I recently heard an amazingly insightful sermon regarding words, but more precisely concerning who spoke those words. The topic was based around The Garden of Eden and when Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit.
Let’s start with some scripture:
Genesis - Chapter 2
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Up to this point Adam and Eve were in complete communion with God, no problems at all, everything was great in life. God provided for them everything they needed or desired. But, that wasn’t going to last very long.
Genesis - Chapter 3
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The portion of scripture that amazes me the most (mainly because I’ve never picked up on it before) is Genesis 3:4, " the serpent said to the woman" and Genesis 3:11, "Who told you that you were naked?" Adam and Eve didn’t know (or care) that they were naked until Satan spoke words to them that convinced them it was OK to eat the fruit.
I believe God spoke very powerful words when he asked them, “Who told you that you were naked?” Think about all the times negative words were spoken into your life. Who spoke those words? Was it someone you can trust? Was it someone you wanted speaking words into your life?
A better question would probably be, Why did you believe those words? The next time someone speaks negative (or even positive) words into your life it is up to you if you want to take those words to heart.
This article originally blogged on "Thinking Positive Thoughts" a web site by Chad Hardy located at http://www.thinkingpositivethoughts.com
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