Subtle Tricks

The great dragon was thrown out—the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. —Revelation 12:9

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Our culture is riddled with deception. Sometimes it’s easy to see through the hype; other times it’s not quite so easy to detect.

Satan is a clever and cunning pitchman whose intention to change Adam and Eve’s thinking about God set up the first advertising campaign. Satan’s objective was to drive a wedge between God and His creatures. He rightly assumed that the man and woman weren’t likely to support anything that appeared to be an all-out assault on God. He knew that, instead, he would have to subtly trick them, to seduce them by making an offer that appeared reasonable, desirable, and not entirely “anti-God.”

Satan deceived Eve through a clever combination of outright lies, half-truths, and falsehoods disguised as truth. He began by planting seeds of doubt in her mind about what God had actually said (Gen. 3:1). It wasn’t long after that Eve bought the lie.