdom that God had affected her thinking.
Satan drew Eve's attention away from the fact that she can have every other fruit of the garden but that one. He makes it seem like the garden is not full of goodness, and God's provisions. He makes the forbidden tree look good and pleasing to the eye. Now Eve desires the tree. The more she looked at the tree the more appealing it became. It is always that way when satan gets us to concentrate on the temptation instead of on God.
Because of Eve's disobedience to God, she was cursed to have sorrow while baring children as well as she will under the rule of her husband. She will have to care for him and meet his daily needs as well as the needs of her children and her household.
As we discovered before, satan will use these three things to tempt us into sin. Even her eating the fruit at the very beginning he was using this strategy. Being tempted is not a sin, it does not become sin until we gall into the temptation. We must learn to be strong to fight against the temptation of the devil.
The curse of Adam One day while walking in the garden, Adam came up to a snake and Eve. He did not know what was going on, he had not heard the conversation between the snake and Eve. Women have such an influence on men, Eve did not have to beg or even ask Adam to eat the fruit, all she did was give him the fruit and he took a bite of it.
The Bible says that by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin. So at the time that Adam ate the fruit sin entered unto all people.
Just like the snake and Eve, Adam has to be punished for what happened. After they ate the fruit they realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together for covering. When they heard God coming they were afraid and hid for they knew the difference between good and evil and they knew they had done wrong. Because Adam listened to his wife and not God and ate of the fruit of the tree the ground is under a curse. As long as we live the man will have to struggle to grow food. You see until then Adam did not have to work, the ground grew plants on its own. Now it will grow thorns and thistle causing Adam to sweat to make a living. Since Adam came from the dust of the ground now he must return to the dust of the ground. The punishment of this sin was death. No one had to die until now. Because of sin we are bound to die.
If we will stop listening to the people around us and focus completely on God then we will not sin against Him. Because Adam allowed the influence of Eve to distract him, sin entered people. We need to stay focused and keep our minds on Christ.
Lady of Virtue Ministries started as Janelle Goodwin attended Bible College in upstate NY. Janelle became burdened to see souls saved from eternal condemnation. Upon returning home from Bible College, she also became burdened to see women of the world develop characteristics of a Proverbs 31
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