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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up

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the first man and the first woman. One tree, one question. A question whispered by a creature that used to be the most stunning thing God had ever made. Did God actually say. And that is the question that has been echoing in the heads of every man and woman who has ever lived since this question was first asked. So this week on the Daily Blade, we are taking a deep dive on the sovereignty of God. So far, we have seen God authorize a harmful spirit to torment a king. And we've watched an anointed guardian cherub angel get cast out of heaven because. Because of his pride. And it had convinced him that he deserved a throne that was not his. And today, the fallen angel, Satan, the great deceiver, goes into the garden of Eden. So we're going to spend some time in Genesis 3 today. But most of you know the story leading up to that pretty well. Genesis 2 ends with Adam and Eve living together. They're married, they're naked, they're unashamed. They were previously told by God that they could eat of every tree in the garden, but that they were to not eat from the tree of good and evil. Now let's go ahead and get into Genesis 3, verse 1. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. So a quick and important note here. In the original Hebrew, the word translated as serpent was actually the word dragon. So this is the same dragon that we see described in Revelation 12. I think it is correct to envision Satan operating and taking the form of a dragon. In Genesis 3. Back to verse 1, he said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? Now, we've just got to give it up to Satan here. I mean, honestly, this is an amazing lie. So one of the best things that you can do to control someone is not to tell them what to do, but it's actually to get them to question in their own mind and their own heart whether or not they should do the moral and righteous thing. I mean, it is absolutely genius. And notice the temp. The temptation here that he uses on Eve. So it is the exact same temptation that got him thrown out of heaven in the first place. It was the temptation to be like God, and to take what isn't yours to take. So we know how it goes from here. Eve eats the apple. She handed it to Adam, who apparently was just sitting around twiddling his thumbs while this dragon was talking to his wife. Adam takes a bite. Instantly their eyes are opened and shame floods in where there was no shame before. They scramble to sew some fig leaves together to hide their bits. And then they hide from God. And God, of course, finds them anyway. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent or the dragon. And then we see God address Satan directly. In Genesis 3:14 and 15. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. So again, just think, if he was already a snake, would it be much of a curse for him to continue slithering around on his belly? No, I don't think so. But now, verse 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. So right there in the middle of all the wreckage of humanity's original sin, God drops the first promise of the Gospel. Okay, so we know it as the proto Evangelium or the proto Gospel, or the first gospel. It is that this woman's offspring, which is ultimately Jesus, who is born of the Virgin Mary, will crush the head of the dragon. Now, Satan doesn't know exactly when or how this is all going to go down, but from that moment on, he knows that it's game on and that his time is limited. And we actually see this in action in the book of Job. So if you go to Job chapters one and two, they highlight this and there is something here that should catch your attention. In Job one and two, Satan is still able to be in God's presence. They're talking to one another. I mean, this is post Fall of Man and Lucifer, but he is still somehow able to access the throne room to meet face to face with God. I mean, whatever expulsion Satan had from heaven, apparently we don't see his complete removal from the presence of God until we see what's described in the book of Revelation and in the book of Job. Satan tells God that Job is only serving God because he has a good life. He tells God that if his good life is taken away from him, that he will end up cursing God. And so God's response should absolutely floor you. He gave Satan permission to test Job. He basically gives Satan permission to do whatever he wants to do to Job, except he's not able to take Job's life. That's the one stipulation. So Satan does just that. He doesn't kill Job, but he attacks Job's wealth, he attacks Job's health, he attacks Job's children. And Job is experiencing real loss, real grief, real suffering. And here's the key point. Every single bit of what happened happened inside a boundary God himself drew and enforced. And all this leads to a very, very important question. Why would God allow Satan to make war against his saints? I mean, I'm sure you were thinking about that as we were going through the story, but why would God allow that? The answer is actually pretty simple. Because it's all part of God's plan. And we're going to get into that much more tomorrow. And in order to do that, we need to go to what was the most important night in human history up to that point in history. Tomorrow we visit the upper room.

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