The Crafty Serpent

Genesis 3:1-7 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

 

1Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” 2The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, 3but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You must not eat of it or touch it, or you will die.’”

 

4“You will not surely die,” the serpent told the woman. 5“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.”

 

6When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom, she took the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. 7And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed together fig leaves and made coverings for themselves.

 

The Serpent Satan

 

The serpent being spoken of here is Satan, the devil, the evil one who opposes God and His Word and who tempts people to sin against God. He is a liar and a deceiver and a manipulator who twists God’s words to try to make them say what they do not say in order to convince people to believe the lies and to reject the truth. He takes on many different forms. And he works through all sorts of people, even many people who are pastors, evangelists, missionaries and others who purportedly preach “The Word.”

 

What began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden never stopped. And in today’s world “the serpent” appears to be gaining much ground as so many people are now being convinced to believe and to follow after the lies rather than to believe the Words of God and to follow after the truth. Why? Because they make the lies more appealing and attractive to the people than the truth of God’s Word. They convince the people that the truth is the lie and the lies are the truth because they are more appealing to human flesh.

 

Twisting of Truth

 

And so we have multitudes of people in positions of influence over the people who are being like the serpent suggesting that God didn’t really say what the Bible says that He said. And so they pull Scriptures out of context and they twist them to say what they do not say if taught in the correct biblical context, which is exactly what the serpent did in his conversation with Eve. And she knew what God said. She knew right from wrong. But she got caught up in the lie and she chose the lie over what God said.

 

And that is where so many professing “Christians” are today, believing the lies which tell them that they do not have to repent of (die to) sin, and they do not have to obey God’s commands, for they call that “works salvation.” So this is like the serpent saying, “Did God really say?” They twist the Scriptures to make them look like God didn’t really say we have to put sin to death and that we have to obey His commands, and so they give the people freedom to keep on in their sins while promising them forgiveness of all sins.

 

The Consequences

 

Jesus Christ taught that to come to Him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) Him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to His commands, in His power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls Him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

 

For by God-gifted faith in Jesus Christ, which is not of our own doing, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in Him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but as slaves to righteousness in walks of obedience to God’s commands. We are no longer to permit sin to reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey its desires. For if sin is what we obey, it results in death. But if obedience to God is what we obey, it results in sanctification, and its end is eternal life with God (see Romans 6:1-23).

 

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; 2 Corinthians 5:10,15,21; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

 

In Conclusion

 

So everyone who has been listening to the serpent, via the liars and the deceivers, needs to stop listening to “the serpent” and believe God. Search the Scriptures yourselves, know what they teach (in the correct biblical context), and then obey God. But we are not under the Old Covenant liturgical, ceremonial, sacrificial, purification, circumcision, dietary and Sabbath laws. We are under the New Covenant. But God’s moral laws never went away. We still have to obey God’s commands and repent of all sin.

 

The Crafty Serpent

An Original Work / September 24, 2026

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

 

Praise The Lord

 

written by Michael Hudson and Elliott Bannister

 

When you're up against a struggle

That shatters all your dreams

And your hopes have been cruelly crushed

By Satan's manifested schemes

And you feel the urge within you

To submit to earthly fears

Don't let the faith you're standing in

Seem to disappear

 

Now Satan is a liar

And he wants to make us think

That we are paupers

When he knows himself

We're children of the King

So lift up the mighty shield of faith

For the battle must be won

We know that Jesus Christ has risen

So the work's already done

 

Praise the Lord

He can work through those

Who praise Him

Praise the Lord

For our God inhabits praise

Praise the Lord

For the chains that seems to bind you

Serve only to remind you

That they drop powerless behind you

When you praise Him

 

https://youtu.be/t4rHyj1tY00?si=RT6l7ZdDXs8K0m-n

 

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