Why Do Some Otherwise Decent Bible Students Now Reject the Bible Teaching that Satan Has Children on This Earth?
Steve, it seems to me there’s a growing number of Bible students who used to believe in the Biblical teaching that Satan has children on this earth through his seduction of Eve in the Garden of Eden which resulted in the birth of Cain, but now reject that teaching.
In other words, these students have reverted back to the church tradition that Eve merely “ate an apple” or “was deceived,” claiming there was no physical (i.e, sexual), seduction in the Garden of Eden.
Some of these students also now claim that when the Bible speaks of two “seed lines” you have to take it spiritually, and not physically. In other words, they claim the “good seed” spoken of in Christi’s parable of the tares in Matthew 13 are simply “good Christians,” and the “bad seed” are simply non-Christians. There are no children of the devil, at all, in their eyes.
Finally, they claim that when Christ was talking to the Jewish religious leaders in John chapter 8, He admitted they were of Abrahamic heritage, and therefore they could not have been of the seed line of Satan. Do you have any words of advice how to reach these people?
Steve’s Answer:
As you know, no one can give people “eyes to see, and ears to hear.” Only God can do that. And even then, each person has to choose whether or not they like having the spiritual blinders off their eyes. In some cases, people find they don’t like having the blinders removed from their eyes, because of the controversy caused when they try to explain their newfound understanding of God’s Word to friends, family members or fellow Christians.
Operating outside of widely accepted church tradition (such as the “Eve ate an apple” tradition) makes some people feel alone. It frightens them, because failing to go along with church tradition sets them apart as being “different” than the rest, and they’ve probably striven all of their lives to fit in with the rest.
To me, when Christians revert from the truth of God’s Word and retreat back into church tradition, this falls into the category described in Christ’s parable of the sower regarding the people who come across the truth and exult in it for a short time. But then, when they’re ostracized or persecuted for their newfound understanding of God’s Word, they willingly revert back to empty church tradition in order to fit in with the multitudes of blind Christians whose opinions they value more than they do God’s simple truth. As Christ explained after giving the parable of the sower:
Mat 13:20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon [i.e., immediately] with joy receiveth it;
Mat 13:21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
In other words, at first, when a person hears one of the deeper truths of God’s Word — such as the serpent’s sexual seduction of Eve in the Garden and the resulting birth of Cain — he or she might instantly rejoice in it, because it answers so many questions about the origin of evil in the world and its ongoing effects. It thrills them, for a short while, to learn the truth. But then they try to tell friends, family members or fellow Christians what they’ve learned, and very quickly tribulation and persecution sets in (i.e., “by and by he is offended”).
That means they’re chastised and maybe even ostracized for believing God’s Word and rejecting church tradition. So they’re stumbled in their newfound understanding of God’s Word. They’re told “Eve ate an apple” and if you believe anything else, you’re a heretic. You’re not welcome. So their joy in learning the truth lasts only for a very short time. As soon as they’re challenged over what they’ve learned, they cave in and go straight back to church tradition in order to avoid being ostracized or marginalized by their friends, family or fellow Christians.
That’s why the Scripture above says “Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while.”
In other words, the individual can’t endure the criticism or opposition of others. So he doesn’t last long in the truth. In some cases, the truth may have initially made sense to him, but he didn’t follow through and study it with any degree of discipline. So when family members, friends or fellow Christians react negatively, the individual isn’t Biblically literate enough to defend the truth he’s learned, because he has no depth of understanding. So he reverts back to church tradition in order to be accepted.
Generally speaking, standing alone in the truth of God’s Word is simply too much for some people. I’ve had a few students over the years stop studying the Bible with me and go back into the churches, even though they know full well that what’s being taught there is merely church tradition and often stands in stark contradiction to what God’s Word says. When I ask them why they quit studying and went back into the church system to sit in a pew every Sunday and listen to canned sermons, they say they “just need the fellowship.”
But the reality is this: They can’t handle the truth. They can’t handle standing firmly against empty church traditions like “Eve at an apple” because all of their Christian friends and family believe the apple story, even though the word “apple” appears nowhere in the book of Genesis.
So in order to avoid being criticized or ostracized by their friends, family or fellow Christians over God’s Word, they’re willing to turn a blind eye to what God’s Word actually says. It’s always been like this. As Christ Himself stated:
Mat 13:15 For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Christ is doing the speaking in that verse. And basically He’s saying some people willingly close their own eyes and ears to the deeper truths of God’s Word because it’s just too much for them to handle. They’d rather have the very temporary pleasure of being accepted by others than the eternal spiritual conversion and healing that’s brought about by a mature understanding of God’s Word.
They take solace in remaining firmly rooted in church tradition with all of their spiritually blind friends. Being “accepted” by others is more important to them than standing firm in God’s Word and being accepted by Him for overcoming the deception that’s now so rampant in the churches.
The “Bible Answer Man”: Failure to Rightly Divide God’s Word
I’ll never forget driving home one night from work, about six months after I started studying the Bible with Shepherd’s Chapel (this was 30 years ago, now), and a radio program called The Bible Answer Man came on the car radio.
The guy was railing against teachers who taught what he called “that abominable serpent seed doctrine.” He laid out the usual arguments against their being a Biblical “serpent seed,” meaning physical children of the devil on this earth through Satan’s seduction of Eve resulting in the birth of Cain.
And of course, when you’re relatively new to the deeper truths of God’s Word, and you hear the arguments being laid out by a guy who’s supposed to be a “Bible Answer Man,” they seem really convincing and tend to engender doubt. So I went home quite shaken.
But at the same time my inner being knew something was wrong with the Bible Answer Man’s case against the so-called “serpent seed doctrine” and not with my understanding of God’s Word. So I went back to my Bible and studied some more, and reminded myself about the things the “Bible Answer Man” didn’t cover in his rant. For example, he didn’t cover 1John 3:12, i.e.:
I John 3:12 — Not as Cain, who was OF that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.
I reminded myself that the word “of” in that verse is not translated from the usual Greek words used for “of” (such as apo, para, hupo and others) but instead, from the Greek word ek, which is genitive of origin (as Dr. Bullinger rightly points out in his side notes), meaning it describes one’s actual point of origin. The Greek word ek means, essentially “out from the interior of.”
In other words, Cain wasn’t just “of” the devil, as if being a member of some devil cult. Instead, he originated from the devil. He was “out from the interior” of the devil. He was the devil’s son, through Eve.
I also reminded myself that when our Lord spoke the words in John 8:44 to the Jewish religious leaders, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do,” He used that very same word ek. He might as well have said “Ye are out from the interior of your father the devil,” because that’s what the word means, compared to the usual New Testament words typically translated “of,” such as hupo, or para or occasionally apo and several others.
You might also note that this Greek word ek is the same word repeatedly translated “of” in Matthew chapter one, where the genealogical lineage of Christ is being given. For example, “And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab, and Booz begat Obed of Ruth…”
In both cases (and in every single case in the “beget” verses in that chapter) the word “of” is translated from the Greek word ek, meaning “out from the interior of” and not from the usual Greek words translated “of,” such as hupo, para and apo.
I believe it’s important to note that fact, because the subject matter in Mathew chapter one is birth origin. In other words, each person in the lineage of Christ was “out from the interior of” (i.e., ek) the previous person in the lineage.
Finally, in Matthew 1:16 we see “And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” There, the word “of” once again being translated from ek, meaning Christ was born “out from the interior” of Mary.
It’s also the same word used in Matthew 1:20, where the angel Gabriel is telling Mary’s husband-to-be, Joseph, that the child being carried in Mary’s womb is “of” the Holy Ghost (i.e., ek, out from the interior of the Holy Ghost).
My point is that Bible students simply assume the use of the word “of” in the New Testament is translated from the same Greek word every time, and carries the same meaning every time. But it’s not.
When the word “of” is translated from the Greek word ek, it’s meaning almost always points to the actual physical origin of a thing. But when the word “of” is translated from the Greek word apo, it means from the surface of a thing. When the word “of” is translated from the Greek word para, it means alongside of a thing. And when the word “of” is translated from the Greek word hupo it refers to the underside of a thing.
It’s well worth reading Dr. Bullinger’s Appendix 104 in the Companion Bible, where he explains the different Greek words translated “of” in the New Testament, and their various nuances. Dr. Bullinger even includes a drawing, showing how the Greek word apo denotes movement from the surface of an object, whereas the Greek word para means to be alongside an object. But the Greek word ek means to come from the interior of an object.
Dr. Bullinger writes, “Ek marks the more immediate origin, while apo marks the more remote origin.” In other words, I am “of” (ek) my mother, Bettie. But I am also “of” (apo) the United States of America. The first is my immediate origin, i.e., where I actually originated from. The latter is my more remote origin, i.e., where I ended up after I was born.
And that’s what “rightly dividing the Word of truth” (II Timothy 2:15) is all about. You have to look at the words being used in the translation, note carefully where words change, and understand what those word changes mean, because they’re always significant.
The bottom line is that the New Testament tells us that Cain was “of” (i.e., out from the interior of) the wicked one, meaning Satan, and so were the Jewish religious leaders who Christ was constantly chastising.
Answering One of the Main Objections
Let’s look at just one of the main objections people seem to have to the dual seed line (or “serpent seed”) teaching:
People say the phrase spoken by Christ in John 8:37, ‘I know ye are Abraham’s seed,’ means that Christ acknowledged the Jewish religious leaders He was talking to were descendants of Abraham. And I understand that. Here’s the verse:
Joh 8:37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.
Jesus states clearly that the Jewish religious leaders “are Abraham’s seed.” In other words, they’ve got legitimate genealogical descent from Abraham.
But note that He also tells them they’re plotting to kill Him. And why? Because His words have “no place” in them. The phrase “no place” is translated from two Greek words, choreo and ou (see Strong’s G-5562 and G-3756, respectively), which, together, means “absolutely no space whatsoever.” In other words, there’s no place in them at all for God’s Word.
Now that’s pretty odd for a descendant of Abraham claiming to love God, wouldn’t you say? So let’s dig farther. Christ continues speaking:
Joh 8:38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
Here, Christ tells them there are indeed two fathers who are responsible for the planting of children on this earth, not just one. Christ divided it up into “my Father” and “your father.”
In other words, there’s the heavenly Father who planted His own children into this earth. And there’s another father who also planted children into this earth. And that father is the devil, as we’ll see in just a few more verses:
Joh 8:39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
The Jewish religious leaders continued to insist that Abraham was their father. In other words, they’re claiming a direct lineage from Abraham. But Christ now refutes that by telling them their actions don’t meet their claimed heritage.
When He says “If ye were Abraham’s children you would do the works of Abraham,” He’s invoking the “life father, like son” principle. He’s saying, in essence, if you were Abraham’s kids, you’d be more like Abraham.
Joh 8:40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
Again, Christ is bringing up the principle of “like father, like son.” Abraham never tried to kill anyone for telling the truth. Yet these Jewish religious leaders who claimed to be of Abrahamic heritage, and of Abrahamic spiritual belief, were plotting to kill Christ for no reason except that He was telling people the truth.
And that truth was driving people out of the churches (synagogues), which is where the Jewish religious leaders made their money. So hatred of Christ was building up inside of them, not because He had done anything wrong, but instead, because He was cutting into their payday by teaching God’s children truths that contradicted the religious traditions being taught in the synagogues.
Again, Christ is comparing the physical actions of the Jewish religious leaders (which denote murderous intent) to their verbal claims (i.e., of having Abrahamic lineage). Christ then goes on to tell them that their works are of another father altogether. As He further stated to them:
Joh 8:41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Christ pointedly tells them “You do the deeds of your father,” meaning they were of a completely different genealogical bloodline than He was.
Christ was clearly of pure Abrahamic decent, as spelled out in the genealogy given in Matthew chapter 1. But he’s telling these Jewish religious leaders that while they might have Abrahamic blood in them, their origin — which is to say, their original birth father — is different than His.
That’s why they instantly retort to Him, “We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.”
In other words, they got defensive with Jesus, and stated they were not descendants of the fornication that took place between Eve and Satan in the Garden of Eden, which is the most famous and well-known fornication in the entire Bible.
That alone is a tacit admission by these Jewish religious leaders that they understood what happened in the Garden between the serpent (i.e., Satan), and Eve, which brought about the resulting birth of Cain, the serpent’s child.
This is further borne out by the fact that Cain is listed nowhere in Adam’s genealogy in Genesis chapter 5, i.e., because he was not Adam’s son, but instead, the serpent’s.
So the Jewish religious leaders were looking Christ in the eyes and claiming they’re not part of that Satanic bloodline at all.
Also, note that in the above verse the Jewish religious leaders cleverly changed the subject matter. They changed it from Abraham being their father to God being their Father. But Jesus isn’t falling for it. He replies:
Joh 8:42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
Again, Christ tells these Jewish religious leaders that their actions don’t match their words: “If God were your Father, ye would love me.”
Why would Jesus say such a thing? Because if God were indeed their father, that would have made these Jewish religious leaders brothers to Christ. And true brothers love each other.
Christ is now bringing it down to where the rubber meets the road. The previous topic was whether or not they were children of Abraham. But the topic has now shifted to whether or not they were of God’s original creation in that Garden, or of the seduction that took place afterwards when Satan seduced Eve. And Christ basically tells them they aren’t of God at all, and that their actions prove it.
This is why Christ would say in Matthew 7:20 and other places, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them,” with fruits referring to the actions or deeds of the individuals.
So the key to understanding these verses is that the ancestors of these Jewish religious leaders had co-mingled, sexually, with descendants of Abraham down through history, and thus could legitimately claim to be of Abrahamic descent. Christ admitted they were. But in reality, at their very origin, they were sired by that old serpent, the devil, in the Garden of Eden. And Christ let them know that, as well.
In other words, they were not full-blooded descendants of Abraham, but instead, hybrids who had worked their way into the Jewish bloodline and claimed it as their own. As Christ would later say of them in the great book of Revelation, “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.”
Christ goes on to tell these pretenders:
Joh 8:43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
They simply can’t hear God’s Word with understanding because they’re of that hybrid bloodline that started in the Garden with the sin between Eve and Satan that old serpent, which brought about the birth of Cain.
In short, they’re too steeped in the religious traditions of their father, the devil, to “hear” (i.e., understand) God’s Word through Jesus Christ. Christ now continues speaking to them, and really starts laying the truth out for them:
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
The word “of” as used in this verse, in both cases I’ve highlighted above, is translated from that Greek word ek, which as Dr. Bullinger of the Companion Bible points out is “genitive of origin,” meaning it denotes the actual origin of a thing. As I noted earlier, it can quite literally be interpreted, “out from the interior of.”
So in the verse above, Christ tells the Jewish religious leaders they are “of” (i.e., out from the interior of) their “father the devil.” And He further uses that same Greek word ek in telling them that their father is “a liar” and the “father of it.”
In other words, Satan is the original father of these Jewish religious leaders, and the originator of all deception, right from the very beginning, starting in the Garden of Eden itself.
In the Garden of Eden, Satan, in his role as the serpent, deceived Eve into partaking of the forbidden fruit, which is a Hebrew euphemism meaning he had an illicit sexual relationship with her (she being Adam’s wife), which resulted in the birth of the first murderer, Cain. So Christ takes these Jewish religious leaders all of the way back to the Garden, and says, essentially, “Here’s your true origin; you’re the descendants of that first murderer.”
Yes, if they act like Abraham, who loved God, and who looked forward to God’s Messiah, then they clearly have the spirit of God flowing through their blood. But on the other hand, if they act like murderous Cain, by having murder in their hearts against Christ just as Cain had murder in his heart against Abel, then they have that spirit of their father, Satan, flowing through their blood.
It’s really that simple. Yes, the Jewish religious leaders arguing with Christ in John 8:44 were of Abrahamic lineage. But only because they’d married daughters of Abraham in the past, down through history, in their bid to infiltrate the Abrahamic bloodline. However, their origin was the devil himself. In other words, they were descendants of Cain, and they had gradually worked their way into the Abrahamic lineage and by Christ’s time claimed to be “Jews.”
This is why Christ would twice state, in the great book of Revelation, that He knows the blasphemy of those who “say they are Jews, but are not, and do lie” (Revelation 2:9 and 3:9). They blaspheme God’s Word by rejecting and ultimately murdering His Messiah, Jesus Christ, just as Cain rejected and ultimately murdered righteous Abel.
The Parable of the Tares
Finally, it’s beyond me why some of these “serpent seed” skeptics can’t understand that while Matthew 13:24-30 — the parable of the tares — is a parable being told by Christ, Matthew 13:36-43 is quite different. It’s Christ’s crystal clear explanation of the parable He had just told.
You can spiritualize the parable, if you want. But you can’t spiritualize Christ’s explanation of the parable without denying Christ’s own very plain words. Let’s take a look at Christ’s explanation of the parable of the tares:
Mat 13:38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
Mat 13:39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
Mat 13:40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
In this world there are “good seed” (i.e., good sperma) and there are the “tares,” which are “the children of the wicked one” and which were sowed into this earth (through the seduction in the Garden) by the devil himself.
So in order to believe there’s no serpent seed you also have to spiritualize away all of Christ’s words above. And you have to spiritualize away God’s words to the serpent in Genesis 3:15, i.e., “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed…”
In other words, according to God Himself in Genesis 3:15, the serpent has seed on this earth (through Eve), and the woman has seed on this earth (through Adam). And the two seed lines would be at “enmity” (i.e., chronic hostility) with each other throughout history.
That’s why the Jewish religious leaders were so hostile to Christ. Christ was of pure blood from Eve to Mary. But while the Jewish religious leaders did indeed have some Abrahamic blood in them, genealogically speaking, their actual, physical bloodline origin was the serpent in the Garden of Eden. They were the descendants of Cain.
Spiero v/s Sperma
There’s a gentleman who teaches Bible study, online, and who used to be a Shepherd’s Chapel student but apparently no longer is.
Several years ago this gentleman suddenly started teaching that the “serpent seed” doctrine was incorrect, and that there are simply believers and non-believers in the world, and that the believers are the spiritual “seed” of God while the non-believers are the spiritual “seed” of the devil, etc. But, he claims, there are no biological children of the devil at all in existence, anywhere, and never have been.
In other words, he’s reverted back to church tradition. He further states, “For about 20 years I taught the Genesis Gap Theory, a regional rather than worldwide flood of Noah, that Adam was created on the 8th Day apart from other races on the 6th Day, and that Cain was the biological son of Satan or the father of a literal serpent seedline on earth. I no longer teach these things.”
In essence this gentleman now teaches that the parable of the tares in Matthew 13 is simply a parable of “opposing spiritual offspring,” i.e., Christians are the “good seed” and everyone else is the bad seed, which is to say, the tares that sprang from bad seed.
I listened to one of this fellow’s studies on this topic five or six months ago, and couldn’t believe how he never even mentioned Christ’s explanation of the parable of the tares in Matthew 13:36-43, but instead focused on the parable of the sower that occurs before the parable of the tares in Matthew 13.
He tried to relate Christ’s parable of the sower directly to Christ’s parable of the tares, claiming that in the parable of the sower the “seed” being spread on the ground is clearly representative of God’s Word. Therefore, he claims, in the parable of the tares, the “seed” spoken of there must also be representative of God’s Word and has nothing to do with physical offspring.
But once again, there’s a failure to check the Greek words from which the two parables — i.e., the parable of the sower, and the parable of the tares — were translated. The word “seed” used by Christ in the parable of the sower is a completely different Greek word than the word “seed” used by Christ in the parable of the tares.
Yes, this gentleman never mentioned that in the parable of the sower Christ always used the Greek word speiro for “seed” (because speiro means to scatter something, as if sowing seed over a plot of ground), whereas in the parable of the tares (Matthew 13:36-43) Christ immediately switched from using the Greek word speiro for “seed,” to using the Greek word sperma (i.e., meaning “male sperm”) instead.
This change in words clearly indicate a distinct change of subject matter between the parable of the sower and the parable of the tares.
Break out your Strong’s Concordance and compare the use of the word “seed” in Matthew 13:23 (i.e., speiro) which is the last verse of Christ’s parable of the sower. You’ll see the same word (speiro) is used by Christ for “seed” throughout the entire parable of the sower. It never changes.
But as soon as you move into Christ’s parable of the tares in Matthew 13:24, the word for “seed” suddenly switches to sperma (meaning male sperm). Likewise, in Christ’s very clear explanation of the parable of the tares in Matthew 13:36-43, Christ continued using the Greek word sperma. So He’s clearly talking about physical human “seed” which is to say, sperm.
The Bible teacher I’m talking about never mentions any of this. He just acts like it doesn’t exist. It’s as if God took the blinders off of his eyes many years ago, allowing him to “see” the truth for short awhile, but then this teacher chose to put the blinders back on and is now teaching his students to do the same thing.
I think that particular online Bible study ministry is where a lot of the confusion is coming from among some of these current and former Shepherd’s Chapel Bible students who are suddenly disavowing the Bible’s very clear teaching that Eve was seduced by the serpent in the Garden and the result of that seduction was the birth of Cain, the first murderer.
“First Principles”
In Hebrews chapter 5, Paul is gently chastising Christians for not understanding who Melchizedech is, in the Old Testament. And he tells them, basically, that he’s astonished that they’ve been Christians so long, yet still don’t understand the deeper truths of the Bible. As it’s written:
Heb 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
In the verse above, the term “first principles” means the “beginning order.” In other words, St. Paul is telling the Hebrews you’ve got to go all of the way back to the book of Genesis, where everything started, and understand it, or you won’t understand the rest of the Bible. That’s what “the first principles of the oracles of God” means.
St. Paul is telling the Hebrews they need to be taught these “first principles” all over again, because apparently they’d abandoned the teaching.
St. Paul further tells these Christians that spiritually speaking, it’s as if they’ve reverted back to childhood, needing to be bottle fed God’s Word all over again, from the start. They can’t handle the “strong meat” of the Bible, which means the deeper truths that you have to be willing to open your eyes to. As Paul continued in his chastisement of the Hebrews:
Heb 5:13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
Paul tells these Christians that just as a bottle-fed baby is unskilled in all things in life, so they, from a spiritual perspective, have become “unskilled in the word of righteousness.” In other words, they’re spiritually immature. They’re like little babies who can only subsist on milk.
Heb 5:14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
And there’s the key: As Christians we have to mature in God’s Word by diligently studying it and rightly dividing it.
And we have to cast aside the church doctrines (i.e., milk) that are designed to protect little children from unsavory subject matters like seduction (such as the “Eve at an apple” teaching that originated so children wouldn’t have to hear about the serpent’s seduction of Eve), and take God’s Word like a grown-up, i.e., with grown-up understanding.
But many Christians still can’t do that. While they might have been going to church for their entire lives, as adults they’re still operating in a state of spiritual arrested development because they’re so steeped in the empty church tradition they still can’t “hear” (i.e., understand) the deeper truths of God’s Word that are reserved for the mature.
They’d rather simplify the Bible into two child-like categories, i.e., “good people v/s bad people,” or “believers v/s non-believers,” and ignore the deeper truths God reserves for those who “are of full age” (i.e., mature in the Word) and “have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (i.e., they “get it” when His Word says the devil has children on this earth, and then reveals precisely who those children are and how the evil of this world proceeds forth from them).
There’s a great threshing taking place among Christians today. And it’s sorting out those who truly study God’s Word and rightly divide it, from those who take the softer, easier way of ignoring God’s Word and instead sit in church pews on Sundays to hear empty church traditions being preached over and over and over again. It’s sad. But at the same time, I suppose it’s quite necessary.
As you know from many different Scriptures, such as the story of Gideon and his troops, God often whittles down the number of His warriors just before He sends them into battle. Satan will be here soon, on this earth, in his role as the substitute Messiah, a.k.a. the antichrist, or instead-of-Christ. And God’s elect will have to take a firm stand against him until Jesus Christ arrives.
But those who don’t understand such a simple thing as what happened in the Garden of Eden between the serpent and Eve, or what Christ very clearly taught in His explanation to His own disciples of the parable of the tares, will certainly fall for the lies of Satan, for they’ve already fallen for the lies of man that form the foundation of most church traditions such as “Eve ate an apple.”
For those who might like to learn more about the seduction in the Garden of Eden, and read the Scriptural documentation for it, see the Bible study, A Strange Thing: Mystery in the Garden.
Regards in Christ,
Steve Barwick
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