Satan's Counterfeit Plan

          Still convinced he can be like God even though he has fallen from Heaven, Satan plans to spread darkness over God’s creation. When he sees the creation of Adam and Eve, and hears the mandate given to them to be God’s representatives on the earth, Satan fumes with vengeance. How dare mankind take his “rightful” place as ruler of this earth. Needless to say, he plans to do something about it. What he does is recorded in Genesis 3. We know it as the Fall of mankind.
            We get our first glimpse of the contrary plan. Jesus stated it this way: “The thief [Satan] does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
            Being more cunning than any other beast of the field, Satan (appearing as a serpent/snake) plants the seed of doubt in Eve’s mind by accusing God. “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” Satan accuses God of being a liar. Talk about twisting the truth big time!
            Eve’s first response is to repeat God’s words of instruction to not eat of the fruit of the tree. She knew better. Eve’s second response is to take her focus off of God’s words and put it on how the tree looks in the natural. She sees that the tree is good for food. The fruit looks tasty. But as we all know now in hindsight, looks can be deceiving. 
            Satan jumps at the opportunity and pounces on her misplaced focus. He tells a half-truth, and he knows it. “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
            It is true that God knows both good and evil, thanks to Satan’s earlier fall. When it happened, the angels didn’t know what to make of it. They had never seen evil nor death. They had never known anything less than God’s perfect love and justice. Nor had Adam and Eve.
            Mankind was originally made to be immortal. That is, once conceived and born, we would not age or die. But when Adam and Eve did what seemed right at the time, their eyes were immediately opened to the consequences of their choice. They were no longer “clothed” in God’s anointing; they were buck-naked. They were exposed to the earthly elements and they were afraid. So they hid from God. Spoiler alert: not a good move; we can’t hide from God (Mark 4:22).
            Since Adam and Eve were already on the earth, they weren’t cast down as Satan was. They were, however, banned from the Garden and the Tree of Life so that they would not have to live eternally in their sinful, fallen state. With their spirits corrupted, it initiated a process of separation from the unseen heavenly realm.
            The Chronos Lesson: Disobedience is choosing our own way. Disobedience is sin, literally missing the mark of God’s perfect and best way. The consequence of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
            In case you’re wondering, it’s clear from Scripture that Adam and Eve did not immediately die within the 24-hour span of that earthly day.  The ancient Hebrews did not use capitalization or punctuation. The writers assumed that the type of day or Day would be clear from the context.
            This is a good example of how we determine whether a passage is talking about a regular 24-hour day or a great 1,000-year Day. If the passage doesn’t make sense using a regular 24-hour day, then that’s a sure sign that it’s talking about a great Day in God’s sight. Of course, Satan failed to mention (on purpose) that God counts time differently.
            The Bible records that because of Adam and Eve’s choice to eat of the forbidden fruit, no human would live longer than one Day or 1,000 years in God’s sight. The longest any person has lived is 969 years (Methuselah, who was Noah’s grandfather). That comes short of one Day in God’s timetable. In case you’re wondering, it took time for the effects of the Fall to be felt on the earth. It took time for decay to do its thing. That is why the Bible records that people lived for hundreds of years at first.
            So now we have a crucial choice to make: Like Eve, where are we going to put our focus? No matter how things appear on this earth and no matter what the earthly facts seem to be, God’s ways and truths are higher and better. The supernatural, spiritual realm always supersedes the earthly realm. We can trust the plan.
            “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matt. 6:19-20).