God’s Arguments vs. Satan’s

We choose whom we wish to believe

God has given all of us free will. We can choose whether we wish to serve God or not, whether we wish to do righteousness or licentiousness, we can choose exactly the kind of people we want to be. Nobody is 100% evil, and nobody is 100% good. But some people do choose to serve God—and make slip-ups along the way—and some people choose not to serve God—and they make slip-ups along the way and actually do “righteous” things occasionally. But not because they are trying to please God.

But the point is, we all have freedom of choice. We either listen to God or we listen to Satan. God presents His “case,” and Satan presents his. We make our own determination to whom we listen.

Consider what happened in Genesis 3. God had told Adam and Eve that if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die (Genesis 2:17). That was a spiritual death, although with physical repercussions. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they were separated from direct fellowship with Jehovah, but they did not suffer immediate physical termination. That did come eventually, however.

But Satan came to Eve and contradicted God: “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). Indeed, Satan said, “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” (v. 5). There was some truth in that, some falsehood. Satan rarely tells the “big lie.” He has to make it sound good or even the most vile won’t believe him.

But notice that the devil didn’t force Eve to sin any more than God forced her not to. They both presented their arguments, and, to Eve, Satan’s sounded better than God’s. So, she listened to and followed Satan, and mankind has been doing that ever since. Indeed, all of us do it at least occasionally.

Obviously, Satan does not directly confront us today and talk to us face-to-face as he did with Eve. It was a different world back then and there have been changes. But the principle is the same. We are free to choose. We make our choices based upon the options placed before us. God places righteous choices before us, while Satan places evil options before us. Exactly how they do that I will not begin to speculate, I simply know that righteousness and evil both exist and are always in front of us, and we choose the option we prefer at the moment. And, if we examine the options carefully, we’ll see some rationales behind them. It may be “you will surely die,” or “you will not surely die,” or it may be some other form of persuasive reasoning. The bottom line, is God gives us a choice and His word provides plenty of instruction as to the consequences of the choices we make. Satan presents his “case”—for sin—and too often, we don’t consider the results that will accrue from doing as he wishes. That’s our fault, totally.

We have God’s Word. We know how we should live because He has told us. Every day we face choices to do good or to do evil—God presents His case, and Satan presents his. Sadly, most people, too often, listen to Satan.