Satan Urges Dependence On Self, January 16

“God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:5^L.

By listening to the tempter, our first parents lost their beautiful Eden home. Satan found Eve willing to listen to his temptations, and [he] read a disposition to distrust the word of God....

Satan desired to make transgression appear a real blessing to them, and that in prohibiting them from taking of the fruit of the tree God was withholding from them great good. If you eat, your eyes shall be opened, he said, and you shall be as gods. You will be like God Himself in knowledge and in power....

But what an opening it was! “Ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:5^L. That knowledge was obtained, but what a knowledge it was! The curse of sin was the knowledge they gained. Eve coveted the thing God had forbidden. She revealed a distrust of God and His goodness, and a desire to be independent and do as she thought best. Eve offered the fruit to Adam and became his tempter. She would be a god. She would be a law unto herself. She would acknowledge no restraint. But that apparently smallest of sins constituted her a transgressor of the law of God....

The Lord Jesus came into our world and was tempted by the same enemy. He passed over the ground where Adam fell, but He was steadfast. He resisted the devil, and in behalf of the human race was Conqueror. The universe of heaven triumphed. Satan came to Christ with his specious temptations to induce Him to question the plans and law of God, and to make Him occupy an independent position; but the tempter was foiled. Christ would enter into no controversy with Satan. He met the enemy of God with the Word of God—“It is written.”

“Know ye not that ... ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price.” 1 Corinthians 6:9^L. And what a price it was—the sacrifice of Christ to save a perishing world.... All who are united with Christ will come out of the world and be separate. They will not enter into the world from any choice of their own. They will not by their associations place themselves in the way of temptation. They will not be educated in worldly lines. They will choose to come into the school of Christ and learn of the great Teacher. He invites every soul, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”(Matthew 11:28^L)—Manuscript 21, 1898.